COSTA MESA, CA – Dramatists Guild Council member Lloyd Suh has been announced as the recipient of the 2024 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award for his play The Heart Sellers.
The Steinberg/ATCA Award recognizes an outstanding script that premiered in a professional production outside of New York City in 2023. Suh’s play debuted at Milwaukee Repertory Theater in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Suh’s play is described as “a seriocomic encounter between two immigrant women from different cultures, who bond over food, dancing, Thanksgiving turkey, and homesickness as they forge a new and valuable friendship to face the future.”
Two 2024 Steinberg/ATCA citations were also presented to I Carry Your Heart With Me by Jennifer Blackmer, produced by Third Avenue Playworks in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, and K-I-S-S-I-N-G by Lenelle Moïse, produced by Huntington Theatre Company in Boston, Massachusetts.
The 2024 awards were presented on Saturday, May 4, in Costa Mesa, California, as part of the Pacific Playwrights Festival. ATCA thanks South Coast Repertory for generously hosting the presentation.
Steinberg/ATCA, one of the largest national new play award programs, began honoring new plays produced at regional theaters outside New York City in 1977. The awards have been funded by the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust since 2000. Plays receiving a production in New York City during the award cycle are not eligible for the Steinberg/ATCA award, recognizing the many other awards programs already in existence there.
At the ceremony, ATCA also presented the 2024 M. Elizabeth Osborn Award to Jennifer Vosters for her play Songs Without Words, premiered at the Milwaukee Fringe Festival in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Named for the late critic, new play advocate and ATCA member M. Elizabeth (“Betty”) Osborn (1941-1993), the award recognizes the work of an emerging playwright who has not yet received a major New York production or a major national award.
The recipients were selected from a pool of eligible scripts recommended by ATCA members from around the country. Misha Berson (Seattle, WA) and Cameron Kelsall (Philadelphia, PA) served as co-chairs of the ATCA New Play Committee during the adjudication process. Other participating members included Nancy Bishop (Chicago, IL), Lindsay Christians (Madison, WI), Evans Donnell (Nashville, TN), Mike Fischer (Milwaukee, WI), Amanda Finn (Chicago, IL), Melissa Hall (Indianapolis, IN), Lou Harry (Indianapolis, IN), Susan Haubenstock (Richmond, VA), Ed Huyck (Minneapolis–St. Paul, MN), Elizabeth Kramer (Louisville, KY), Martha Wade Steketee (New York, NY), Doug Strassler (New York, NY), and Bob Verini (Boston, MA).
Past honorees of ATCA’s new play award include August Wilson, Horton Foote, Lynn Nottage, Moises Kaufmann, Lee Blessing, Marsha Norman, Nilo Cruz, Regina Taylor, Qui Nguyen, Lauren Yee, Michael Cristofer, and Rebecca Gilman.