THE REP ANNOUNCES NATIONAL COMEDY PLAYWRIGHTING AWARD WINNER
5/17/2006

Bertrand Priest is a dark comedy involving a talented young writer and his muse. Cohen receives $10,000, a staged reading of his script at Arkansas Repertory Theatre and a fully mounted production of Bertrand Priest on the theatre’s MainStage April 27-May 13, 2007.

Finalists were Nicholas Korn, author of The Antic in Romantic, a modern-day commedia, and Kenneth N. Kurtz, author of Merde De Canard: A Comedy of Seven Doors and Eight Automatons, a farce. Honorable mention was given to Richard Gleaves, author of Oswald on Ice, a black comedy involving Lee Harvey Oswald’s undertaker. As finalists, both Korn and Kurtz will receive $1,000 and staged readings of their scripts.

Readings of The Antic in Romantic, Merde De Canard and Bertrand Priest, are scheduled for July 28-30, 2006, respectively, on The Rep’s SecondStage at 7:30 p.m. with playwrights in attendance.

About the Kaufman & Hart Prize

The Kaufman & Hart Prize, named for George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, was created to acknowledge and encourage the development of new comedies for the stage. The award is given by The Rep biennially. The first Kaufman & Hart Prize was awarded in 2002.

Submissions for this year’s winner were solicited from agents and theatre professionals between Oct. 1, 2005-Feb. 1, 2006. Semi-finalist scripts were then sent to a national panel of judges to determine a winner, two finalists and an honorable mention semi-finalist. The award requires submissions to be full-length comedic plays that have not been previously published or produced.

“We’re pleased to have had such exciting themes and diversity among the submissions this year,” said Brad Mooy, The Rep’s artistic associate and literary manager who helms the prize.

Previous Winners

The 2004 Kaufman & Hart Prize was awarded to Catherine Butterfield for her script The Sleeper, produced in October 2005. This contemporary look at American life in a post-9/11 world was subsequently published by Dramatists Play Service and produced at The Laguna Playhouse in Laguna, Cal., in February 2006 and the Hippodrome State Theatre in Gainesville, Fla., in April 2006. Butterfield is a writer for CBS’s The Ghost Whisperer.

Friends Like These by Tom Dulack, winner of the inaugural 2002 Kaufman & Hart Prize, reveals the nuances of longterm relationships with sly vision and an acid tongue. The play was produced at The Rep in March 2003.

About the 2006 Winning Plays and Playwrights

Bertrand Priest by Ian Cohen
Who is Bertrand Priest? And is he up to the challenge? Dreams, fate, chance, spirituality and hints of magic swirl together in this daring, purposeful new play by acclaimed new playwright Ian Cohen. A sexy, python-loving artist, her young protege, an actor and a tough, no-nonsense businessman collide in this dark comedy that asks: does art matter in a world where commerce is king?

Cohen enjoyed a world premiere of Lenny & Lou in September 2004 at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, D.C., and was nominated for the Charles MacArthur Award for Best Play and Best Resident Play as part of the Helen Hayes Awards. The play was also nominated for the American Theatre Critic's Association's Annual ATCA/Steinberg New Play Award. His play Vattago was a finalist at PlayLabs, The Playwrights Center in 2005 and is now in development at the Lark Play Development Center, as is Little Universe. God’s Creatures was a semi-finalist in the Stageplays' International Playwrights Competition. Going, a one-act play, was a semi-finalist in the Chutzpah Festival and will be published by Playscripts, Inc. in 2006. Fantasy was presented in August 2000 by The Workshop and is now a film, co-directed by the author for Blatantly Subtle Productions. Cohen is an artistic associate at the Lark Play Development Center. Contact Information: Elaine Devlin Literary, Inc. 212-206-8160 or IanLCohen@aol.com.

The Antic in Romantic by Nicholas Korn
A proud beauty, believing her lover has no intention of marrying, decides to break off the affair on the day he plans to propose. The result is a chain reaction of new loves won and lost and the ridiculous delusions that lie between. A modern-day commedia with eight characters, one set and 1,000 laughs.

Korn was a semi-finalist for the 2005 Disney Feature Film Fellowship and is currently represented by Instrumental Literary Management in LA. Previously, he served as president of the League of Cincinnati Theatres and as executive director of Stage First Cincinnati, a classical theatre company he founded in 1998. Other works include the commedia musical Illuzzio - Or A Man¹s Best Servant Is Himself (with composer Allen Lindsey), Delirium¹s Daughters and two commissioned short works, Answering to the Aunts and Cousins in Question. Korn has also produced adaptations of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata; Moliere’s The Imaginary Invalid and That Scoundrel Scapin; and Euripides’ Medea and The Bacchae. Contact Information: Anthony Vasto at Instrumental Literary Management Office: 310-601-7974 or nicholaskorn@fuse.net.

Merde De Canard: A Comedy of Seven Doors and Eight Automatons by Kenneth N. Kurtz
A two-act, comedic farce, based on the unflappable yet unpredictable logic of automatons. Its hero is a character from history, Jacques de Vaucanson, whose wondrous mechanical creations, especially the famous defecating duck, delighted Parisians of the mid-1700s and also foreshadowed the workings of modern computers. Mistaken identities, lovelorn chases and robots abound.

Kurtz is a professor and head of design for the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of Miami and scenic and lighting designer for the university’s Ring Theatre, where he has designed more than 250 productions. He was a longtime member of United Scenic Artists with more than 50 professional scenic or lighting designs for such theatres as the Coconut Grove Playhouse, Asolo State Theatre, Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre, Sharon Playhouse in Connecticut, Atlanta's Alliance and The Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia. Kurtz has written six plays, a novel, a screenplay and 14 short stories. Contact Information: 305-255-9705 or kenart40@bellsouth.net.

Oswald on Ice by Richard Gleaves
This black comedy takes place the weekend of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. When bumbling funeral director John McCaffrey is hired to bury Lee Harvey Oswald, he and his misfit family become unwittingly entangled in the plot to kill the president.

Gleaves is the author, composer and lyricist of Dorian, the musical theatre adaptation of Oscar Wilde's thriller The Picture of Dorian Gray. First seen at an American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers workshop in New York City and then showcased at the National Alliance for Musical Theater's Festival of New Works, Dorian received its premiere production at Goodspeed Opera in 2000 and was directed by Gabe Barre and starred Sutton Foster. It has subsequently been produced by Casa Mañana and Playhouse 22. Gleaves is a prolific composer of instrumental and vocal works, a freelance dramaturg and theatre critic and a 10-year member of the BMI/Lehmann Engel Workshop, which awarded him the 2004 Harrington Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement. Gleaves’ other musicals are World and Time Enough and the upcoming The Romance of Nancy Bupkiss. Oswald on Ice is his first play. Contact Information: 718-937-4278 or RichardGleaves@aol.com.

Founded in 1976 and housed in the historic Galloway Building in Little Rock’s burgeoning downtown district, Arkansas Repertory Theatre is the state’s only nonprofit professional theatre and exists to create a diverse body of theatrical work of the highest artistic standards for Arkansans of all ages. Known for its Broadway-caliber productions, The Rep offers an exciting mix of contemporary and classic works – everything from Shakespeare to world premiere comedies – and is a member of the League of Resident Theatres (LORT), a group comprised of the country’s 75 most esteemed theatres, and Theatre Communications Group, Inc, a national organization for the American theatre that seeks to strengthen, nurture and promote the not-for-profit professional American theatre.