National New Play Network Announces 2013 Smith Prize Award Winner

The NATIONAL NEW PLAY NETWORK (NNPN), the country's alliance of non- profit theaters that champions the development, production, and continued life of new plays, proudly announces that the 2013 Smith Prize Commission, which carries an Award of $5,000, has been awarded to Martyna Majok for her untitled play. Majok's proposed play is inspired by Slavoj Žižek's Violence, which examines capitalism and our treatment of people. Awarded annually to a proposal for a play that focuses on American politics, The Smith Prize is funded by a gift from screenwriter, novelist and playwright Timothy Jay Smith and a number of other socially-conscious donors.

A committee of artistic, managing and literary leaders from across the country chose Majok's proposal out of submissions from a select group of NNPN Alumni and playwrights nominated by Core Member Theaters.

ABOUT THE SMITH PRIZE COMMISSION

Awarded annually to a proposal for a play that focuses on American politics, The Smith Prize is funded by a gift from screenwriter, novelist and playwright Timothy Jay Smith and a number of other socially-conscious donors. Since 2006, the Prize has been administered by NNPN, and is awarded to a play that asks: Who are Americans as a people? What are we becoming? What are our global responsibilities? Previous Prizewinners are George Brant's Grounded, A. Zell Williams' In a Daughters' Eyes, Sean Christopher Lewis' Killadelphia, Martin Zimmerman's White Tie Ball, Y York's ...And LA Is Burning, Seth Rozin's Black Gold, and Peter Gil-Sheridan's

"I am incredibly honored and elated to be awarded this year's Smith Prize commission," said Majok. "It means so very much to receive an award for writing that is striving to do a service for its audiences, to engage them in an honest conversation about the world we are living in today, and where our relationships to people may be headed. I am moved to know that people want a play about women, immigrants, the impoverished, and the ways we treat each other given the values of our economic system."