The Stanley Drama Award
2026 Stanley Drama Award Winner Announced
Wagner College Theatre is excited to announce that James Still is the winner of the 2026 Stanley Drama Award for, HAUNT ME. As fiction and reality blur onstage, HAUNT ME becomes a surreal, compassionate exploration of identity, memory, and creation, revealing that the most terrifying story may be one’s own life. Best-selling horror writer Ellery du Trent begins to vanish into the very novel she’s writing, aided—and increasingly manipulated—by an ambitious AI assistant named MUSE.
The first runner-up is NETTA & RU by Lisa Langford, and the second runner-up is THE HENRY CLYDE CANNING MURDER HOUSE by Christian Missonak. The award ceremony will take place at The Players in New York City on Saturday, February 28, 2026, at 6:30 PM. The event will feature a short scene from the winning play, directed by Professor Mickey Tennenbaum and performed by members of the Wagner College Theatre community.
Applications for the 2026 Stanley Drama Award are now closed.
Please follow us for the announcement of the 2026 SDA winner and for when application open for the 2027 Stanley Drama Award.
Thank you to all who have submitted their work.
Our esteemed panel of judges will determine the winner and finalists, to be announced in the Spring. Applicants are now welcome to submit their application online. The required reading fee of $32.00 can be paid online. Once the fee has been paid, please email stanleydramaaward@wagner.edu with a pdf copy of your completed application form, your manuscript, and a confirmation of payment for your reading fee. In the case of musicals, please also include digital links to the music. The deadline for submissions is September 1, 2025.Â
Click here for the entry form.
The Stanley Drama Award offers a first place prize of $2000 for an original full-length play, musical, or one-act play sequence that has not been professionally produced or received trade book publication. Writers of musicals are urged to submit music via digital link. We consider only one submission (a single full-length play, musical, or one-act sequence) per playwright. Plays entered previously in the competition may not be resubmitted. Former Stanley Drama Award winners are not eligible to compete. Â
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.
Congratulations to our 2026 Stanley Drama Award Winner
James Still for HAUNT ME
James Still's plays have been widely produced throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia, South Africa, China, and Japan. He is a four-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, and five-time Emmy nominee for his work in television. Recognitions include the Otis Guernsey New Voices Award from the William Inge Festival, the Todd McNerney New Play Prize from Piccolo Spoleto, the Indiana Authors Award for Drama, and the American Alliance for Theatre & Education Distinguished Play Award. His work has been developed and workshopped at Sundance, the New Harmony Project, Seven Devils, Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference, Colorado New Play Summit, the Lark, Launch Pad at UC-Santa Barbara, Telluride Playwright’s Festival, New Visions/New Voices, and Fresh Ink in Minneapolis. He is an elected member of both the National Theatre Conference and the College of Fellows of the American Theatre. James grew up in a tiny town in Kansas and proudly calls Los Angeles home.
Lisa Langford for Nettu & Ru
Christian Missonak for The Henry Clyde Canning Murder House