Echo Theater Company Reveals Winners of 2024 New Play Competition

The Echo Theater Company has revealed the winners of the company’s 2024 New Play Competition. In first place, winning a $1000 cash prize plus travel and housing to attend rehearsals and a public reading, is Dominic Finocchiaro with Angel’s Share. The reading, directed by Echo associate artistic director Elana Luo and featuring Carter Calahan, Joy DeMichelle, Jenny Soo and Timothy Wright, will take place on Sunday, May 25 at 1 p.m. at Atwater Village Theatre. Admission is open to the public, with a suggested donation of $10.

The second place prize of $500 and a rehearsed online reading went to Boni B.Alvarez for his play The Cathedral, and playwright Chelsea Sutton is the recipient of the third place $250 honorarium and note session with literary agent Beth Blickers for her play The Dead Woman.

Finocchiaro’s Angel’s Share is a “speculative fiction” exploring grief, love and family. Mom and Dad's son has died. His name was Steve. Stephen, on the other hand, is not Mom and Dad's son — yet a tiny implant might allow the boundary between Steve and Stephen to dissolve. But what’s lost along the way? Is a person more than just their memories?

Finocchiaro is a Brooklyn-based playwright whose writing has been produced and developed around the country, including with Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Civilians, Clubbed Thumb, Echo Theater Company, Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, Flea Theater, Kennedy Center, National New Play Network, New Group, PlayPenn, Portland Center Stage and the Roundabout Theatre, among others. He is a MacDowell (x3), Marble House and UCross Fellow. He is a graduate of Reed College (BA), Columbia University (MFA), and the Juilliard School (Lila Acheson Wallace Fellow). His play The Found Dog Ribbon Dance was published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc. and is available for purchase online, and his play how it feels to fall from the sky will have its world premiere in January, 2026 at Centre Stage in Greenville, South Carolina. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Theater and Performance at the Graduate Center-CUNY

The 2024 New Play Competition drew over 300 submissions. The prize committee included literary agent Blickers; 59E59 Theaters artistic director Val Day; former Center Theatre Group associate artistic director Neel Keller; The Playwrights Realm associate artistic director Alexis Williams; and award-winning playwright Guy Zimmerman.
 

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