Confrontation Awards Memorial Drama Prize
The first annual John V. Gurry Memorial Drama Prize, sponsored by Confrontation,
the prize-winning literary journal of Long Island University, has been awarded
to Timothy Mason. Mason will receive a $200 cash award, and his winning
script will be published in the Winter 1998 issue of Confrontation.
Judges for this year's competition were Lanford Wilson, the Pulitzer
Prize-winning playwright, and Christopher Angerman, an artistic director
at Florida Studio Theatre in Sarasota.
Mason won the competition for his script, "An Actor Prepares."
It portrays the ambivalent relationship between an aging alcoholic actor
and his son. Mason is also the author of "The Fiery Furnace,"
produced by Circle Repertory Company with Julie Harris. Circle Repertory
Theatre introduced Mason to New York audiences in 1984 with its production
of his play, "Levitation," a work which has been active repertory
in the United States since that time. Mason is also known for his plays
and musicals for young people, among them an adaptation of Tom Sawyer and
a new version of Peter Pan.
Lois Shapely Bassen of Baldwin, Long Island, and Joe Lauinger of Ossining,
in Westchester County, were cited for honorable mention in the Gurry competition.
Bassen's play, "Next of Kin," involves a confrontation of awareness
of the death of a loved one. Lauinger's comedy, "The Chamberpot,"
deals in a novel way with the history of the versatile bowl.
The John V. Gurry Memorial Prize is named in honor of the late John V.
Gurry, an avid theatergoer and supporter of the dramatic arts in the New
York metropolitan region. The annual prize, to be given for five years,
is funded by Gurry's widow, Joan Mulcahy Gurry, of Lloyd Harbor.
Entry dates for next year's competition will be announced in December.
The competition is open to submissions of one-act plays in English in prose
or verse no longer than 40 pages. Produced plays are eligible as long as
they have not been previously published.
For further information, contact Dr. Martin Tucker, editor of Confrontation,
at (516) 299-2720/Fax, (516) 299-2735.
For more information call the C.W. Post Public
Relations Office at (516) 299-2333 or e-mail cwpostpr@aurora.liunet.edu | 
