This past Monday, November 14th marked the 4th biennial Steinberg "Mimi" Playwright Awards. Created in 1986 by Harold Steinberg, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust has sought to enhance and support American theater in various ways. The "Mimi" award achieves just that goal by recognizing playwright(s) for their artistic excellence as well as providing them with a $50,000 grant to encourage their total focus on future works for American theater. Past winners have included David Adjmi, Tarrell Alvin McCraney, and Bruce Norris.

This year both Lisa D'Amour and Melissa James Gibson were honored for their contributions to the theater in a ceremony that included excerpts from their respective bodies of work. From D'Amour, the audience was treated to scenes from both 16 Spells to Charm the Beast and Detroit. From Gibson, This and What Rhymes With America.

In a rigorous, sometimes intense selection process, the Steinberg Playwright Awards Advisory Committee read close to 800 anonymous scripts before narrowing down the field. Eventually, when the process came down to a smaller pool of playwrights, the board was allowed to see who they were considering, and as you can imagine, the discussion became even more passionate. As Jim Steinberg said, the goal of these awards is to "raise the profile of the playwright" and with the awarding of a substantial cash prize, to allow the playwrights to "focus on writing as the day job". Deciding who would be granted such an honor and challenge was a task the committee took to heart. Without a doubt, their discernment paid off as D'Amour and Gibson are clearly deserving recipients.

D'Amour considers herself an interdisciplinary artist and has had her worked produced throughout the country. Her work Detroit was produced at Steppenwolf Theatre in 2010 and was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in drama. In her speech thanking the committee D'Amour commented on "what an amazing time it is to be making art in this country" and with organizations like the Steinberg Charitable Trust supporting the theater, it truly is. She ended her acceptance speech by encouraging theatre folk to "get back to our great hard work."

Equally deserving of this award was playwright Melissa James Gibson. Gibson is an OBIE award winning playwright who has also seen her work produced around the country. Her critically acclaimed work This marked her second time as a Susan Smith Blackburn Prize finalist. Gibson described her work as a playwright as simply "trying to participate in the great conversation of what it is to be alive." Gibson thanked the committee and promised that the money awarded would surely be going towards "moleskin notebooks and mechanical pencils".

Both D'Amour and Gibson discussed an obsession with "knowing", a desire to understand and portray life in a truthful way. Each playwright is trying to make sense of the world around them and in a way, work some things out for their audience. Their plays are funny, haunting, strange and exciting. Todd London, artistic director of the New Dramatists, said it best when he said that while many accuse American playwrights of "shunning politics and writing small", D'Amour and Gibson fly in the face of such accusations. They write in search of the truth (which isn't always pretty), with an eye toward understanding. They are the future of American theater, at least a very important part of it and the Steinberg Awards seem to have hit the nail on the head when they choose these two talented playwrights as their 2011 Mimi Award recipients.

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