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New York, NY – March 13, 2025 – TDF – Deeksha Gaur, Executive Director and Michael Naumann, Managing Director – and Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC) – Lynne Meadow, Artistic Director and Chris Jennings, Executive Director – recently cohosted the 2024-2025 New York City regional competition of August Wilson New Voices (AWNV) and are pleased to announce the winners and share photos from the event. Formerly known as the August Wilson Monologue Competition, this program aims to expose students from all five boroughs to the rich and rewarding work of Black playwright August Wilson and to help participants hone their performance skills.
The winner of a multitude of honors, including one Tony Award® and two Pulitzer Prizes, August Wilson is celebrated for his American Century Cycle: ten plays, each set in a different decade, depicting the African-American experience throughout the 20th century.
The competition was open to all NYC high school students ages 19 or younger, with no fee or previous theatre experience required to participate. MTC’s Learning and Community Engagement team hosted Open Houses and August Wilson Days of Learning for entrants, facilitated the AWNV national curriculum for students, provided one-on-one coaching for competitors, and organized community building activities for the finalists. MTC also produced and hosted the regional finals of the competition in NYC, giving participants the opportunity to perform at the company’s Off-Broadway home at New York City Center Stage I. The event was emceed by NYU Professor and August Wilson Society President Michael Dinwiddie, and the regional finalists were evaluated by an adjudicator panel of artistic professionals – Heather Alicia Simms, April Matthis, Chris Myers, and Erica A. Hart, CSA – who identified the competition winners.
In addition to the prizes listed below, each of the 12 regional finalists received $500.00 and certificates of achievement from MTC/TDF and Deputy Manhattan Borough President Keisha Sutton-James, on behalf of Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine.
The winners were:
1st Place, $5,000 prize: Chinua Baraka Payne (Jitney - Youngblood in Act 2, Scene 1)
2nd Place, $3,500 prize: Reed Harris Butts (Seven Guitars - Canewell in Act 2, Scene 7)
3rd Place, $2,000 prize: Jackie Joyce McGrew (Fences - Rose in Act 2, Scene 1)
Click here to download photos of all the finalists, as well as other images from the event.
About August Wilson
August Wilson is the towering figure in African-American dramatic literature and indeed one of the most important playwrights in American theatre history. His monumental Pittsburgh Cycle (or the American Century Cycle)—10 plays about the African-American experience, each set in a different decade of the 20th century—remains remarkable both for its ambition and for its achievement. Six of the 10 plays in the cycle won major awards, including two Pulitzer Prizes and a Tony. Wilson claims to have been influenced by the “four B’s”—blues music, the artist Romare Bearden, the Argentine fiction writer Jorge Luis Borges, and the African-American playwright Amiri Baraka. (He later added novelist James Baldwin and playwright Ed Bullins to the list.)
Wilson’s plays tend to be group portraits, rich depictions of the crosscurrents, tensions, and conflicts that affect and afflict the residents of Pittsburgh’s Hill District at varying moments during the 20th century. At the same time, vivid, idiosyncratic, memorable individual characters emerge from within these groups—the irrepressible Ma Rainey (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom), the embittered, disappointed but doggedly principled Troy Maxson (Fences), and the prophesying Stool Pigeon (King Hedley II), to name just a few.
Though grounded in realism, his plays can move toward the mystical (e.g., the self-playing piano in The Piano Lesson), the surreal (e.g., the ageless Aunt Ester who appears in several of his plays), and the lyrical. Wilson initially intended to be a poet, and his plays frequently contain long passages of heightened language. As noted, he was deeply influenced by the blues, and his characters’ speeches sometimes seem like musical numbers, employing vivid imagery and featuring repetitions of words and phrases.
His plays are far less overtly political than those of many of his African-American peers, including his acknowledged influencer Amiri Baraka. But they are all informed by the Black experience in White America. The white man is always just offstage, sometimes intentionally, sometimes inadvertently pushing and pulling social and economic strings to the detriment of the Black community and the individuals it comprises.
Against that background, Wilson’s characters strive to achieve, to realize their individual dreams and ambitions, even while acknowledging and sustaining their powerful ties to their families, neighbors, and communities. They often lift their heads above the daily reality of earning a day’s pay to take the broad and long view. No matter how difficult their immediate situations, Wilson and his characters remain aware of the importance of spiritual and social legacies, the power of shared values and experiences, and the possibility of a better future.
About TDF
Founded in 1968, TDF (formerly known as Theatre Development Fund) is a not-for-profit service organization dedicated to sharing the power of the performing arts with everyone. TDF’s mission is to engage a broad and diverse audience by removing the financial, physical, and invisible barriers to participation in the performing arts. TDF’s initiatives include the TKTS by TDF Discount Booths; TDF Memberships; the TDF Costume Collection; and TDF Accessibility, Education, and Community Programs. Those Programs include open captioned, audio described, and ASL-interpreted performances; Autism Friendly Performances; the Veterans Theatregoing Program; school programs serving more than 11,000 NYC public school students annually; and partnerships with over 150 NYC community organizations serving 18,000 people in the tristate area. TDF envisions a world where the transformative experience of attending live theatre and dance is essential, relevant, accessible, and inspirational.
Facebook/Instagram: @tdfnyc / tdf.org
About Manhattan Theatre Club
Under the leadership of Artistic Director Lynne Meadow and Executive Director Chris Jennings, Manhattan Theatre Club produces seasons of new work for the theatre both on and Off-Broadway, and in the 2023-24 season, all three of its Broadway shows were nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play, representing three of the five nominees in the category. MTC’s not-for-profit mission, which Meadow created in 1972 and has implemented over five decades of award-winning productions, is to develop and present new work in a dynamic, supportive environment; to identify and collaborate with the most promising new as well as accomplished artists; and to produce a diverse repertoire of innovative, entertaining, and thought-provoking plays and musicals by American and international playwrights. Since 1989, MTC Learning and Community Engagement, which uses the power of live theatre and playwriting to awaken minds, ignite imaginations, open hearts, and change lives, has also been an important corollary to MTC’s work. MTC’s over 600 world, American, New York and Broadway premieres have earned 7 Pulitzer Prizes, 30 Tony Awards, 51 Drama Desk Awards, and 49 Obie Awards amongst many other honors. MTC has homes on Broadway at its Samuel J. Friedman Theatre and Off-Broadway at New York City Center. MTC is an anti-racist organization that respects and honors all voices, and upholds the values of community and equity. For more information, please visit manhattantheatreclub.com.
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