STATETEN ISLAND Nina Kissinger has been named the 2025 Stanley Drama Award winner by the N.Y. Wagner College Theatre for her provocative dark comedy This is Government.
The play, which is set in the middle of a crisis in the U.S. government, explores the experiences of three interns who are placed under lockdown while they deal with the mayhem of governmental dysfunction and their own concerns about influence and power.
The Stanley Drama Award was created in 1957 by Alma Guyon Timolat Stanley, a philanthropist from Staten Island, and is funded by the Stanley-Timolat Foundation. Its purpose is to inspire and assist aspiring writers.
The award, which is given out by the Wagner College Theatre program, comes with a cash payout as well as a noteworthy legacy. Recipients join the ranks of previous honorees, including Jonathan Larson, Lonne Elder III, Adrienne Kennedy, and Terrence McNally.
Will Arbery, Jaclyn Backhaus, and Benjamin Marshall judged the competition’s final round. A renowned panel, consisting of Emily Barth, Theresa McCarthy, and other Wagner College Theatre members, assessed the competition’s earlier rounds.
The award presentation is scheduled for Saturday, March 1, 2025, at 6:30 p.m. at The Players in New York City. Members of the Wagner Theatre community will perform a brief scene from the winning play, which was directed by Professor Mickey Tennenbaum of Wagner College Theatre.
Everyone Is Doing Fine, a fast-paced comedy-drama directed by James Odin Wade, came in first runner-up. Emma Schillage’s Cockroaches came in second, correct? (Sources: Wagenr College Theatre, Wagner College Theatre, and others)
The winning play This is Government ‘
This is Government by Nina Kissinger explores power and its constraints in a darkly humorous way. Three summer interns must deal with the situation while eating fewer and fewer snacks and beginning to question their place in an unreliable system when a bomb threat shuts down congressional facilities.
Notable festivals and contests have included the play, such as the 2023 Ashland New Plays Festival and the 2024 Valdez Theatre Conference.
Kissinger is a San Francisco-born playwright who now resides in Brooklyn. His notable body of work includes the plays “The Exit Interview” and “Sorry We’re Open.” She studied under Julie Marie Myatt and Laura Schellhardt at Northwestern University. Visit her website atninakissinger.com to learn more.
The runners-up
James Odin Wade’s fast-paced comedy-drama Everyone Is Doing Fine, which follows two art school grads as they navigate the intersection of art, business, and relationships after starting work for a wealthy hedge fund manager, came in first runner-up.
Wade is a well-known playwright from Calgary, Alberta, whose plays have won awards from the Austin Film Festival and the Alberta Playwriting Competition.
The Southern Gothic dark comedy Cockroaches, written by Emma Schillage, came in second runner-up. It follows three sisters as they battle with their mother’s declining mental health and the terrifying things that lurk in their Southern home. The drama, which draws inspiration from Metamorphosis, examines resiliency, familial ties, and the atrocities of Deep South childhood.
The Eugene O. Neill National Playwrights Conference and the Del Shores Foundation have praised Schillage’s work, which combines themes of whimsy and horror and is based in New York and New Orleans.
Wagner College, located on Grymes Hill, has one of the best theater departments in the country, according to the Princeton Review. (The Advance of Staten Island)Advance of Staten Island
About Wagner College Theatre
Wagner College Theatre is regularly ranked as one of the best programs in the country by the Princeton Review, and its alumni include such notable artists as Emma Pittman (18), Janine LaManna (88), Randy Graff (76), and Kathy Brier (97).
Visit https://wagner.edu/performing-arts/ to learn more about the season, faculty, students, and ticketing. Follow @wagnercollegetheatre on Instagram.
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