Walt McGough's Advice for Astronauts Wins Inaugural Milken Playwriting Prize

Milken Community Schools is proud to announce that the inaugural Milken Playwriting Prize has been awarded to Walt McGough for his play Advice for Astronauts.

The biennial Milken Playwriting Prize was created to encourage the writing of plays to be performed by teenagers, and includes a $2,000 prize and a full production of the play in November at Milken Community Schools in Los Angeles. “Talented playwrights are becoming more aware of the need for large-cast plays that have a majority of female roles,” says the award’s Artistic Director, Robert Menna. “This is a wonderful opportunity for writers internationally to receive support and to work with teen actors.”

Advice for Astronauts was chosen through a selection process involving dozens of readers including theatre professionals as well as school faculty, staff, students and parents. For the next six months, playwright McGough will revise his play with support through readings at Milken and feedback from students and the director, in preparation for its premiere at Milken Community Schools in November, 2015. “Walt McGough’s characters are drawn to the mysteries of the universe and long for a deeper connection to the ones they love,” says Menna. “McGough writes with such a playful spirit, and his characters are often funny and tender in the same breath.”

Walt McGough is a Boston-based playwright (by way of Pittsburgh, Virginia and Chicago), and has held fellowships with both the Huntington and New Repertory Theatre Companies. His produced plays include The Farm, Priscilla Dreams the Answer, and Pattern of Life, all of which received Best New Play nominations from the Independent Reviewers of New England, as well as Chalk, Dante Dies!! (and then things get weird), The Haberdasher! (a tale of derring-do), and Paper City Phoenix. He has worked around the country with companies such as The Lark, the Huntington, Boston Playwrights Theatre, New Rep, Fresh Ink, Sideshow Theatre Company, Orfeo Group, Nu Sass Productions, Chicago Dramatists, and Argos Productions. He is a founding ensemble member of Chicago’s Sideshow Theatre Company, serves on the staff at SpeakEasy Stage Company in Boston, and was previously the Company Manager at Chicago Dramatists. He holds a BA from the University of Virginia, and an MFA in Playwriting from Boston University.

What is the Milken Playwriting Prize?

The Milken Playwriting Prize is a biennial international theatre prize for plays that are written for teen actors to perform. The prize is $2,000, with a play development process culminating in a full production at Milken Community Schools. The goal is to encourage skilled playwrights and authors to write extraordinary plays that are suited to teen actors: shorter plays with large casts and more roles for females. Most playwrights today are focused on writing small cast shows for theatres although many opportunities exist for high school productions throughout the English-speaking world.

Learn more at www.milkenschool.org/playprize

About Milken Community Schools

Milken Community Schools is one of the largest Jewish, independent, co-educational schools in the country. Serving grades 7-12, Milken is a place of rigorous academic exploration and intellectual inquiry built on a foundation of spiritual and ethical practice, developing students with sharp minds, generous hearts, and kind souls. The school’s 10-acre campus is located in the Santa Monica Mountains along the Mulholland Corridor.