Pulitzer Prizes, Special Tonys, and Other Major Recognitions Celebrated

Adina Verson, Irene Sofia Lucio, Audrey Corsa, Susannah Flood, Betsy Aidem, and Kristolyn Lloyd in "Liberation" at the Roundabout Theatre Company's Laura Pels Theatre. (Photo by Joan Marcus)

Awards

May 5, 2026 American Theatre Editors Leave a comment

Pulitzers, Special Tonys, ATCA/Steinberg Award, and More

A roundup of prizes, fellowships, and other recognitions.

By American Theatre Editors

NEW YORK CITY: Bess Wohl’s Liberation has won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Drama . This year’s finalists are Bowl EP by Nazareth Hassan and Meet the Cartozians by Talene Monahan (to be published in the Summer issue of American Theatre ). In the announcement, the judges praised Wohl for her “striking blend of comedy and sincerity” in exploring the legacy of the consciousness-raising feminist groups of the 1970s. In this play, Wohl uses her mother’s story to “demonstrate how the movement grew out of conversation, and that anyone experiencing the play has joined the discussion.”

Following a 2025 Off-Broadway run at Roundabout Theatre Company’s Laura Pels Theatre , the Broadway production of Liberation , directed by Whitney White, ran at the James Earl Jones Theatre from Oct. 8, 2025 to Feb. 1, 2026. In the 2026-27 season, L.A.’s Geffen Playhouse , Berkeley, Calif’s Berkeley Repertory Theatre , and Washington, D.C.’s Studio Theatre will present a three-city co-production of Liberation . Additional awards for Liberation include a GLAAD award and a 2026 Dramatists Guild award (featured later in this roundup), and was a Susan Smith Blackburn Prize finalist.

Wohl’s work has been produced on and Off-Broadway, regionally, and internationally, including Barcelona, Grand Horizons, Camp Siegfried, Small Mouth Sounds , and Pretty Filthy . She is the Judith Champion fellow at Manhattan Theatre Club .

This year’s Drama jury included chair Helen Shaw, chief theatre critic at The New York Times ; Pulitzer-winning playwrights Quiara Alegría Hudes and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins; Charles McNulty, theatre critic for The Los Angeles Times ; and Harvey Young, dean in the College of Fine Arts at Boston University.

NEW YORK CITY: Along with Tony Award nominations announced today, the 2026 winners of Special Tony Awards for lifetime achievement were revealed. They include longtime Lincoln Center Theater producing artistic director André Bishop, legendary playwright and director James Lapine, and Broadway lighting designer Jules Fisher. Bishop stepped down in 2025 after 10 years as producing artistic director and over 30 years at Lincoln Center that included 15 Tony-winning productions, the expansion of the center to create a third stage (LCT3) and educational and community programs. Lapine is known for his collaborations with Stephen Sondheim and William Finn, and has won Tonys for writing the book for Into the Woods , Falsettos , and Passion . Fisher is the founding principal of theatrical design planning company Fisher Dachs Associates and has lit over 300 Broadway productions in his career, garnering 24 Tony nominations and nine wins.

NEW YORK CITY: Playwright and multidisciplinary theatre artist Zach Barr has won the 2026 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award for their play The Pilon , which had its world premiere at Chicago’s Red Theater in fall 2025. The award comes with a $25,000 honorarium. The Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award recognizes an outstanding script premiering in a professional production of a play outside of New York City. The 2026 awards presentation was held on May 2 during the Pacific Playwrights Festival hosted by South Coast Repertory .

Two 2026 Steinberg/ATCA citations were also presented to Berlin by Mickle Maher, produced by Court Theatre in Chicago, and Things With Friends by Kristoffer Diaz, produced by American Blues Theater in Chicago. Each citation carries a $7,500 cash prize. ATCA also presented the 2026 M. Elizabeth Osborn Award for emerging playwrights to Noa Gardner for The Staircase , which premiered at South Coast Rep. The Osborn Award comes with a $3,000 cash prize.

NEW YORK CITY: The 2026 Lucille Lortel Awards, produced by the Off-Broadway League and Lucille Lortel Theatre , were presented in a ceremony on May 3 at NYU Skirball, hosted by Alex Moffat. Big winners of the night included Jordan Tannahill’s Prince Faggot at Playwrights Horizons and Soho Rep , which won for Best Play, and Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson’s Mexodus , presented by Audible Theater and P3 Productions , which won for Best Musical. Mexodus was the most winning show of the night, with four wins, which also included director David Mendizábal, lead performer Nygel D. Robinson, and sound designer Mikhail Fiksel. The revival of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at New World Stages won for Best Revival, and Mona Pirnot’s I’m Assuming You Know David Greenspan , performed by David Greenspan, at Atlantic Theater Company won for Best Solo Performance.

Performers honored also included Aigner Mizzelle in The Monsters at Manhattan Theatre Club for lead performer in a play, David Turner in Mother Russia at Signature Theatre for featured performer in a play, Nick Rashad Burroughs in Goddess at the Public Theater for featured performer in a musical, and the ensemble of Night Side Songs at LCT3 : Robin de Jesús, Brooke Ishibashi, Jonathan Raviv, Kris Saint-Louis, and Mary Testa. Design awards included Miriam Buether’s scenic design for Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp. at the Public Theater, Qween Jean’s costume design for Saturday Church at New York Theatre Workshop , Cha See’s lighting design for The Unknown at Studio Seaview , and John Narun’s projection design for Bughouse at Vineyard Theatre .

Special honorees this year include Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Mia Katigbak, performer and founder of the National Asian American Theatre Company , whose honor was presented by Francis Jue; and legendary composer and lyricist William Finn, who was posthumously inducted onto the famed Playwrights’ Sidewalk with a tribute performance featuring collaborators Carolee Carmello, Lilli Cooper, Mary Testa, and Chip Zien, and presented by David Stone and James Lapine. George Forbes won the first Paul Libin Leadership Award, a new honor recognizing a member of the Off-Broadway League who exemplifies extraordinary leadership over the course of a distinguished career or through a singular moment of impact, mentorship, and service to the Off-Broadway community.

NEW YORK CITY: The New York Drama Critics’ Circle has named Samuel D. Hunter’s Little Bear Ridge Road as the best play of the 2025-26 season. No award was given for best musical. Performers who were recognized included Alden Ehrenreich of Becky Shaw for best individual performance, and the cast of Death of a Salesman for best ensemble performance. Special citations were awarded to Lincoln Center Theater ’s revival of Ragtime , Wallace Shawn and André Gregory for career achievement, and Qween Jean for the costume design of Cats: The Jellicle Ball , Liberation , and Saturday Church . The awards, which will be presented in a private ceremony on May 7, include a cash prize of $2,500 for best play, made possible by a grant from the Lucille Lortel Foundation .

NEW YORK CITY: The Dramatists Guild of America has announced its 2026 awards. Playwright and filmmaker Bess Wohl won the Hull-Warriner Award for Liberation . The Hull-Warriner Award honors a writer of a play or musical dealing with controversial subjects involving the political, religious, or social mores of the times. Finalists were Kimberly Belflower for John Proctor Is the Villain ; Joshua Harmon for We Had a World ; Branden Jacobs-Jenkins for Purpose ; and Benjamin Velez, Joy Huerta, Lisa Loomer, and Nell Benjamin for Real Women Have Curves .

Victor I. Cazares received the Dramatists Guild’s Lanford Wilson Award, established by the estate of Lanford Wilson and given to a dramatist based on their work as an early career or emerging playwright, who the DG Awards Committee feels is onto something artistically, and for whom such an award can be transformative. Cazares is a playwright whose works include The Dead Women of J-Town & Smiley , american (tele)visions , Ramses contra los monstruos , and We Were Eight Years in Powder .

Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, and producer Joy Huerta and Tony-nominated composer and lyricist Benjamin Velez ( Real Women Have Curves, The Tempest, Kiss My Aztec , Borderline ) received the Frederick Loewe Award for their score for Real Women Have Curves . This award is funded by the Frederick Loewe Foundation and recognizes achievement in a theatrical score from the previous calendar year.

Kimber Lee received the Horton Foote Playwriting Award, funded by the Richenthal Foundation and presented to a dramatist whose work seeks to plumb the ineffable nature of being human. Lee’s plays include the water palace, to the yellow house, untitled fck mss s**gon play, saturday, tokyo fish story, brownsville song (b-side for tray), and different words for the same thing .

Lisa Kron was honored with the Flora Roberts Award, presented to a theatre professional in recognition of distinguished work. Kron is a playwright and performer known for writing the book and lyrics for Fun Home , which won five Tonys. Other works include Well, 2.5 Minute Ride, The Ver**zon Play , and In the Wake . A founding member of the Five Lesbian Brothers, Kron has also been recognized with Guggenheim, Sundance, and MacDowell fellowships.

Migdalia Cruz received the Dramatists Guild Lifetime Achievement Award for her theatrical writing. Cruz is a Bronx-born writer, lyricist, translator, educator, and librettist. Her plays include Miriam’s Flowers, FUR, Lolita de Lares, FRIDA , and El Grito Del Bronx .

The DLDF Defender Award was presented to University of Central Oklahoma BFA theatre performance majors Maggie Marie Lawson and Liberty Welch. They were recognized for their advocacy on behalf of artistic freedom after their university cancelled Boy My Greatness by Zoe Senese-Grossberg, which they intended to direct as a student production. In response, they took the production into their own hands, raising money, licensing the play, and presenting it independently, turning a moment of censorship into an act of resistance.

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI: Kansas City Repertory Theatre , Four Directions Playwright Residency for Native and Indigenous playwrights, Tofte Lake Center , Tulsa Artist Fellowship , and Great Plains Theatre Commons have jointly announced that Dillon Chitto has been selected as the fourth recipient of the 2026-27 Four Directions Playwright Residency. Chitto is a Mississippi Choctaw, Laguna, and Isleta Pueblo playwright originally from Santa Fe, New Mexico, who recently worked with Steppenwolf Theatre Company , Goodman Theatre , Perseverance Theatre , Santa Fe Playhouse , Ground Floor Theatre , Native Voices at the Autry , Alternative Theater Ensemble , and No Peeking Theatre . The Four Directions Playwright Residency is a multi-site initiative that champions Native and Indigenous playwrights who have advanced beyond the beginning stage of their career. Rooted in the belief that story-making is both an artistic craft and a community act, this program spans roughly a year, offering the playwright four one-week residencies at each partner institution and culminating in a public reading/workshop at KCRep. The playwright is selected by Native playwright Mary Kathryn Nagle and alumni.

NEW YORK CITY: The Drama League and their partner companies have announced the 25 stage directors who will receive the 2026 fellowships, assistantships, residencies, and exchange opportunities collectively known as The Directors Project . Selected from over 1,100 applicants worldwide, the recipients are Adrian Alea, Tatiana Baccari, Liz Carlson, Juliana Morales Carreño, Bronwen Carson, Melissa Crespo, Pria Dahiya, Liz Fisher, Alex Keegan, Emilia Lirman, Felicia Lobo, Rory

_Originally reported by [American Theatre](https://www.americantheatre.org/2026/05/05/pulitzers-special-tonys-atca-steinberg-award-and-more/)._