About the Stanley Drama Award

The Stanley Drama Award was established in 1957 by Staten Island philanthropist Alma Guyon Timolat Stanley and endowed through the Stanley-Timolat Foundation. The national Stanley Award competition is administered by the Wagner College Theatre program.

The Stanley Drama Award has a long and distinguished history. Past winners include Terrence McNally’s “This Side of the Door” (aka “Things That Go Bump in the Night”), Lonne Elder III’s “Ceremonies in Dark Old Men,” and Jonathan Larson’s “Rent.” Among those judging for the Stanley Award have been playwrights Edward Albee and Paul Zindel, actresses Geraldine Page and Kim Stanley, and TV producer/pioneer talk-show host David Susskind.

For more information about the Stanley Drama Award program, call Todd Price 718-420-4338, or e-mail him at todd.price@wagner.edu.

2013 Stanley Drama Award winner: Brian Mulholland’s ‘The Return of Tartuffe.’

He’s returned — that 17th-century con man whose delicious comic villainy has made him an audience favorite for over 300 years.  In this sequel to Molière’s comedy — written, like the original, in rhyming couplets — Tartuffe finds himself exiled to the American colonies, where he meets the target for his next swindle — the eminent author and theologian, Cotton Mather.  Tartuffe’s arrival coincides with the debate raging over the controversial concept of inoculation — a debate that Mather, a fierce proponent of the idea, is losing.  With one of his typical tall tales, Tartuffe swings the debate in Cotton’s favor, thus ingratiating himself and setting up Cotton as his mark.

Tartuffe also devises a unique seduction based on “inoculation theory,” while a family debate brews over the honesty of his intentions.  Traps are planned — and countered; tables are turned — and countered — and finally, turned again.  Will Tartuffe’s new and improved flim-flams carry the day?  Has the great exploiter of over-piousness found his feeding ground in the heart of the Puritan experiment?  Or will “righteousness” prevail?  This comic romp will have you guessing right up to the end.

Brian Mulholland’s previous experience in the theatre has been as an actor.  He has appeared in leading roles at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Montana Rep, Southwest Shakespeare Festival, Dartmouth Summer Repertory, and at Seattle’s Palace Theatre and Cirque Theatre, among others.  A California resident for over 25 years, he now lives in Cincinnati.  “The Return of Tartuffe” is Mr. Mulholland’s first play.

2013 Stanley Drama Award finalist: Harold Ellis Clark’s ‘Tour Detour.’

Set four months before the 2008 U.S. presidential election, U.S. Air Force Technical Sergeant/Explosive Ordnance Specialist Dakar Michalon, just prior to embarking on his fourth tour of duty in Afghanistan, visits his father who’s serving a life sentence at a Central Louisiana prison.  They haven’t seen each other in twenty-six years.

Harold Ellis Clark began writing plays in 2010 at the suggestion of a local New Orleans actor who was impressed with the dialogue in one of his unpublished novels.  Subsequently, Clark’s play, Marrero Action, debuted in March 2011 at the Anthony Bean Community Theater in New Orleans.

The play surrounds Kerwin Volcy, an American expatriate living in Paris, who returns to post-Katrina New Orleans due to his father, Carl Volcy, suffering a debilitating stroke.  Kerwin hates his father.  He blames Carl for causing the death of his mother.  Clark, who resides in Gretna, LA, adapted Marrero Action from his unpublished novel of the same name for which he was named one of eight finalists for the 2007 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Prize, sponsored annually by the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society.  His screenplay, Urban Realities, was made into a short 2000 film, starring Mykel Shannon Jenkins (ABC’s Ugly Betty; CBS’s The Bold and the Beautiful).

Fishers of Men, a play Clark adapted from his screenplay, The New Saints, debuted in June 2012 at Dillard University’s Cook Theatre in New Orleans.  The play focuses on Bishop James Perriloux, an ex-con and controversial pastor of a nondenominational mega-church in New Orleans, who sends men from his congregation into the city’s streets late at night to rescue lost souls.  His newest play is Tour Detour.   He’s currently editing a rough draft of another play, We Live Here.

Clark, for nearly ten years, has been host/producer of WYLD-FM’s Sunday Journal with Hal Clark, four-time winner of the “Best Radio Talk Show” award at the annual Press Club of New Orleans Excellence in Journalism Awards Competition Gala.  He also works as executive associate to the chancellor at Southern University at New Orleans.

2013 Stanley Drama Award finalist: Rob Winn Anderson’s ‘The Tenth Son.’

It is summer, 1722. The heat of the day pales in comparison to the turbulent relationship 16-year old Benjamin Franklin has with his older brother, James, and the intense passion he has found in the arms of a somewhat older, Mary Beekman.  When James attempts to restrain what he considers Ben’s growing arrogance, Ben, with Mary’s help, challenges him.  In doing so, Ben becomes embroiled in a battle of medicine, religion and political manipulations.  He must rely on all of his instincts to stealthily maneuver his way onto the pages of James’ newspaper, The New England Courant, stand toe-to-toe with an influential Puritan minister and outwit two men determined to stir the pot and control, not only the paper, but Boston as well.  Fall arrives and with it comes a glimpse into the man Benjamin Franklin is destined to become. And, as his life is turned upside down, Ben discovers that silence is no longer an effective tool and that in order to have a voice you must use your voice.

Rob Winn Anderson is a playwright and freelance director and choreographer living in Orlando, FL.   In addition to his writing and directing for the stage he is also a noted Theme Park director working for such clients as Walt Disney World, Busch Gardens and Sea World.  Upcoming productions: A Tennessee Walk - Southern Appalachian Repertory Theatre and Jacksonville State University; A Fine Line – Clockwise Theatre.  Additional honors include: The Tenth Son – Winner, 2012 Brian Christopher Wolk Award from the Abingdon Theatre, NYC and Finalist, 2013 Stanley Drama Award; A Tennessee Walk – Winner, 2011 SART ScriptFEST competition; 2012 Southern Playwrights competition; Finalist, 2009 Yale Drama Series Award; Semi-Finalist, Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference.  A Fine Line – Finalist, Lark Play Development Conference.  The Locker – Finalist, The Heideman Award from the Actors Theatre of Louisville.  Broad Strokes – Finalist, The O’Neil Theatre Center’s Music Theatre Conference (2011, 2002); Finalist, The New York Musical Theatre Festival.  Rob was one of four playwrights chosen worldwide to participate in the Atlantic Center for the Arts Residency in October of 2003 under Master Artist, Eric Bogosian.  He also is an alumni of the Lincoln Center’s Directors Lab, the Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive, Sewanee Writers’ Conference and the Great Plains Theatre Conference.

2013 Winner Brian Mulholland accepting award for ‘The Return of Tartuffe’

2013 Winner Brian Mulholland and playwright David Ives

Finalist Rob Winn Anderson accepting award for ‘The Tenth Son’

Finalist Harold Ellis Clark accepting award for ‘Tour Detour’

Playwright David Ives and finalist Rob Winn Anderson

Playwright David Ives accepting Wagner College Gift