2023 Annual Provincetown American Playwright Awards (PAPA)
Engaging Provincetown’s literary heritage as the birthplace of modern American drama, the PAPA is presented each year to honor living American writers whose contributions have paid invaluable witness to the American experience in ways that’ve nurtured and expanded the spirit of our souls – not only on our own country’s stages but on the world stage as well.
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Over the years, the PAPA Awards have honored some of theater's best and brightest stars and this year is no different. We are incredibly proud to announce our three honorees:
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Craig Lucas - Lifetime Achievement Award
Chisa Hutchinson - Inspiration Award
Ryan Haddad - Trailblazer Award
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The event took place on August 13, 2023, at the Provincetown Inn with over 100 people in attendance. Thank you to all who supported us!
Photo by Bronwen Sharp
Craig Lucas
Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient
CRAIG LUCAS wrote the plays Blue Window, The Dying Gaul, I Was Most Alive With You, Reckless, Prayer for My Enemy, Ode to Joy, Prelude to a Kiss, The Singing Forest, Small Tragedy, Stranger; books for the musicals Amélie, An American in Paris, Days of Wine and Roses, The Light in the Piazza, 3 Postcards; screenplays for Blue Window, Longtime Companion, Prelude to a Kiss, Reckless, The Dying Gaul, Secret Lives of Dentists; opera libretti for Orpheus in Love, Two Boys; and the ballet libretto for Christopher Wheeldon’s Cinderella. He directed world premieres of The Light in the Piazza, I Was Most Alive With You, Ode to Joy & This Thing of Darkness (co-author David Schulner) and Harry Kondoleon’s plays Saved or Destroyed & Play Yourself & the movie The Dying Gaul. He has received 3 Obie Awards, the Steinberg Best Play Award and 4 Tony nominations.
Chisa Hutchinson -
Inspiration Award Recipient
Chisa Hutchinson (B.A. Vassar College; M.F.A NYU - TSoA) has presented her plays, which include She Like Girls, Somebody’s Daughter, Surely Goodness & Mercy, Whitelisted and Dead & Breathing at such venues as Atlantic Theater Company, Contemporary American Theater Fest, the National Black Theatre, Second Stage, and Arch 468 in London. Her radio drama, Proof of Love, can be found on Audible (with a boss rating). She’s been a New Dramatist, a Dramatists Guild Fellow, a Lark Fellow, a Humanitas Fellow, a NeoFuturist, and a staff writer for the Blue Man Group. Chisa has also won a GLAAD Award, a Lilly Award, a New York Innovative Theatre Award, a Helen Merrill Award, and the Lanford Wilson Award. She’s decided she wants to try to pay that forward by launching the Signpost Fellowship, which will pair an aspiring writer with an established mentor and offer a cash prize. She’s staffed on two television series—Three Women (Starz) and Tell Me Lies (Hulu)— and will be working on four more projects as soon as this strike is over. Meanwhile, her first original feature, THE SUBJECT, in which a white documentarian deals with the moral fallout from exploiting the death of a black teen, is available on various VOD platforms after a successful film festival circuit during which it won over 30 prizes.
Photo by Sam Freeman
Photo by Stephen K. Mack
Ryan J. Haddad
Trailblazer Award Recipient
Ryan J. Haddad, an actor, and playwright, recently concluded a sold-out, extended run of his play Dark Disabled Stories at The Public Theater, produced by The Bushwick Starr. The critically acclaimed production earned him Lucille Lortel, Drama League, and Outer Critics Circle nominations, along with the Drama Desk’s Sam Norkin Off-Broadway Award for his cumulative work in the 2022-23 season. Haddad’s additional stage credits include his autobiographical solo play Hi, Are You Single? (Woolly Mammoth/IAMA Theatre Company, Helen Hayes nomination), american (tele)visions by Victor I. Cazares (New York Theatre Workshop/Theater Mitu, Lucille Lortel nomination), The Watering Hole, created by Lynn Nottage and Miranda Haymon (Signature Theatre), and his cabaret Falling for Make Believe (Joe’s Pub/Under the Radar). On television he is best known for his role opposite Ben Platt in the Netflix series The Politician, co-created and executive produced by Ryan Murphy. He will next appear alongside Emma Corrin and Clive Owen in the Hulu limited series A Murder at the End of the World, written and directed by Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij. Haddad is a recipient of Vineyard Theatre’s Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, IAMA’s Shonda Rhimes Unsung Voices Playwriting Commission, and Rising Phoenix Repertory’s Cornelia Street American Playwriting Award. His essays have been published in the New York Times, Out Magazine, and American Theatre. He is an alum of The Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group, a 2020 Disability Futures Fellow, and a former Queer|Art Performance and Playwriting Fellow, under the mentorship of Moe Angelos.