New York, NY – The National Arts Club has announced Candrice Jones as the recipient of its 2023 Kesselring Prize for Playwriting. Jones was nominated by TheatreSquared in Arkansas for her play Flex, which received a co-world premiere with TheatreSquared and Theatrical Outfit in 2022. Flex will receive its New York premiere at Lincoln Center Theater in June of this year. As Kesselring Prize winner, Jones will receive the opportunity to develop her work at a two week residency at the Tilden Mansion, the home of the National Arts Club.

An Arkansas native, Jones is a Voices of our Nations Arts alum and a Jerome and Many Voices fellow at the Playwrights’ Center. Her work has been developed or read at Theatrical Outfit, the National New Play Network, San Francisco Playhouse, the Arkansas New Play Festival, and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, among others. A MacDowell fellow, Jones has received commissions from People’s Light and Actors Theater of Louisville and will be a 2024 resident at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. She holds an MFA in Critical Studies from the California Institute of the Arts.

The Kesselring Prize was established at the National Arts Club in 1980 by Charlotte Kesselring, widow of playwright Joseph Kesselring, to honor and support emerging playwrights with an honorarium and development of their work. 

The National Arts Club was founded in 1898 with a mission to stimulate, foster, and promote public interest in the arts. The Club offers over 150 free programs to ethe public each year, including exhibitions, performances, lectures, and readings.