Two 2012 Pulitzers Worth Mentioning - Drama and Feature Writing

2012 Pulitzer Prize - Drama and Feature Writing

Drama

Beating out Jon Robin Baitz's Other Desert Cities now playing on Broadway and Stephen Sons of the Prophet, which played last year at the Laura Pels Theatre, the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for drama was awarded to Quiara Alegría Hudes' Water by the Spoonful last week. According to the Pulitzer website:

For a distinguished play by an American author, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000).

Awarded to "Water by the Spoonful," by Quiara Alegría Hudes, an imaginative play about the search for meaning by a returning Iraq war veteran working in a sandwich shop in his hometown of Philadelphia.

Water by the Spoonful has not played on the New York City stage; it premiered in Hartford last year. I've joked in the past that there is no reason to leave NYC to see good theater but I guess in this case, I was wrong. Or perhaps not since I'm sure that the play will be mounted in NYC now that it has won a Pulitzer.

Ms. Hudes who is from Philly also wrote the book for In the Heights which played on Broadway from March 2008 to January 2011 and is currently working on a musical adaptation of the luscious book - Like Water for Chocolate.

Feature Writing

Last year, after Norbert Leo Butz dedicated his Tony award to his sister Teresa Butz, I became curious what happened to his sister and was horrified to learn of the double rape of Teresa Butz and her partner Jennifer Hopper and tragic murder of Teresa Butz in Seattle. See my original post here and follow up about the related murder conviction here.

Eli Sanders associate editor wrote and published a feature The Bravest Woman in Seattle in The Stranger in June 2011. For this piece, which fills me with fear, sadness and anger as I reread it, he won a Pulitzer. According to the Pulitzer website: 

For a distinguished example of feature writing giving prime consideration to quality of writing, originality and concision, using any available journalistic tool, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000).

 Awarded to Eli Sanders of The Stranger, a Seattle (Wash.) weekly, for his haunting story of a woman who survived a brutal attack that took the life of her partner, using the woman’s brave courtroom testimony and the details of the crime to construct a moving narrative.