The William Inge Center for the Arts recently announced that playwright Carlyle Brown has been selected to receive the William Inge Distinguished Achievement in the American Theatre Award at the 37th annual Inge Theatre Festival in May of 2018.
Mr. Brown is founder, artistic director, playwright, and performer for the Minneapolis-based theatre Carlyle Brown and Company, created in 2002 to support the development of artists whose diversity ranges across cultural and ethnic boundaries.
Mr. Brown is the recipient of numerous playwriting fellowships from a variety of organizations, including the National Endowment for the Arts, the McKnight Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trust, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. His plays include A Big Blue Nail, The Pool Room, Yellow Moon Rising, and Down in Mississippi, among others. His best-known work, The African Company Presents Richard the Third, follows the travails of an African-American touring company staging the Shakespeare tragedy during the colonial age in New York City.
Inge Center for the Arts Artistic Director Eric Rutherford said of next year's honoree, “Carlyle Brown’s fascinating body of work is highly worthy as one of the outstanding achievements by contemporary American playwrights.” The New York Times describes Mr. Brown as “...one of America's more significant playwrights.”
The Inge Festival was founded at Independence Community College in 1981 for the purpose of honoring living American playwrights. In 2010, the Festival was designated the Official Theatre Festival of Kansas by the Kansas State Legislature.
