Share the Play that Changed Your Life

The American Theatre Wing has announced an online essay contest in conjunction with the release of its original book, "The American Theatre Wing presents The Play That Changed My Life: America’s Foremost Playwrights on the Plays that Influenced Them," available Dec. 1.

The book shares the stories of 19 playwrights talking about work that had a great influence on them and ultimately their careers. Whether you work in theatre, hope to make your life in the theatre or just enjoy being in the audience, you might have had a similar experience: a single play (or musical) that you saw at some point in your life that had a profound effect on you, be it a childhood production of Cinderella in a school auditorium featuring an older sibling, a parent’s appearance at the local community theatre, a Broadway spectacle like Les Miserables or The Phantom of the Opera, a journey to a small out-of-the-way theatre that told its story with a minimum of technical tools.

The ATW wants to hear about them. Submit an essay about the show had the greatest impact upon you, when you saw it in the course of your life, and most importantly why it meant so much to you. Entries (limited to 350 words) will be judged based on their creativity, their clarity and perhaps most importantly, for how they convey your passion for the theatre.

The contest entry period begins Nov. 2 and closes on Sunday, Nov. 29. To enter, visit http://americantheatrewing.org/contest. The final expert panel judging the contest includes ATW Board of Directors Chairman and President of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization Ted Chapin; Applause Books’ Editorial Director Carol Flannery; award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang; and former "Time" Magazine arts editor and “Broadway and Me” blogger Janice Simpson. Additional prizes will be given based on voting by the general public, which will continue through Dec. 11.

Published by Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, the 200-page paperback, edited by Ben Hodges (Theatre World), will be released in December 2009 and features an Introduction by Paula Vogel and contributions from nineteen of America’s most distinguished playwrights on the plays that transformed their lives. Contributors, who have a combined total of some 40 Tony Awards, Pulitzer Prizes and Obies, include Jon Robin Baitz, Nilo Cruz, Christopher Durang, Horton Foote, Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori Parks, John Patrick Shanley and more.

From Edward Albee’s 1935 visit to New York’s Hippodrome Theatre to see Jimmy Durante (and an elephant) in Rodgers and Hart’s Jumbo, to Diana Son’s twelfth-grade field trip in 1983 to see Diane Venora play Hamlet at The Public Theater, from David Henry Hwang’s seminal San Francisco encounter with Equus to a young Beth Henley’s epiphany after seeing her mother in a “Green Bean Man costume,” The Play That Changed My Life offers readers a unique peek into the theatrical influences of some of the nation’s most important dramatists on stages both professional and amateur, in New York, across the country and overseas. Other contributors include David Auburn, Charles Fuller, A.R. Gurney, Tina Howe, David Ives, Donald Margulies, Sarah Ruhl, Regina Taylor and Doug Wright.

The American Theatre Wing presents the TONY Awards annually with The Broadway League.
For additional information about all American Theatre Wing programs, go to americantheatrewing.org. You can be a fan of the American Theatre Wing at facebook.com/TheAmericanTheatreWing, and also keep up to date with the Wing on Twitter (http://www.blogger.com/www.twitter.com/TheWing).