2017 Pulitzer Prizes: Nottage wins for drama, New Yorker theater critic Hilton Als for criticism

2017 Pulitzer Prizes: Nottage wins for drama, New Yorker theater critic Hilton Als for criticism

April 10 — Announced today: Lynn Nottage’s play “Sweat,” about the American working class, was awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for drama (ATCA’s Wendy Rosenfield served on the drama jury). But the more unusual news is that New Yorker critic  Hilton Als won the prize for criticism, only the second theater critic ever to win the award, first given in 1970. (The NY Times’ Walter Kerr won in 1978; Margo Jefferson won in 1995, the year before she became the Times theater critic.)

The Pulitzer jury cited Als “for bold and original reviews that strove to put stage dramas within a real-world cultural context, particularly the shifting landscape of gender, sexuality, and race.” He previously (2002-3) won the other major prize open to American theater critics, the George Jean Nathan Award. More about Als here.