Reading of top prize–winning ‘Angel’s Share’ set for May 25, open to the public
The Echo Theater Company is pleased to announce the winners of the company’s 2024 New Play Competition. In first place, winning a $1000 cash prize plus travel and housing to attend rehearsals and a public reading, is Dominic Finocchiaro with Angel’s Share. The reading, directed by Echo associate artistic director Elana Luo and featuring Carter Calahan, Joy DeMichelle, Jenny Soo and Timothy Wright, will take place on Sunday, May 25 at 1 p.m. at Atwater Village Theatre. Admission is open to the public, with a suggested donation of $10.
The second place prize of $500 and a rehearsed online reading went to Boni B.Alvarez for his play The Cathedral, and playwright Chelsea Sutton is the recipient of the third place $250 honorarium and note session with literary agent Beth Blickers for her play The Dead Woman.
Finocchiaro’s Angel’s Share is a “speculative fiction” exploring grief, love and family. Mom and Dad’s son has died. His name was Steve. Stephen, on the other hand, is not Mom and Dad’s son — yet a tiny implant might allow the boundary between Steve and Stephen to dissolve. But what’s lost along the way? Is a person more than just their memories?
Finocchiaro is a Brooklyn-based playwright whose writing has been produced and developed around the country, including with Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Civilians, Clubbed Thumb, Echo Theater Company, Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, Flea Theater, Kennedy Center, National New Play Network, New Group, PlayPenn, Portland Center Stage and the Roundabout Theatre, among others. He is a MacDowell (x3), Marble House and UCross Fellow. He is a graduate of Reed College (BA), Columbia University (MFA), and the Juilliard School (Lila Acheson Wallace Fellow). His play The Found Dog Ribbon Dance was published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc. and is available for purchase online, and his play how it feels to fall from the sky will have its world premiere in January, 2026 at Centre Stage in Greenville, South Carolina. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Theater and Performance at the Graduate Center-CUNY
The 2024 New Play Competition drew over 300 submissions. The prize committee included literary agent Blickers; 59E59 Theaters artistic director Val Day; former Center Theatre Group associate artistic director Neel Keller; The Playwrights Realm associate artistic director Alexis Williams; and award-winning playwright Guy Zimmerman.
Founded in 1997, the Echo Theater Company has gained a reputation for producing and developing exhilarating new work. Under the artistic leadership of Chris Fields, the company has championed playwrights for more than a quarter century, producing and commissioning numerous world premieres and introducing Los Angeles to playwrights David Lindsay-Abaire, Adam Rapp and Sarah Ruhl among others.
The Echo has won countless Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, Ovation, LA Weekly and Stage Raw awards, and is frequently cited on end-of-the-year “Best of Lists” including by the Los Angeles Times and NPR affiliate KCRW 89.9 FM. The company was anointed “Best Bet for Ballsy Original Plays” by the LA Weekly and was a recipient of a “Kilroy Cake Drop” to honor its efforts to produce women and trans writers. KCRW declared that “Echo Theater Company is on a fierce journey,” and Los Angeles Times theater critic Charles McNulty wrote, “Artistic directors of theaters of all sizes would be wise to follow the [lead] of the Echo’s Chris Fields, who [is] building audience communities eager for the challenge of path-breaking plays.”
In 2023, the Echo was honored with the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle’s prestigious Margaret Harford Award for Excellence in Theatre. Last season’s productions of Dido of Idaho by Abby Rosebrock and Clarkston by Samuel D. Hunter each garnered numerous awards and were named to multiple end-of-year “Best of 2024” lists.
For more information, go to echotheatercompany.com/new-play-competition.