AWARDS & ASSOCIATIONS
“But I want to say one thing; I would love for this little prize to be a token for every person who is wondering, ‘should I be trying to make something that could work on Broadway or that could win me a Tony Award? Or should I be making the weird art that is haunting me? That frightens me, that I don’t know how to make, that I don’t know if anyone in the whole world will understand?’ “Please let me standing here be a little sign to you from the universe to make the weird art.”
– Deirdre O’Connell Tony Award Winner for Best Lead Actress in a Play
PROFESSIONAL AWARDS AND ASSOCIATIONS (selected)
| Pittsburgh Public Theatre – Playwrights Collective – Resident Playwright A 3-year residency established in 2020, to elevate playwrights with ties to the Pittsburgh region and increase the visibility of Pittsburgh’s past legacy and future potential as a home for extraordinary playwrights. Member writers meet every other week to hear one another’s work and to encourage each other’s progress through constructive feedback and collective effort. They also serve as ambassadors for Pittsburgh Public Theater by engaging in organizational events and sharing resources. | 2024 |
| Young Playwright’s Festival MVP: Director Award “For outstanding work in City Theatre’s Young Playwright’s Festival” | 2024 |
| The TYA Artistic Innovation Award “This award acknowledges artists that have demonstrated innovation in Theater for Young Audiences and honors vanguards of the field, pushing the genre forward.” The award was presented in a ceremony at the TYA national conference in Atlanta for “Buoyant Sea.” | 2024 |
| Winning Selection for the Madison New Works Lab at James Madison University This development residency included payment, housing, and travel expenses for a two weeks to develop “The President’s Pants” with a team of JMU students and professional artists. The play was then presented in two public staged readings. | 2023 |
| “Second Rounder” in the Austin Film Festival Stage Play Division Finalist selection for “Bloom.” Second Rounder status is given to the top 20% of scripts at the Austin Film Festival. This year a total of almost 11,000 total scripts were submitted. | 2023 |
| Winning Selection for New Play Development Workshop with Association for Theatre in Higher Education “Helen At The Gym (Again)” was developed as a part of a one week residency and presented as a staged reading at the ATHE national conference in Austin, TX. | 2023 |
| Silver Ear Winner, Short Form Hear Me Out Monologue Competition With over 400 submissions worldwide, 13 writers were chosen as finalists for the Hear Me Out New American Monologue Competition. The finalists’ pieces were performed live (via Zoom) in front of an audience of nearly 300 people during the Labor Day Festival on September 6, 2021. Festival judges Gretchen Cryer, Gary Garrison, Christine Toy Johnson, Craig Lucas, Austin Pendleton, and Charlayne Woodard. | 2021 |
| Here Me Out Monologue Competition Judge for 2020 Nearly 400 writers from 43 U.S. States and countries throughout Europe, the Middle East and far away as New Zealand submitted their monologues. 60 judges formed the National Judges Circle including Julie Jensen, Kia Corthron, Kate Snodgrass, Doug Wright and Gary Garrison. | 2020 |
| National New Play Exchange Member The New Play Exchange, A National New Play Network Project, is the world’s largest digital library of scripts by living writers. The mission of the New Play Exchange is to provide an open egalitarian platform on which writers all over the world can share their work and and others can discover that work. | 2019 |
| Playwright Winner for “Helen at the Gym” Red Bull 8th Annual Short New Play Festival, Lucille Lortel Theatre, New York, NY. Published with Stage Rights. Red Bull Theater’s annual Short New Play Festival generates new short plays of classic themes and heightened language, presenting 6 winners each year, in a one-night only festival performance with some of New York’s finest actors and directors. In its first ten years, the commissioned playwrights have included Marcus Gardley, John Guare, Jeremy O. Harris, David Ives, Ellen McLaughlin, Dael Orlandersmith, Theresa Rebeck, Anne Washburn, Doug Wright. Stage Rights has published a 4-volume collection of the plays from the first 8 years of Red Bull Theater’s annual Short New Play Festival as RED BULL SHORTS. “Helen at the Gym” was staged between works by Tina Howe and Doug Wright. *Featured as the #1 pick by “OnTheStage” blog for “9 Easy-to-Stage Shows for Virtual Production” | 2018 |
| Dramatist Guild Member The Dramatists Guild of America is the national, professional membership trade association of theatre writers including playwrights, composers, lyricists, and librettists. | 2016 to Present |
| Nominated for the 2016 Carol R. Brown Creative Achievement Award – Emerging Artist, Pittsburgh The Carol R. Brown Creative Achievement Awards are jointly sponsored by The Pittsburgh Foundation and The Heinz Endowments as part of Investing in Professional Artists. Twenty-four nominees visual arts are submitted. | 2016 |
| New Hazlett Community Supported Art (CSA) Performance Series, Pittsburgh One of six artists chosen to represent the New Hazlett’s Community Supported Art Performance Series. The CSA Performance Series is a new model of a subscription series that supports local artists in the creation of new work and establishes new relationships with local patrons. Performing artists of many genres are selected through a competitive application process. | 2014 & 2015 |
| * Pittsburgh Magazine and PUMP 2013, 40 Under 40 Award Winner, Pittsburgh The 40 Under 40 Awards honor forty influential Pittsburgh individuals under the age of forty who are working to make Pittsburgh a more innovative, caring and socially conscious city. | 2013 |
| Artist in Residence at the New Hazlett Theater, Pittsburgh Artist in Residence at New Hazlett Theater whose mission is to cultivate the arts and provide and provide a venue for world-class cultural events. | 2013 & 2014 |
| Artist in Residence at the Center for the Arts in Society, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh Artist in Residence at CAS whose mission is to explore the role of arts in society – the place and impact of the arts both in the workings of social power and in processes of social change and the ways in which diverse forms of social and political engagement have shaped the history of the arts and might drive their transformation in the future. | 2010 & 2011 |
| Flight School Fellow 2011 with Pittsburgh Filmmakers and Creative Capital, Pittsburgh A member of the inaugural class of Flight School Fellows. The Flight School Fellowship is a prestigious opportunity for fifteen artists in the Pittsburgh region to form a fellowship with artists peers and advance their artists careers in a way that sustains and expands financial and strategic goals, while keeping their artwork as the central feature. | 2011 |
| International Wow Company member, New York, NY Former actor and theatre company member of Josh Fox’s International Wow Company, an award winning internationally recognized NYC Theatre Company. Josh Fox is the director of the Sundance Films GASLAND, GASLAND II, and How to Let Go of the World. | 2005 & 2006 |
Anya Martin 