Portland, Maine—Portland Stage Company is proud to announce the most recent winners of the Clauder Competition, New England’s most prestigious playwriting contest.  String Around my Finger, by Brenda Withers of Massachusetts, receives the Grand Prize as the winning script.  Two Gold Prize winners have also been selected: Sofonisba by Callie Kimball and Dying to Know by David Butler, both of Maine.  State winners from each of the six New England states are also being honored with a $500 cash prize each.

The winners of the Clauder Competition receive both monetary and public acknowledgement.  The grand prize winner, String Around my Finger, receives an increased cash award from previous years of $3,000. The Grand Prize winner also receives a full production at Portland Stage with a professional team of director, designers and actors during the 2016-2017 Season. The two gold prize winners each receive an increased cash award of $1,250.  All three winning scripts will be workshopped by Portland Stage at this spring’s 27 annual Little Festival of the Unexpected, May 11-14, 2016.  Little Festival of the Unexpected is a new works festival where playwrights, professional theater artists, and audiences come together to develop new plays in a supportive environment.

The Clauder Competition was created in 1981 to support New England playwrights and bring their work to the attention of the greater theatrical community.  The goal of the Clauder Competition is to provide exposure, encouragement, and critical feedback to promising playwrights who typically receive little more than a return postcard for material they send to theaters and producers.  A record number of over 220 unproduced full-length plays were submitted to this year’s competition.  To ensure fairness and respect for each submission, each play is evaluated by at least two readers, and each playwright receives an individual letter of response including constructive comments from the readers.

The Clauder Competition identifies exciting new works by New England playwrights and ensures their successful launch through readings and productions at Portland Stage, a professional LORT theater company, which adjudicates the competition and provides a creative home for the winning playwright.  Past Clauder Competition winners or finalists who have launched successful playwriting careers include Tom Coash, Gregory Hischak, Adam Bock, Laura Harrington, Elizabeth Egloff, Bridget Carpenter, Melinda Lopez, Liz Duffy Adams, William Donnelly, and Pulitzer Prize-winners Paula Vogel and Quiara Alegria Hudes.

CLAUDER COMPETITION WINNERS—

Grand Prize Winner—

String Around my Finger by Brenda Withers (Wellfleet, MA)

When Emma is faced with the miscarriage of her child, she starts to question the future of her relationship with Alex.  She is guided by the hilarious David, a gay nurse in a Catholic hospital, Lisa, Alex’s well-meaning but somewhat disastrous sister, and the mysterious Mrs. Rizzo who is a long term patient at the hospital.  Through their struggles, we learn what it means to face big decisions and run headlong into your answer.  

Brenda Withers is a writer and actor.  She is a founder of Lucid Theater (My Heart Split in Two, The Macguffin?), the co-writer of Matt & Ben (PS 122), and a former fellow of the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France.  She has worked with companies like Geva Theatre Center, Hoi Polloi, the Folger, Square Product Theatre, Hartford Stage, HERE, McCarter, and New Georges, with whom she is currently enjoying an Audrey residency.  Her adaptation of Don Quixote will premiere this summer at Amphibian Stage Productions.  Brenda studied drama and religion at Dartmouth College.  With the Harbor: Hedda Gabler (Hedda), Church (Director/ Reverend Brenda), Sticks & Bones (Harriet), The Seagull (Arkadina), The Billingsgate Project (Playwright/Rebecca), Artist Descending a Staircase (Sofie), Sister Play (Anna), A Doll's House (Ms. Linde), Northiside Hollow (Playwright/Kath), Detroit (Sharon).

Gold Prize Winners—

Sofonisba, by Callie Kimball (Springvale, Maine)

Based on true events, Sofonisba Anguissola is a painter from Italy, trained by Michaelangelo himself. Her talents are called upon to be the court painter for Spain’s King Philip and Queen Isabel.  Sofonisba is headstrong, intelligent, and incredibly talented. She has refused to marry, and only claims love for her work and God.  She becomes a friend and tutor to the Queen, respected in the court, and ultimately is pursued by a potential husband, and encouraged to take this suitor by King Phillip.

Callie Kimball earned her MFA at Hunter College, under Tina Howe and Mark Bly. Her plays have been produced and developed in New York, Chicago, LA, DC, at Team Awesome Robot, Halcyon Theatre, Lark Play Development Center, Drama League, The Brick Theater, Project Y Theatre, Absolute Theatre, Washington Shakespeare Company, The Kennedy Center, Mad Horse Theatre, and elsewhere.

Dying to Know, by David Butler (Gorham, ME)

Dying to Know is a comic exploration of our struggles to come to terms with death. It is the story of a relationship between a woman who is a hospice patient and the somewhat hapless hospice volunteer whom she befriends. In Butler’s play, a death-obsessed woman confronts her biggest fears in a relationship that changes her life.

David Butler has lived and worked in Maine for two decades. His plays include The Grand O’Neill The Terminal Bar, an autobiographical play, The High Priest of Infinity, was produced at the Boston Center for the Arts.  Butler is an actor who has worked in Boston and with numerous local theaters, and he is also a Congregational minister. 

STATE WINNERS—

CONNECTICUT

How to be Alone, by Rachel Nalebuff, CT

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Trespasser in a Promised Land, by Davis Russell, NH

RHODE ISLAND

Galatea, by David Eliet, RI

VERMONT

The Bus, by James Lantz, VT

Portland Stage Company

Portland Stage Company is Maine’s premier professional theater, serving an annual audience of 50,000 people through mainstage performances and educational programs with a balance of classics and new works for the stage.  Founded in 1974 as the Profile Theater, Portland Stage Company’s mission is to entertain, educate and engage its audiences by producing a wide range of artistic works and programs that explore basic human issues and concerns relevant to the communities served by the theater.  The theater’s guiding principle is to promote creativity and dialogue among artists, staff, board, and audience.

The audience Portland Stage Company serves is as diverse as the population of New England, and the theater seeks to stimulate the imaginations of our community with equally diverse programming.  Portland Stage offers encouragement and inspiration to New England’s writers by hosting the Clauder Competition and Little Festival of the Unexpected.  Together, these programs bring to Portland some of the freshest voices writing for the American theater.