New York, NY – Six playwrights are the 2025 recipients of The New York Community Trust’s Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting.
The late theatrical agent Helen Merrill created a fund at The New York Community Trust in 1999 to help playwrights explore their unique visions without the burden of financial pressures. Since then, the Fund has made 115 awards totaling more than $2.6 million.
To honor Helen’s legacy of nurturing talent and help sustain the singular voices these playwrights bring to the theater, $35,000 awards went to Jonathan Payne, Lisa Sanaye Dring, Monet Hurst-Mendoza, Jennifer Kidwell, Rehana Mirza, and Ifeoluwa Olujobi.
“After damned near a decade of dreaming, planning, and making, I just opened a new piece. The uncanny timing of the Helen Merrill Award means that I have financial support to begin dreaming of the next project,” said Jennifer Kidwell, a 2025 recipient.
“After damned near a decade of dreaming, planning, and making, I just opened a new piece. The uncanny timing of the Helen Merrill Award means that I have financial support to begin dreaming of the next project.”
Previous awardees have subsequently received Pulitzer Prizes, Tony Awards, Obie Awards, and Guggenheim Fellowships, among other honors, with the award often serving as a springboard for their careers. Past winners include Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Michael R. Jackson, Taylor Mac, Qui Nguyen, Kristoffer Diaz, Jackie Sibblies Drury, and Lisa Kron.
“Thanks to the generosity of New York icons like Helen Merrill and an outstanding committee of theater leaders who have their fingers on the pulse of this industry, The New York Community Trust can make this vital investment in New York’s cultural landscape and support these distinctive voices,” said Craig T. Peterson, The Trust’s program director for arts, culture, and historic preservation.
The awards are unique for not having an application process or stipulations for the prize money. Each year, an advisory committee composed of theater professionals chooses awardees from writers in all phases of their careers. This year’s advisors include Lisa McNulty, Producing Artistic Director at WP Theater; Ralph B. Peña, Producing Artistic Director of Ma-Yi Theater Company; Niegel Smith, Executive Artistic Director of The Flea; Lloyd Suh, Playwright; and Moe Yousuf, President & CEO of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.
“In the wake of the 2023 writers’ strike, this award is a lifeline that will allow me the financial freedom to continue to pursue my art without worry.”
“As a Latina playwright who has worked in this industry for twenty years, it feels incredibly validating to be recognized alongside many talented artists I’ve long admired,” said Monet Hurst-Mendoza, a 2025 recipient. “In the wake of the 2023 writers’ strike, this award is a lifeline that will allow me the financial freedom to continue to pursue my art without worry.”
2025 Recipients
Jonathan Payne
Jonathan Payne has recently been invited for a residency at New Dramatists and has been a fellow at The Playwrights Realm, Dramatists Guild, and Ars Nova Play Group. In recent years, he’s received an Apollo Theater new work commission, a world premiere at Rattlestick Theater for a hybrid “choose your own adventure” theatrical game called Addressless, and his play A Human Being, of a Sort premiered at Williamstown Theatre Festival. His first big break was The Revolving Cycles Truly and Steadily Roll’d, which premiered Off-Broadway with Playwrights Realm. Honors include the Princess Grace Award, Holland New Voices Award, Rosa Parks Award, and John Cauble Short Play Award.
Lisa Sanaye Dring
Lisa Sanaye Dring is a writer and director from Hilo, Hawaii, and Reno, Nevada. Her play SUMO was produced by La Jolla Playhouse and Ma-Yi Theater Company in 2023 and by The Public with Ma-Yi in 2025. It was nominated for five Lortel Awards (including Outstanding New Play) and 3 Drama Desk Awards. They were the 2024 Tow Foundation Writer-in-Residence with Ma-Yi, and her play Kairos recently received a Rolling World Premiere with NNPN. Lisa has won an Edgerton Award, Broadway World Award, and a PLAY LA Stage Raw/Humanitas Prize. They’ve been a finalist for the Relentless Award, O’Neill Playwrights’ Conference twice, Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, and a three-time finalist (one honorable mention) for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Fellowships include MacDowell, Blue Mountain Center, and Yaddo. She received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Interactive Programming for co-writing and co-directing a project with Matt Hill.
Jennifer Kidwell
Jennifer Kidwell is a performing artist with a penchant for getting people to do things they never thought they’d do. Recent original projects – we come to collect: a flirtation, with capitalism (The Flea Theater/UTR Under Construction, Woolly Mammoth Weissberg Commission), Those With 2 Clocks (The Wilma Theater), Underground Railroad Game (2017 Obie Award for Best New American Theatre Work; 2018 Edinburgh Fringe First Award; Lucille Lortel, Helen Hayes nominations)
Currently collaborating with Chef Laquanda Dobson on Givingthanks and with Ars Nova Workshop/Immanuel Wilkins on Recess
Recent performances – The Welkin (Atlantic Theater Co.), Ocean Filibuster (PearlDamour), Eternal Life Part 1, Fat Ham (2021 film) and Antigone (The Wilma Theater), Syllabus for Black Love (jaamil olawole kosoko), Home (Geoff Sobelle; 2018 Bessie Award), Adrienne Truscott’s Still Asking for It (Joe’s Pub), Superterranean, Fire Burns Hot: Little Reno!, I Promised Myself to Live Faster and 99 Break-Ups (Pig Iron Theatre Company). Published in “Black Body Amnesia” and movement research Performance Journal #45, and at hyperallergic.com. 2020 Visiting Artist Duke University, 2021 Visiting Artist UPenn. 2013 TCG/Fox Resident Actor Fellowship, 2015, 2021 Leeway Foundation Art & Change Grant, 2016 Pew Fellow, 2017 Independence Fellowship, 2020 Ruthie Award & Hodder Fund Grant, 2023 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grantee.
Monet Hurst-Mendoza
Monet Hurst-Mendoza is a NYC-based playwright and TV writer from Los Angeles. Her plays have been developed with The Alley Theater, WP Theater, Sol Project, Latinx Playwrights Circle, Rising Circle Theater Collective, Astoria Performing Arts Center, The Flea, Westport Country Playhouse, and Long Wharf Theatre. Monet is an alum of the Emerging Writers Group at The Public Theater, R&D Group at The Civilians, Fresh Ground Pepper’s Playground Playgroup, WP Theater Playwrights Lab, and the Van Lier Fellowship at New Dramatists. She has been an artist-in-residence at New Harmony Project, The Watermill Center, MacDowell, Millay Arts, La MaMa Umbria, Stillwright, The MITTEN Lab, and SPACE on Ryder Farm, where she currently serves as a board member. Monet is part of the 2025 WGAE Showrunner Academy and was a writer/producer for seasons 21-24 of “Law and Order: SVU” (3 Imagen Awards, MWA’s Edgar Allan Poe Award – Best Teleplay nomination). Remezcla has profiled her as one of “Eight of the Most Exciting Latino Playwrights Making Work Right Now.” She is a NYSCA grantee and a proud member of The Kilroys, The Dramatist Guild, and WGAE.
Rehana Lew Mirza
Rehana Lew Mirza’s plays and musicals include: Hatef*ck (First Floor, WP/Colt Coeur); That Girl with composer/lyricist Ari Afsar (Berkeley Rep Ground Floor, O’Neill Music Theater Conference); Bhangra Nation (originally Bhangin’ It) with co-bookwriter Mike Lew and composer/lyricist Sam Willmott (Birmingham Rep, LJP, Rodgers Award, Orchard Project, Rhinebeck, and Springboard); Neighborhood Watch (NNPN/InterAct commission, Jackalope Theatre); A People’s Guide to History in the Time of Here and Now (Primary Stages Toulmin commission); Soldier X (Ma-Yi); Tomorrow, Inshallah (Living Room Theater; Storyworks/HuffPost commission); and Barriers (Desipina, Asian American Theater Company.) She shares a Kleban Award and a 2016-2022 Mellon Foundation National Playwright residency administered in partnership with Howlround at Ma-Yi with Mike Lew. Additional honors include: WP Resident Playwright, NYFA Fellow, HBO Access Fellow, Lilly Award (Stacey Mindich “Go Write A Play”), CCTP Residency, Colt Coeur member, and a TCG Fellowship. MFA: Columbia; BFA: Tisch.
Ife Olujobi
Ife Olujobi is a Brooklyn-based Nigerian American playwright, filmmaker, and editor from Columbia, Maryland. She is a member of Youngblood/EST, and was a member of Play Group at Ars Nova, a New Voices Fellow at The Lark, an alumnus of the 2018-19 Emerging Writers Group at the Public Theater and the 2020 Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, is the recipient of a 2021 Steinberg Playwright Award, and was an inaugural Project Number One artist-in-residence at Soho Rep. Their play Jordans was produced by the Public Theater and won a special commendation from the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and a 2025 Obie Award. Her work has also been seen at the Bushwick Starr, HERE Arts Center, Manhattan Theatre Club, and more. She was a Creatives Rebuild New York artist-in-residence at the Public Theater, and is the recipient of the inaugural Advocacy Award from the Dramatists Guild for her work organizing in the service of pay transparency and pay equity for playwrights. They conceived and edited the interview book No Play and are the managing editor of The Supplements book series at Soho Rep.
