Six from NYU Win Kennedy Center College Theater Awards

By Richard Pierce

      Three students and three recent alumni from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development are among the award winners in the 41st Annual Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF).
      The students are Ismail Khalid (graduating senior in the Rita and Burton Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing at Tisch), James E. Webb Jr. (graduating doctoral candidate in educational theatre at Steinhardt), and Sam Willmott (graduating senior in music theory and composition at Steinhardt). The recent alumni, all from the Goldberg Department, are Antoinette Nwandu ’08, Chris Peña ’08, and Jaye Austin Williams ’08.
      The NYU honorees were singled out as part of the 2009 KCACTF Michael Kanin Playwriting Awards Program. Khalid won the Quest for Peace Playwriting Award for his play Tennis at Nablus, which was also runner-up for the Mark Twain Prize for Comic Playwriting.
      Nwandu was given the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, presented in memory of the distinguished dramatist for the outstanding student-written play on the subject of the African American experience, for Flat Sam. Mentioned for distinguished achievement in the same category were Webb for Black Widow and Williams for Ghosting.
      The KCACTF Award for Latino Playwriting went to Peña for maelstrom.
      Finally, the KCACTF Musical Theater Award (music and lyrics) went to Willmott for Standardized Testing – The Musical!!!!
      The KCACTF was established in 1969, and is dedicated to encouraging, recognizing, and celebrating the finest and most diverse work produced in college and university theater programs.