Prize Recipients
Department of Theatre 2021-2022 Awards
Kenneth Janes Award: Kate Purdum BC ‘22
Austin E. Quigley Award: Camilla Cox CC ‘22, Kay Kemp CC ‘22
Dasha Amsterdam Epstein Awards in Honor of Patricia Denison
Acting: Estee Dechtman, BC ‘22
“Dechtman’s meticulously crafted stage performances, paired with her serious dedication to the practice of the craft of acting, witness a wider commitment to the artistic work of making the theatrical event.”
Lecturer Gisela Cardenas, Acting
Design and Production: Maya Weed, CC ‘22
“Maya Weed demonstrates a remarkable capacity for weaving together the nuances of a text and the contributions of a creative team while gracefully navigating the constraints of time, space and sustainability, to create evocative and powerful designs.”
Associate Professor of Professional Practice Sandra Goldmark, Design
Directing: Celia Krefter CC’22
“Krefter’s directing work, especially in her thesis production of The Sonic Life of a Giant Tortoise, displays deeply felt moment-to-moment work, dynamic choreography, and unified design.”
Associate Professor of Professional Practice Alice Reagan, Directing
Dramaturgy: Kristoff Smith CC ‘22
"Smith's 'trans dramaturgy' enables its audiences to think politically through codifying cultural signifiers (mediated image, body, and language) and ethically with the performers’ bodies on stage; it emerges as an urgent transformative force, strengthening the decolonizing, non-binary, paradigm shift in contemporary theatre."
Associate Professor Hana Worthen, Theatre and Performance Studies, Dramaturgy
Playwriting: Hongfei Xian GS ‘22
“Fei Xian’s play, When Particles Resonate finds a unique theatrical form to tell a unique and utterly idiosyncratic love story, exquisitely using bth dramatic language and the language of science to bridge the gaps between nearness and distance, between the ordinary and the sublime.”
Adjunct Lecturer Andy Bragen, Playwriting
Theory, Criticism, and Research: Rivka Keshen BC ‘22
“Written for the Performing Women course, Keshen’s essay ‘The Change in Women’s Narratives in Kumidori through the Occupation of Okinawa,’ combines dense historical research, play analysis, and original archival materials. It traces the inherently political work of a traditional Japanese musical theatre form performed for the entertainment of Chinese diplomats, particularly staging the ‘interplay between the real-world violence against women at the hands of the military and the staged narratives presented to these same officials.’”
Senior Lecturer Shayoni Mitra, Theatre and Performance Studies
Joseph Milton Fee Award in Playwriting: Hongfei Xian GS ‘22, When Particles Resonate
Barnard College Department of Theatre Kenneth Janes Award: Brianna Johnson BC ‘21
Columbia College Austin E. Quigley Award: Joel Meyers CC ‘21
Joseph Milton Fee, Jr. Award in Playwriting: Phanesia Pharel BC ‘21
Dasha Amsterdam Epstein Awards in Honor of Patricia Denison
Acting: Eliza Ducnuigeen BC ‘21
Design and Production: Anna Pettit CC ‘21
Directing: Perry Parsons BC ‘21
Dramaturgy: Jaclyn Stroud BC ‘21
Playwriting: Adam Glusker CC ’21, Kay Kemp CC ‘22
Theory, Criticism, and Research: Kathy Fang CC ‘24
Barnard College Department of Theatre Kenneth Janes Award: Maggie Vlietstra
Columbia College Austin E. Quigley Award: Haoqi Xia and Selina Jiawen Zheng
Joseph Milton Fee, Jr. Award in Playwriting: Kay Kemp
Dasha Amsterdam Epstein Awards in Honor of Patricia Denison
Acting: Devin Hammond
Directing: Margot Gage
Design and Production: Ilana Lupkin
Theory, Criticism, and Research: Anastasia Iliadi Alexiou and Nicole Leon Elvir
Playwriting: Louisa Melcher and Viviana Prado-Nuñez