William Inge Theatre Festival Announces Otis Guernsey New Voices Award Recipient

The up-and-coming playwright and performer Katori Hall has been selected winner of the 2010 William Inge Theatre Festival's Otis Guernsey New Voices in the American Theatre Award. Hall will be presented with the award during the 29th Annual Inge Festival April 21-24 in Independence, Kansas, at Independence Community College. The Otis Guernsey New Voices in the American Theatre Award recognizes contemporary playwrights whose voices are helping shape the American theater of today.

The award, now bestowed on its 18th rising playwright, is named for the late Otis L. Guernsey, Jr., acclaimed theater writer and scholar who was a longtime advocate and attendee of the William Inge Theatre Festival. The Festival is named for the late William Inge, an Independence native who won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama ("Picnic") and Oscar for Best Screenplay ("Splendor in the Grass.")

"We are thrilled to be honoring Katori," said Inge Center Artistic Director Peter Ellenstein. "Her work displays a powerful new voice. She is also, we note, the first African-American playwright to receive the New Voices honor."

Hall's fame is already international. Her drama "The Mountaintop," about Martin Luther King, Jr., was a hit last year in the West End of London.

Katori Hall hails from Memphis, Tennessee. Her award-winning play, "Hoodoo Love" received its world-premiere at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York. It was developed under Lynn Nottage as part of the theatre's 2006 Mentor Project.

Her other plays include: "Remembrance" (Women's Project/World Financial Center site-specific work), "Hurt Village" (Classical Theatre of Harlem Future Classics Reading Series, BRIC Studio), "Saturday Night/Sunday Morning," "The Mountaintop", and "Freedom Train" (Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival 10 minute play national finalist).

She is a recipient of numerous awards including the 2007 Fellowship of Southern Writers Bryan Family Award in Drama, 2006 New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship in Playwriting and Screenwriting, 2006 Royal Court Theatre Residency, and the 2005 Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award. Recently, she was nominated for the Wendy Wasserstein Prize and the Susan Smith Blackburn Award.

As an actor, her credits include television's "Law & Order: SVU" and stage appearances "The President's Puppets" (The Public), "Growing Up a Slave" (American Place Theatre), "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" (American Place Theatre), the world premiere of "Amerika" (Theatre de la Jeune Lune/American Repertory Theatre), "Spring Awakening" (Moscow Art Theatre School), "Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death" (Classical Theatre of Harlem), "Schooled" (WOW Café Theatre) and "Black Girl" (Sande Shurin Theatre).

As a journalist, her work has been published in The Boston Globe, Essence, Newsweek and The Commercial Appeal. Current writing projects include a Memphis-set drama, an adaptation of "Antigone" for Fluid Motion Theater & Film, a screenplay co-adaptation of Nottage's "Mud, River, Stone" and a memoir entitled "Oreogirl."

Hall graduated from Columbia University in 2003 with a major in African-American Studies and Creative Writing. She was awarded top departmental honors from the university's Institute for Research in African-American Studies (IRAAS). In 2005, she graduated from The American Repertory Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University, receiving a Master of Fine Arts in Acting. She now attends the Juilliard School's Lila Acheson Wallace Playwriting Program.

She is a member of the Women's Project Playwrights' Lab, the Lark Playwrights' Workshop and the Dramatists Guild.

Hall will receive the award, an honorarium, and a concert reading of one of her new plays at the Inge Festival on Thursday, April 22, at 7:30 p.m., The concert reading will feature a professional director and cast of special guest artists.

The Otis Guernsey New Voices in the American Theatre Award recipient is selected by a panel comprised of past New Voices winners and other theatre professionals.

The Inge Festival culminates on Saturday, April 24th with a multi-media Tribute to Pulitzer Prize winning dramatist Paula Vogel.

Tickets will be available on line starting March 1st at www.ingecenter.org or by calling (800) 842-6063 ext. 5835.

The Inge Center is supported in part by grants from the Kansas Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, Hallmark Corporation, the Dramatists Guild Fund of New York City, and Independence Community College.

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