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Announcing the 2010 VSA Playwright Discovery Award Recipient

picture of Laura Hogikyan
Playwright Laura Hogikyan

VSA is pleased to announce the recipient of the 2010 Playwright Discovery Award, The Marionette Effect by Laura Hogikyan of Superior Township, Michigan. The Marionette Effect tells the story of a young woman who is unable to play the piano the way she used to after a having a stroke. The Marionette Effect will be performed as part of the VSA Playwright Discovery Evening on September 30 and October 1, 2010.

Laura Hogikyan, age 17, recently graduated from Greenhills School in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and will attend Harvard University this fall. She has received numerous awards for her writing, including the grand prize in the 2006 Michigan Young Playwrights Festival and two honorable mentions in the 2009 Nancy Thorpe National Poetry Contest. Her work has been published in the University of Michigan’s Armistice magazine and in the Iowa Young Writers Anthology, and she served as a student theater reviewer for annarbor.com.

picture of Ethan Silverman and Jack Hofsiss
Ethan Silverman, playwright and director of Jack From Above, and Jack Hofsiss.
Photo Morgan McGivern/The East Hampton Star.

The 2010 Playwright Discovery Evening will be a special double bill event. In addition to The Marionette Effect, VSA will also present the play Jack From Above. For more than 20 years, VSA’s Playwright Discovery Artists Selection Committee has been chaired by Jack Hofsiss, the youngest person at the time to receive the Tony Award® for Best Director (The Elephant Man, 1979). Jack From Above is a one-man show performed by Hofsiss that chronicles his experiences after a diving accident in 1985. The play is a tale of life, love, art, the human body, and the human spirit that is both harrowing and hilarious. Jack From Above is written and directed by Ethan Silverman.

VSA will present The Marionette Effect and Jack From Above at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, September 30, and Friday, October 1, 2010, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets to this event are free with reservations. For ticket reservations, please e-mail Artist Services Coordinator Liza Key at EFKey@vsarts.org. Include the number of tickets requested, the name under which the tickets should be held at the will call table, and any accessibility requests.