Bruce Norris’s play Clybourne Park has added the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama to its list of accolades.
The comedy about race relations and property wars in suburban America played at the Royal Court in September 2010 before transferring to the Wyndham’s theatre, where it is currently running. American playwright Norris has already picked up Best New Play at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards, the Critics Circle Theatre Awards, the South Bank Sky Arts Theatre Award and the Olivier Awards with Mastercard.
The 2011 Pulitzer Prizes were announced yesterday at Columbia University in New York. The drama prize, which comes with a $10,000 reward, is given to “a distinguished play by an American author, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life”. Clybourne Park was cited as “a powerful work whose memorable characters speak in witty and perceptive ways to America’s sometimes toxic struggle with race and class consciousness”.
Norris’s play beat off competition in the drama prize from Lisa D’Amour’s Detroit and John Guare’s A Free Man Of Color.
Among the judges for the drama prize was Lynn Nottage, winner in 2009 for her play Ruined.
Speaking at the recent Olivier Awards with Mastercard, playwright Norris said of his play’s success: “We did the play in New York first and it was very, very successful critically but we didn’t win any awards. They paid for me to come to the Evening Standard Awards, and then it started happening and I was stunned, shocked.”
Clybourne Park is currently booking at the Wyndham’s theatre to 7 May.
CB