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The National Student Playwriting Award

The National Student Playwriting Award, initiated in 1974, is part of the Michael Kanin Playwriting Awards Program. This awards program is a series of awards given to student writers whose plays are produced as part of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF). The purpose of the program is to encourage college students to write for the stage by providing the opportunity for them to collaborate with actors, directors, and others through all stages of production, including rehearsals and performances. Please refer to the Rules and Procedures.
View the list of Past Winners. The playwright and/or institution chosen for the National Student Playwriting Award will receive the following:

• Production of the play at the Kennedy Center as part of the KCACTF national festival, with all expenses paid for the production and the playwright
  
  
• The Kennedy Center will award the playwright a cash prize of $2500.
  
  
• Dramatists Guild Award
  The Dramatists Guild Award provides the playwright with Active membership in the Guild. It will also honor the author with the awarding of a certificate presented at its offices in New York City. In the past, the award recipient has been cited at a guild reception to honor all the playwrights of the previous year.
  
  
• Samuel French Award
  Samuel French, Inc. will offer the playwright a contract for publication of the play, and will send the playwright royalties received for productions of the play worldwide. Additionally, the playwright will be invited to visit the offices of Samuel French for a tour of the premises, a pre-publication session with the production department, and a luncheon with the firm's editors.
  
  
• Sundance Theater Laboratory Fellowship
  The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival will provide the winner with an all-expenses paid fellowship to the Sundance Theater Lab. The Sundance Theater Laboratory will arrange for the playwright to meet in a mentoring situation with the Sundance resource directors and dramaturgs and may provide a reading of the playwright's play with actors in attendance at the Lab.
  
  
• The Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) Award
  ATHE will present an award of $100 to each theater department producing an original student-written , full-length play at each of the eight KCACTF Regional Festivals. Additionally, ATHE will present a cash award of up to $1000 to the theater department of the school producing the national winning script in a public ceremony during the KCACTF National Festival.

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2003
Training Wisteria by Molly Smith Metzler, Playwrights’ Theatre of Boston University

2002
THE LEPERS OF BAILE BAISTE, by Ronan Noone, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre at Boston University

2001
It Is No Desert by Dan Stroeh, Wittenberg University

2000
Lot's Daughters by Rebecca Basham, University of New Orleans, Louisiana

1999
Onionheads by Jesse Miller, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia

1998
Carriage by Jerome Hairston, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia

1997
The Last Supper Restoration, Dan O'Brien, Middlebury College, VT

1996
An' Push da Wind Down, Lisa Harper, University of Southern California

1995
Father's Prize Poland China, Shirley Sergent, University of New Orleans, LA

1994
Prisoner, James A. Bell, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT

1993
All That He Was, Larry Johnson and Cindy O'Connor, California State University-Fullerton

1992
A Warring Absence, Jody Duncan, California State University, San Bernadino

1991
The Art of Waiting, Rob Shin, Brown University, Providence, RI

1990
The Lower Rooms, Eliza Anderson, Brown Unviersity, Providence, RI

1989
Blue Collar Blues, Denise Kay Dillard, University of Minnesota, Duluth

1988
no winner selected this year

1987
Nijinsky: God's Mad Clown, Glenn Blumstein, University of Iowa, Iowa City

1986
Dancers, Michael Grady, University of Arizona, Tuscon

1985
Excursion Fare, Dennis Smith, University of Oregon, Eugene

1984
Eleven Zulu, Patrick Sean Clark, University of Missouri, Columbia

1983
The Bulldog and the Bear, Richard Gordon, California State University, Fullerton

1982
The Cashier, Glen Merzer, Indiana University, Bloomington

1981
Going On!, Glenn Treibitz, William Paterson College, Wayne, NJ

1980
The Diviners, James Leonard, Jr., Hanover College, IN

1979
The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid, Lee Blessing, University of Iowa, Iowa City

1978
Sideshow, Rick Smith, Angelo State University, San Angelo, TX

1977
Meg, Paula Vogel, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

1976
Conpersonas, Paul Stephen Lim, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KA

1975
Medea: A Noh Cycle Based on the Greek Myth, Carol Sorgenfrei, University of California, Santa Barbara

1974
The Soft Touch, Neil Cuthbert, Douglass College, New Brunswick, NJ