[ad_1]
Theatre critic Vinson Cunningham. (Photo by: Jane Bruce)
ITHACA, N.Y.: Theatre critic Vinson Cunningham of The New Yorker has obtained the 2021-22 George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism. Endowed by esteemed critic and editor George Jean Nathan, and conferred by the division chairs of English at Cornell, Princeton, and Yale Universities, the Nathan Award is run by Cornell’s Department of Literatures in English within the College of Arts and Sciences. The award comes with a $10,000 prize and commemorative trophy.
The award committee praised Cunningham for his “lucid, lyrical, and evocative prose, through which he draws his readers into the performance moments he chronicles.” The committee added that it was equally struck by his cogent remarks on artwork, politics, historical past, and tradition in relation to the modern theatre.
The committee singled out his piece on Aleshea Harris’s “What to Send Up When It Goes Down,” during which Cunningham displays on the return to reside in-person performances and considers the implications for audiences and actors of present representations of violence on Black our bodies, in addition to the kinds and strategies artists deploy “to make theatre new by reaching back to its old, mysterious, ceremonial roots.”
The committee famous that Cunningham “poses questions, hypothesizes interpretive possibilities, and provides images of theatrical events that have moved, disturbed, or impressed him, leaving open a space for implied dialogue—for his readers to engage and meet minds with him.”
The choice committee goals to foster the spirit of the award by recognizing criticism which demonstrates the very best degree of important desirous about theatre. U.S. authors, critics, or reviewers whose works are printed in books, newspapers, magazines, and different periodicals, or in digital kind, or broadcast on tv or radio packages, are eligible for consideration, with particular curiosity paid to writings in dramatic criticism coping with present or latest productions. Recent Nathan Award winners embody Maya Phillips, Alexis Soloski, and Soraya Nadia McDonald.