The 2018 contest has concluded. Please check back in September for information on the 2019 contest.
The 2018 contest has concluded. Please check back in September for information on the 2019 contest.
The Jane Chambers Award
The Jane Chambers Team Proudly Celebrated our 40th Anniversary with the 2024 winners (see below for their information), and we are taking this historical moment to honor WTP, ATHE and a grassroots network of volunteers who have given their expertise, talent and time to serve the award. During our ten and twenty years, respectively of stewarding the Prize, we have sought to create alternate pipelines of adjudication, reception, teaching and production. Given the shifting tectonics of the fields (both professional and academic) we have decided to mark this milestone by taking a pause with the contest at least through the coming academic year 25-26 as we revisit our mission, reflect on the current model, and gather resources for a sustainable future. We will post updates as we have them. Thank you ALL for your continued support of the Jane Chambers Award.
Sincerely, Jen-Scott Mobley (East Carolina University) Maya Roth (Georgetown University)
Celebrating
40 Years
in 2024!!!
"The Jane Chambers Prize for Feminist Playwriting has had an outsized impact on the field and artists lives, contributing to more astute reception, and increased production, of myriad of women and genderqueer writers for the stage." ~Maya E. Roth
​
To read the ATHE newsletter article celebrating 40 years of the Jane Chambers Award, CLICK HERE.
THE JANE CHAMBERS AWARD recognizes new plays and performance texts created by women writers which present a feminist perspective and that provide significant opportunities for female performers. This annual award, founded in 1984, welcomes experimentations in form and in subject matter. It is given in memory of lesbian playwright Jane Chambers, who through her plays such as A Late Snow, My Blue Heaven, Last Summer at Bluefish Cove, and Kudzu became a major feminist voice in American theater. Sponsored by the Women and Theatre Program with the Association for Theater in Higher Education, the contest understands feminism to cross an array of class, sex, race, national, ethnic, theatrical, and/or geographic perspectives. The Jane Chambers Contest winner receives $1000 and a rehearsed reading at ATHE’s annual summer conference, where she is recognized at ATHE's Awards Ceremony.
​
Read more about Jane Chambers and her work at JaneChambers.org.
As is stated above, our Jane Chambers competition is on pause at this time. If you are interested in submitting for this award, please check back in the future for more information.
Watch this space for future submission info!
Contact our Jane Chambers coordinators Jennifer-Scott Mobley and Maya Roth with questions.
Jane Chambers Award for Excellence in Feminist Playwriting
​
2024 WINNER:
​​
shadow/land by Erika Dickerson-Despenza
​
RUNNERS UP:
​
Beautiful Blessed Child by Daria Miyeko Marinelli
The Words of Ants by Xiaoyan Kang
​
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
​
Amma’s Wit by Sandra A. Daley-Sharif
Traces of Desire by Lina Patel
​
This year we had a record number of submissions--450-- read across 4 rounds of adjudication by 36 readers across the country. Thank you to all of our readers and Congratulations and Kudos to our winner, runners up and honorable mentions!
Previous Winners
Curation Notes for Winners and Honorable Mentions can be read by clicking on the year.
​
Winner: shadow/land by Erika Dickerson-Despenza
Winner: The Magician's Sister by Jami Brandli
Winner: Mama, I wish I were silver by Amanda L. Andrei
Winner: Peeling Oranges by Patty Kim Hamilton
Winner: How We Survived by Pauline David-Sax
Winner: In the Cervix of Others by Alice Eve Cohen
​
Winner: Queens by Martyna Majok
Winner: Never Not Once by Carey Crim
Winner: No Candy by Emma Staunton
Winner: Roe by Lisa Loomer
Winner: Femmes by Gina Young
Winner: Full/Self by Claire Chafee
Winner: Still by Jen Silverman
Winner: Mud Offerings by Natalie Marlena Goodnow
Winner: A Live Dress by Martha Jane Kaufman
Winner: The Siegels of Montauk by Meryl Cohn
Winner: Unspeakable Acts by Mary F. Casey
Winner: Trojan Barbie: A Car-Crash Encounter with Euripides' Trojan Women by Christine Evans
*In 2006, 25 years after the Contest was announced, WTP celebrated the Jane Chambers Award by honoring the legacy of Jane Chambers directly with a full production of one of Chambers’ best-known plays, Last Summer at Bluefish Cove —presented by Chicago’s About Face Theatre at the ATHE Conference. All entries submitted during that year were considered in the following year’s pool, when the Contest resumed with renewed focus.
2006
2005
Jane Chambers Celebration Year: Last Summer at Bluefish Cove
Winner: Carried by the Current by Nicola Pearson