New Dramatists Will Honor Suzan-Lori Parks With 2023 Distinguished Achievement Award

New Dramatists will honor Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and New Dramatists alumna Suzan-Lori Parks with its 2023 Distinguished Achievement Award at its 71st Annual Spring Luncheon Tribute on Tuesday, May 30.

The luncheon will return to the New York Marriott Marquis (1535 Broadway, between 45th and 46th Streets), and will begin with a champagne reception at 11:15AM and end promptly at 2:30PM.

Tickets are $450, or $4000 for a table of 10 seats (a portion of which is tax-deductible). For tickets and information, visit NewDramatists.org/luncheon or contact Sofie Wasserman-Smith at (646) 381-4694, sofiewasserman-smith@newdramatists.org.

The 2023 New Dramatists Luncheon will be co-chaired by Tony Award winner, Kenny Leon, director of Parks' recent revival of Topdog/Underdog, and Tony Award winner, previous New Dramatists honoree, and New Dramatists board member, George C. Wolfe, who also directed Parks' production of Topdog/Underdog when it first debuted at The Public and on Broadway in 2001.

This year's New Dramatists Spring Luncheon marks the return of a Broadway Community tradition, the first since the pandemic struck in 2020.

"Suzan-Lori Parks is a generation-defining playwright," says Emily Morse, Artistic Director of New Dramatists. "With depth, vibrant poetry and truth, Suzan-Lori invites us into her singular theatrical worlds and spins our notions of American history with vivid and complex perspectives. She creates human events on stage that leave an indelible mark, and it's a privilege to those who love the theatre to witness and experience her sheer and continual brilliance."

"I am equally thrilled and humbled to receive this honor from an organization whose dedicated work and mission I cherish so much," says Suzan-Lori Parks. "Supporting writers and amplifying new voices is more important now than ever, and I am deeply grateful to the New Dramatists for this recognition."

Suzan-Lori Parks is the first African-American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. Other honors include the MacArthur Genius Grant, the Gish Prize for Excellence in the Arts, and she was recently inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame. In addition to the 20th Anniversary Broadway revival of Topdog/Underdog, Parks' most recent world premieres include Plays for the Plague Year (Public Theater), Sally & Tom (Guthrie Theater) and the upcoming musical adaptation of The Harder They Come (Public Theater). Her other works includes The Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (Tony Award for Best Revival), 365 Days/365 Plays, Father Comes Home from the Wars (Part 1, 2 & 3), f-ing A, Unchain My Heart: The Ray Charles Musical, and In the Blood. Parks also works extensively in film and television, most recently as the screenwriter for The United States vs. Billie Holiday and Genius: Aretha as creator, writer, and showrunner. Her novel Getting Mother's Body is published by Random House, and in her spare time, she writes songs and fronts her band Sula & The Noise. She is a former writing student of James Baldwin. Parks is an alum of New Dramatists and of Mount Holyoke College.