History

The Stanley Drama Award was established in 1957 by Staten Island philanthropist Alma Guyon Timolat Stanley and endowed through the Stanley-Timolat Foundation to encourage and support aspiring playwrights. The national Stanley Award competition is administered by the Wagner College Theatre program, listed for the last decade among the top five college theater programs in the country in the Princeton Review’s annual Best Colleges Guide. The award carries with it a monetary prize along with the distinction of joining the illustrious list of past Stanley Award winners.

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.

Visit our online Newsroom for a complete history of the Stanley Drama Awards, including profiles of winning playwrights and synopses of winning plays. You will find the complete history here.

2024 Competition Suspended
2023 The Magician’s Sister, Jami Brandli
2022 Marilyn, Mom and Me, Luke Yankee
2021 Competition Suspended due to Covid-19
2020 Truth Be Told, William Cameron
2019 Some Other Verse, Carl L. Williams
2018 Incident at Willow Creek, Benjamin V. Marshall
2017 The Showman and the Spirit, Elisabeth Karlin
2016 Bad Hearts, Mike Bencivenga
2015 The Good Bet, Bob Clyman
2014 Out of Orbit, Jennifer Maisel
2013 The Return of Tartuffe, Brian Mulholland
2012 The Perfect Wife, Karen L. Lewis
2011 Eyes Forward, Philip Gerson
2010 The Restoration of Sight, Richard Martin Hirsch
2009 Memory Fragments, Sam Wallin
2008 Stray, Ruth McKee
2007 Guided Tour, Peter Snoad
2006 Farmers of Men, Richard Aellen
2005 Mother, May I, Dylan Brody
2004 Be Our Joys, Joseph Zaitchik
2003 Skin of a Lawyer, Richard Kalinoski
2002 How High the Moon, Timothy Jay Smith
2001 The Pagans, Ann Noble (Massey) — winning play prev. listed as And Neither Have I Wings to Fly (wr. 1995)
2000 Shadow Plays, Frank Basloe
1999 Flight, music by James Scully; book by Steve and Elise Seyfried
1998 Gone Astray, Jennie Staniloff Redling
1997 The Job, Shem Bitterman
1996 Cold War Comedy, Thomas S. Hischak
1995 No award on record
1994 Tierra Del Fuego, Robert Alan Ford
1993 Rent, Jonathan Larson
1992 Boca, Christopher Kyle
1991 Planet of the Mutagens, Mary Fengar Gail
1990 Beast, Susan Arnout Smith
1989 Washington Square Moves, Matthew Witten
1988 Norm Rex, Phil Atlakson
1987 no decision made, all finalists carried over to following year
1986 Cue the Violins, David Graham Richmond
1985 Interstates, Daniel A. Dervin
1984 The Mountains of Arafat, Geoffrey Brown
1983 Cafe Con Leche, Gloria Gonzalez
1982 Jonas, Billy Bly
1981 Sissy and the Baby Jesus, Barbara Allan Hite
1980 Private Opening, Norman Wexler
1979 The Stag at Eve, Robert Riche
1978 Cutting Away, Barry Knower
1977 Past Tense, Jack Zeman
1976 A Safe Place, Carol Klein Mack
1975 Jonathan! A musical play in two acts suggested by characters in the novel “Jonathan Wild,” by Henry Fielding; book & lyrics by Alan Riefe; music by Robert Haymes
1974 Son of the Last Mule Dealer, Gus Weill
1973 Carnivori, C. Richard Gillespie
1972 Fortune Teller Man, Marvin Denicoff
1971 Obtuse Triangle: A Romantic Comedy in Two Acts, Bernard “Ben” Rosa
1970 Three Sons (Of Sons & Brothers), Richard Lortz
1969 A Happy New Year to the Whole World Except Alexander Graham Bell, Bernard Sabath
Two one-acts: The Club and The Little Gentleman, Yale Udoff
1968 Bag of Flies, Venable Herndon
1967 The Prize in the Crackerjack Box, William Parchman
1966 To Become a Man, Albert Zuckerman
1965 Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, Lonne Elder III 
1964 Hothouse, Megan Terry
Thompson, Joseph Baldwin
1963 Funnyhouse of a Negro and The Owl Answers, Adrienne Kennedy 
1962 This Side of the Door, Terrence McNally
(later revision titled, “And Things That Go Bump in the Night”)
1961 La Loca (La Fiesta), Ernesto Fuentes
1960 The Busy Martyr, George Hitchcock
1959 The Apple Doesn’t Fall, Gene Radano
1958 Hear that Sweet Laughter (Published by Dramatists Play Service, 1961, as Clandestine on the Morning Line: A Play in Three Acts), Josh Greenfeld
1957 To Learn to Love, William I. Oliver