Clybourne Park wins the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

Clybourne Park wins the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

Clybourne Park wins the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama!

From the Playbill​.com Article:

Bruce Norris’ Clybourne Park is the win­ner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, rec­og­niz­ing an out­stand­ing stage work that pre­miered dur­ing the 2010 cal­en­dar year. The win­ner was announced 3 PM April 18 at Columbia University.

The play, accord­ing to the Pulitzer com­mit­tee, is described as a “pow­er­ful work whose mem­o­rable char­ac­ters speak in wit­ty and per­cep­tive ways to America’s some­times tox­ic strug­gle with race and class consciousness.”

Also nom­i­nat­ed as final­ists were the Broadway-bound Detroit by Lisa D’Amour, a “con­tem­po­rary tragi­com­ic play that depicts a slice of des­per­ate life in a declin­ing inner-ring sub­urb where hope is in fore­clo­sure”; and Lincoln Center Theater’s A Free Man of Color by John Guare, “an auda­cious play spread across a large his­tor­i­cal can­vas, deal­ing with seri­ous sub­jects while retain­ing a play­ful intel­lec­tu­al buoyancy.”

Clybourne Park, Norris’ riff on A Raisin in the Sun that exam­ined race rela­tions and the effects of mod­ern gen­tri­fi­ca­tion, opened at Off-Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons in February 2010. Directed by Pam MacKinnon, the pro­duc­tion “begins in 1959 as a white fam­i­ly moves out,” accord­ing to press notes. “In Act Two, it’s 2009 and a white fam­i­ly moves in. In the inter­ven­ing years, change over­takes a neigh­bor­hood, along with atti­tudes, inhab­i­tants and prop­er­ty val­ues. Loosely inspired by Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, this pitch-black com­e­dy from Mr. Norris takes on the specter of gen­tri­fi­ca­tion in one of America’s most rec­og­niz­able com­mu­ni­ties — leav­ing no stone unturned in the process.”

Question of the Day: What play or musi­cal won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama? I’ll give you a hint…The show was­n’t quite in the norm.