(NEW YORK, NY) -- Manhattan Theatre Club—Lynne Meadow, Artistic Director, and Chris Jennings, Executive Director—are pleased to announce Pulitzer Prize winner Eboni Booth as the 2024-25 recipient of MTC's Judith Champion Playwriting Fellowship, which is awarded annually. Fully supported by the late philanthropist and former MTC Patron Judith Champion, the Fellowship provides artistic and financial resources to one playwright each season to write and develop a new commissioned play while in residence at MTC.
Fellowship recipients participate in the life of the institution in a manner tailored to their strengths and interests. In addition to a commission, the recipient is provided with a living allowance, access to office and rehearsal space, a ticket stipend, and a developmental workshop of at least one play during their fellowship year. Booth succeeds the 2023-24 Fellow, Sanaz Toossi, and the inaugural 2022-23 Fellow, Zora Howard.
MTC Artistic Director Lynne Meadow said, “We are thrilled that Eboni Booth, who has been a member of the MTC family since 2017, is joining us in this new and exciting capacity. We are also looking forward to continuing to honor Judith Champion’s legacy as an ardent supporter of artists and their work with our third Champion Playwriting Fellow. Judi believed wholeheartedly in empowering the most talented writers of our time to continue creating new and exciting work for the stage, and we remain extremely grateful for her contributions to MTC and to the theatrical community at large. I am sure that Judi would be proud of the impact Zora, Sanaz, and now Eboni are making and will continue to make on the American Theatre.”
“We are overjoyed to have the remarkable Eboni Booth in residence with us this season through the Judith Champion Playwriting Fellowship,” said Scott Kaplan, MTC’s Director of Play Development. “We have long been admirers of Eboni’s extraordinary theatrical gifts, and we couldn’t be happier at the prospect of embarking on a year of close collaboration with this wonderful artist.”
Eboni Booth is a writer and actor from New York City. Her plays include Primary Trust (Roundabout Theatre, Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Outer Critics Circle Award) and Paris (Atlantic Theater). For television, she has written for Hulu’s “We Were the Lucky Ones” and HBO Max’s “Julia.” As an actor, Eboni has appeared in productions at Playwrights Horizons, LCT3, Manhattan Theatre Club, Ars Nova, WP Theater, Page 73, Soho Rep., Clubbed Thumb, and more. Eboni is a resident playwright at New Dramatists, and the recipient of a Dramatists Guild Horton Foote Award, a Steinberg Playwright Award, a Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting, and a John Gassner Award. She is a graduate of Juilliard’s playwriting program and the University of Vermont.
Manhattan Theatre Club is a not-for-profit theatre that has been under the leadership of Artistic Director Lynne Meadow since 1972. In 2023, Chris Jennings became her partner, joining MTC as Executive Director. Meadow, Jennings and their first-rate staff produce seasons of innovative, entertaining and thought-provoking new plays and musicals at MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on Broadway and off-Broadway at NY City Center. In the 2023-24 season, all three of MTC’s Broadway shows were nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play, representing three of the five nominees in the category. For over 50 years, MTC has served as a nurturing home for artists and theatre professionals at all stages of their careers. In that time, MTC has produced more than 600 premieres, which include nearly 20% of all of the new plays on Broadway since they opened the Friedman in 2003. To date, MTC productions have garnered 30 Tony Awards; 51 Drama Desk Awards; 49 Obie Awards; and seven Pulitzer Prizes for Martyna Majok’s Cost of Living, Lynn Nottage’s Ruined, David Lindsay-Abaire’s Rabbit Hole, John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt, David Auburn’s Proof, August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, and Beth Henley’s Crimes of the Heart. MTC has been acclaimed for identifying, fostering and supporting talented artists in the creation of new work and the hallmark of Meadow’s long tenure has been the quality, range and originality of the theatre’s repertoire. Artistic Development at MTC includes readings, workshops, residencies, fellowships, dramaturgical support and other resources for playwrights and other artists. Their playwriting commission program is one of the largest in the country, awarding approximately 10 new commissions each year. MTC is committed to ticket access initiatives to make their productions broadly accessible as they engage audiences of all ages and backgrounds and strive to help them build deep connections with their work through Beyond the Stage programming and their Learning and Community Engagement program, which serves over 2,500 students of all ages annually throughout the NYC area, nationwide and abroad. MTC is an anti-racist organization that respects and honors all voices, and upholds the values of community and equity.
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