Playwrights Milcha Sanchez-Scott and Carlyle Brown have been named winners of the 2022 Legacy Award from the Legacy Playwrights Initiative. The honors recognize established American playwrights for their sustained influence on the American theatre in hopes of bringing renewed attention to their body of work.
As part of their selection, both Sanchez-Scott and Brown will receive a monetary grant, advocacy and financial incentives for professional productions of their work, the reissuing of previously published plays, programs to raise awareness for their body of work within the theatre community and in universities, and filmed interviews highlighting their careers.
"I am deeply gratified and honored to receive a Legacy Playwrights’ Initiative award for a number of reasons," shares Brown in a statement. "For being recognized for one’s full body of work, to be acknowledged and even memorialized for one’s contribution to the theatre, to be encouraged in your twilight, in your third act and supported just when one may be on the cusp of a creative expansion, are the rarest of gifts. As a young man I marveled that Goethe wrote Faust when he was 80. Now, it doesn’t seem so far-fetched." Brown's plays include The African Company Presents Richard the Third, Pure Confidence, Down in Mississippi, and A Play by Barb and Carl.
“I am humbled, honored, grateful and so happy to receive the Legacy Playwright Award," adds Sanchez-Scott. "This honor will help me work on my first musical and continue work on a second play about an elderly living facility and the characters within." Sanchez-Scott's work include Latina, The Cuban Swimmer, Dog Lady, Roosters, Evening Star, and The Old Matador.
Sanchez-Scott and Brown will both be recognized at the Dramatists Guild Foundation's 60th anniversary gala October 24.
The initiative is the brainchild of Anne Cattaneo, Dramatists Guild Foundation Executive Director Rachel Routh, Benita Hofstetter Koman, Todd London, and their national colleagues. Support is provided via grants from the Tides Foundation's Venturous Theater Fund, the Dramatists Guild Foundation, and individual gifts. Previous winners include Constance Congdon, Philip Kan Gotanda, and Ed Bullins.
