Judges: Vinson Cunningham, Velina Hasu Houston, Christian Parker

From the judges’ citation:

Jackie Sibblies Drury is an artist who gives voice to the voiceless, exploring freshly investigated worlds from the inside out so that they become part of the natural landscape of the theater. With courage, steadfastness, and thoughtfulness, she shifts the theater panorama to encompass new vistas of race, class, and exploded perspective into what traditionally have been rigid environments.

Sibblies Drury is exceptional among her peers in her finely honed ability to innovate in both form and content simultaneously. The underlying thread that ties these impulses together is her clear interest in jolting the audience into fresh awareness, both of the issues she explores in the plays and of the nature of the theatrical event itself. Her plays make the case that the dynamism and circularity of the theatrical experience cannot be easily duplicated in other media. With deep insight, brutal honesty, and wild invention, Sibblies Drury cracks open the audience’s biases and expands their imaginations. The panorama of theater transforms and invites theater-goers into a normalcy that had hitherto been pressed into the margins. It, however, is the true universal. Sibblies Drury brings it to the fore with imagination and inventiveness that make no apologies. With a deft hand, stark vision, and genuine ardor, she asks the world to make itself comfortable in the fruitful discomfort she creates. Sibblies Drury brings thorough intellectualism balanced with emotional timbre to her artistic expression. The judges are honored to illuminate her work with this award. We hope that she continues to open doors to colorful worlds, inviting the theater-goers of America to the realities—and the challenges—of a polycultural reality.