Past Productions Include Pulitzer Prize-winning Primary Trust and Hamilton

New York, NY – Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for theatre, is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2025 Edgerton Foundation New Play Awards. The awards, totaling $783,000, allow 16 productions extra time for the development and rehearsal of new plays with the entire creative team, hoping to extend the life of the world premiere play after its first run.

 

Over the last 19 years, the Edgerton Foundation has awarded $19,670,534 to 569 productions, leading to nearly 1,600 subsequent productions at TCG Member Theatres following their world premieres. Forty-three have made it to Broadway, including Skeleton Crew, Paradise Square, Curtains, 13, Next to Normal, 33 Variations, In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), Time Stands Still, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, A Free Man of Color, Good People, Chinglish, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Bronx Bombers, Casa Valentina, Outside Mullingar, All the Way, Eclipsed, Bright Star, Hamilton, The Columnist, In Transit, A Doll's House Part 2, Indecent, Dear Evan Hansen, Oslo, Escape to Margaritaville, The Prom, JUNK: The Golden Age of Debt, SUMMER: The Donna Summer Musical, Head Over Heels, Cost of Living, English, Prayer for the French Republic, McNeal, and The Constituent.

 

Twenty-one plays have been nominated for Tony Awards, with All the Way, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, and Oslo winning Best Play or Best Musical. Sixteen plays have been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, with wins for Primary Trust (2024), English (2023), The Hot Wing King (2021), Cost of Living (2018), Hamilton (2016), The Flick (2014), Water by the Spoonful (2012), and Next to Normal (2010).

 

“Each year, the Edgerton Foundation’s support shines a bright light on new play development,” said LaTeshia Ellerson, TCG’s Co-Executive Director of National Engagement. “By giving playwrights, directors, and their collaborators more time to experiment and refine, these awards ensure that the transformative stories can take root and thrive beyond their premieres.”

The 2025 Edgerton Foundation New Play Awards were presented to:

“National Theatre in America is extremely grateful to the Edgerton Foundation for selecting The Land of the Living as a recipient of their New Play Awards,” remarked Kirsten Hughes, Executive Director National Theatre in America. “This support was so important in giving the creative team the time and freedom they needed to fully realize their collective vision and stage this powerful story. We are thankful for Edgerton Foundation’s ongoing support that enables the development of exciting new work.”

 

“I’m so grateful to the Edgerton Foundation for their support of Liz Duffy Adams’s play Dear Alien. Getting an additional week of rehearsal on a new play makes a tremendous difference. In Dear Alien, the titular role (played by Resident Acting Company Member Dylan Godwin) is on stage the entire show, and it is going to be quite a challenge. Supporting new plays is incredibly important for the health of the American theatre,” said Rob Melrose, Artistic Director of Alley Theatre. “Four years ago, Alley Theatre premiered Liz’s play Born with Teeth, and it is currently having a run on the West End after gracing the stages of major theatres in the U.S. such as the Guthrie, Asolo Rep, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Supporting new plays makes a real difference, and I deeply appreciate the Edgerton award.”

 

The Edgerton Foundation New Plays Program, directed by Brad and Louise Edgerton, was piloted in 2006 with Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles by offering two musicals in development an extended rehearsal period for the entire creative team, including the playwrights. The Edgertons launched the program nationally in 2007 and have supported 569 plays to date at over 50 different Art Theatres across the country. 

 

Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for theatre, leads for a just and thriving theatre ecology. Since its founding in 1961, TCG’s constituency has grown from a handful of groundbreaking theatres to over 750 organizations (including member theatres, affiliates, universities) and over 3,000 individual members. Through its programs and services, TCG reaches over one million students, audience members, and theatre professionals each year. TCG offers networking and knowledge-building opportunities through research, communications, and events, including the annual TCG National Conference, one of the largest nationwide gatherings of theatre people; awards grants and scholarships to theatre companies and individual artists; advocates on the federal level; and through the Global Theater Initiative, TCG's partnership with the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, serves as the U.S. Center of the International Theatre Institute. TCG is North America’s largest independent trade publisher of dramatic literature, with 21 Pulitzer Prizes for Drama on the TCG booklist. It also publishes the award-winning American Theatre magazine and ARTSEARCH®, the essential source for a career in the arts. TCG believes its vision of “a better world for theatre, and a better world because of theatre” can be achieved through individual and collective action, adaptive and responsive leadership, and equitable representation in all areas of practice. TCG is led by Co-Executive Directors, Emilya Cachapero, LaTeshia Ellerson, and Alisha Tonsic.