Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program alum and adjunct faculty member Sara Cooper (Cycle 18)
Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program alum and adjunct faculty member Sara Cooper (Cycle 18) was named one of the recipients of the 2022 Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theater.
Cooper and her collaborator Lynne Shankel won the coveted musical theater award for their new musical PERPETUAL SUNSHINE & THE GHOST GIRLS which is an all-woman+ throughcomposed musical theatre piece about the capitalist exploitation of workers' bodies and rights in the face of a national public health crisis. Featuring an original 1920s-2020s mashup score, the show is based on the true story of the women who worked in the factories and were knowingly poisoned by the United States Radium Corporation, and who fought back, changing United States labor laws forever.
The members of this year's jury were David Lang (chair), Lynn Ahrens, Kristoffer Diaz, Mindi Dickstein, Amanda Green, Michael R. Jackson, Richard Maltby, Jr., and John Weidman.