GMTWP Alum Michael R. Jackson (Cycle 14)
One of GMTWP's alums, Michael R. Jackson (Cycle 14) was one of the winners of this year's Whiting Awards. This is the first time the award has been given to a musical theatre writer. Jackson won the prize for his submission from his new musical A STRANGE LOOP, which will be produced at Playwrights Horizons in New York City this spring.
The selection committee described Michael as:
Deftly attuned to pop culture and to the language of the twenty-first century, Michael R. Jackson fashions his plays phrase by phrase, layering irony, humor, pastiche, cultural references, and deep feeling. In a Joycean stream of consciousness, we explore a character buried under the weight of societal projections. The new linguistic pleasures in his work reflect and refract our oldest concerns as human beings: how do we make visible who we are to ourselves and to others? His kinetic plays fairly buzz with energy, his characters self-aware and blithely out of it all at once. This work is robustly intelligent, unflinchingly honest, dizzyingly screwball, and a sheer delight.
Since 1985, the Foundation has supported creative writing through the Whiting Awards, given annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama. The awards, of $50,000 each, are based on early accomplishment and the promise of great work to come.
To learn more about Jackson's upcoming production of A STRANGE LOOP at Playwrights Horizons, CLICK HERE.