Industry Honors: Ming Cho Lee, Terrence McNally Awards, and Other Recognitions

From left to right: Ming Cho Lee Award recipient Wendall K. Harrington, 2026 Terrance McNally Prize winner playwright AZ Espinoza.

Awards

October 1, 2026 American Theatre Editors Leave a comment

Ming Cho Lee Award, Terrence McNally Award, and More

A roundup of prizes, fellowships, and other recognitions.

By American Theatre Editors

NEW YORK CITY: Projections designer Wendall K. Harrington will be honored with the Ming Cho Lee Award for Lifetime Achievement in Design. Harrington is known for her work on the original Broadway production of The Who’s Tommy , as well as productions on and Off-Broadway like The Heidi Chronicles , The Will Rogers Follies , Fires in the Mirror , Racing Demon , Hapgood , the original Broadway production of Ragtime , Amy’s View , Putting It Together , Grey Gardens , the Signature Theatre revival of Angels in America , Old Hats , and All the Way . Harrington’s past awards include the Henry Hewes Design Award, a special Tony honor, Knights of Illumination Lifetime Recognition Award, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, American Theatre Wing, TCI Award, Michael Merritt Award, an Obie Award, USITT Education Award, and Players Club Person of the Year. Past honorees of this award include set designer Ming Cho Lee , who was the inaugural recipient, lighting designer Jenifer Tipton, and lighting designer Beverly Emmons. The award will be presented on Oct. 19 at a luncheon in New York.

NEW YORK CITY: The American Playwriting Foundation has announced its finalists and semifinalists of the 2026 Relentless Award. The American Playwriting Foundation grants the country’s largest prize for unproduced plays, the $65,000 Relentless Award, founded in memory of Philip Seymour Hoffman. Led by artistic director David Bar Katz and literary manager and artistic producer Anna O’Donoghue, with a team of artistic advisors and annual Relentless Award selection committees, the foundation identifies and uplifts the writers who will define theatre’s next chapter.

The 2026 Relentless Award semifinalists are IJU by Abigail C. Onwunali, MELINDA/Melissa/melody by Sarah Galante, Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus by Max Koh, and Harm Reduction by Elizabeth Irwin. The 2026 Relentless Award finalists are Gottesfehler by william o’neal ii, and Nazi Mind by Regan Moro.

The Relentless Award began in 2015. The award’s first recipients were Clare Barron’s Dance Nation and Sarah DeLappe’s The Wolves , both of which were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.

PHILADELPHIA: The Terrence McNally Foundation has announced AZ Espinoza as the recipient of the 2026 Terrence McNally Award for their play Caribbean King . Presented biennially, the award honors the life and legacy of Tony-winning playwright, librettist, and LGBTQ+ trailblazer Terrence McNally while supporting a promising early-career playwright based in Philadelphia. Espinoza was selected from nearly 100 submissions, the most in the award’s history.

AZ Espinoza (they/he) is an Afro-futurist trans-masculine feminist making magic with theatre. Espinoza’s full-length plays have been produced and supported by Azuka Theatre, National New Play Network, Black Spatial Relics, and the Four Seasons Playwriting Residency. Their performance work has been featured and supported by SubCircle Residency, the LongShot Comedy Series, and the Leah Stein Dance Company. His directing credits include work at Ursinus College, Passage Theatre, Delaware Shakespeare, Philadelphia Artists’ Collective, and more. Espinoza is a 2025 Queer Art Fellow and a 2026 inaugural Flamboyance Award winner as a boundary breaker for Caribbean King . A proud theatre educator, AZ has worked most recently Ursinus College and Drexel University.

The Terrence McNally Award provides the selected playwright with a $10,000 cash prize, dramaturgical support, access to PTC’s artistic network, and career development opportunities. PTC plans to workshop the winning play and present a public reading with professional actors and a director in spring 2027, with details to be announced. Past winners include MK Tuomanen and Martin Zimmerman.

SEATTLE, WASH : The Sheri and Les Biller Family Foundation announced 14 recipients of their annual Social Impact Theatre Grant Program . Since 2011, the program has provided production support for theatres in Western states who are seen to be igniting positive changes in their communities through the programming engaging their audiences around the critical issues at the forefront of the national discourse. These productions were selected for their commitment to bringing different viewpoints together on challenging subjects, reaching new audiences, and partnering with organizations, community members, and subject matter experts to help amplify their production’s impact.

This year’s Social Impact Theatre Grant Program awardees include:

- Artists Repertory Theatre , Eulogy, or How to Plan Your Own Funeral (and have fun doing it!)

- Berkeley Repertory Theatre , Meet the Cartozians

- Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company , Liberation

- Denver Center for the Performing Arts , And So We Walked

- Diversionary Theatre , Take Me Out

- IAMA Theatre Company , What We Leave Behind

- Latino Theater Company , Speaking in Tongues

- Pasadena Playhouse, Real Women Have Curves: The Musical

- Perseverance Theatre , Gaslight

- Portland Playhouse , Simply Simone, The Music of Nina Simone

- San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company , Every Saturday Night

- Seattle Children’s Theatre , I’ll Be Your Superhero

- South Coast Repertory , Blind Runner

- Z Space Studio , Wildfire

The Social Impact Theatre Grant Program supports theatres throughout Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington state, with 501(c)(3) status, at least two years of operating history, and annual revenue of at least $1 million. The next cycle will open in May 2027.

NEW YORK CITY: The cell has announced its new artists-in-residence for 2027-28 season. The cell’s artist-in-residence program is for playwrights, composers, theatrical designers, choreographers, and interdisciplinary artists who are developing new and experimental work. This year the cell has committed to 22 new projects with more than 27 resident artists for the 2027-28 cycle. The cohort includes Deepa Purohit, Nancy Sun, Rebecca Salzhauer, Rosie Glen-Lambert, Petron Dee Brown, Salwa Meghjee, Adin Lenehan, Eliyah Smith, Lila Blue, Regan Moro, Spencer T. Campbell, Theresa Buchheister, Piper Hill, Mizuho Kappa, Drew Woodson, Preston Crowder, Miles Purinton, Allison Frasca, Benjamin Benne, Phoebe Farber, Kate Kremmer, Chloe Claudel, Mitchell Polonsky, Kerrigan Quenemoen, Cori Diaz, reid tang, Dominic Finocchiaro, and Erika Ji.

Grantees receive a stipend and a one- to five-week space grant at the cell, a multi-purpose art venue in the heart of Chelsea. The staff at the cell offers each AIR a suite of services including creative development, dramaturgy, casting assistance, technical support to execute theatrical designs, administrative services, 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsorship, marketing, ticketing, videography, and photographic documentation. Projects range from full ticketed events to closed workshops.

NEW YORK CITY: El Musical has announced the four musicals selected to receive its inaugural 2026 Seed Grants, an initiative created to discover, develop, and champion new musicals by Latine creators. The selected projects are:

- Joseph Rosario and Gabriel Diego Hernandez’s On the Line , recounting an actor’s experience caught between identity and ambition.

- Joe Montoya and Chris Rivera’s Our Own Odyssey: An Epic Remixed , in which a Bronx teen must survive a journey in which every stranger could be a savior or a monster.

- Jenna Cox-Hadley’s Wait for Her , about a driven young woman who must confront her past to reclaim her future.

- Erlina Ortiz and Robi Hager’s Siluetas, A New Musical , following two immigrant women from different worlds discovering a shared home through love and forgiveness.

The four recipients were selected following an extensive evaluation process involving artistic directors, producers, theatre professionals, and members of El Musical’s Advisory Committee. The inaugural national call attracted 50 original musical submissions, representing a broad range of voices, musical styles, cultural experiences, and approaches to contemporary musical theatre. Each project will receive $2,500 to support its continued development, along with professional mentorship, access to rehearsal space, networking opportunities, and participation in future El Musical readings, showcases, presentations, and special events.

AKRON, OHIO: The National Center for Choreography–Akron (NCCAkron) has received a $500,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation in honor of executive/artistic director Christy Bolingbroke’s decade of visionary leadership. Established in 2015, NCCAkron is one of only two national centers for choreography in the U.S. Nationally recognized for redefining support for dance artists and thought leaders, NCCAkron has worked with 800-plus choreographers and arts leaders from 100 U.S. cities as they strive to shape the future of the art form. This support from the Mellon Foundation will ground NCCAkron’s work supporting dance artists and the dance field at large, while the organization continues to imagine its next decade.

Further Reading

Sun Valley Resident Playwright, Sloan Commissions, Princess Grace Awards, and More

_Originally reported by [American Theatre](https://www.americantheatre.org/2026/10/01/ming-cho-lee-award-terrence-mcnally-award-and-more/)._