The Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award
Supported by the Kennedy Center Education Department
The Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, initiated in 1977,
is part of the Michael
Kanin Playwriting Awards Program. The Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting
Award is presented in the memory of the distinguished dramatist
for the best KC/ACTF student-written plays of the subject of the
African-American experience. Hansberry was the first African-American
playwright, and the youngest of any color, to win the New York
Drama Critics Award for her drama, A Raisin in the Sun, which
opened on Broadway in 1959. Lorraine Hansberry died in 1965 of
cancer, at age thirty-four, at the peak of her career.
The first place award $2,500 and an internship
to the National Playwrights Conference at the O'Neill Theater
Center.
Dramatic Publishing Company will present the first-place winning
playwright with an offer of a contract to publish, license, and
market the winning play.
The second place award $1,000
Grants of $750 and $500 will be made to the theater departments
of the college or university producing the first- and second-place
winners, respectively. Past national judges for theh Lorraine
Hansberry Playwriting Award include Douglas Turner Ward, Robert
Hooks, Endesha Ida Mae Holland, and Ron Himes.
Please refer to the Michael
Kanin Playwriting Award Rules and Procedures.
The Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award: An Anthology of Prize-Winning
Plays has been published by Clark Publishing, Inc. The anthology
was designed as an educational resource text for college students,
professors, and all theatre professionals. The Lorraine Hansberry
Award is a competition for student plays best expressing the African
American experience.