Audrey Webb Wins the Judith Barlow Prize

Congratulations to Audrey Webb (pictured left), winner of the Judith Barlow Prize! The prize, offered by the non-profit organization History Matters/Back to the Future, consists of $2,500 cash award plus a public reading at the legendary Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City.

Audrey, a M.F.A. student in the theatre program for dramatic writing, started her career at Texas State as a publications writer for the Office of University Marketing. She decided to take advantage of the educational opportunities on campus and earned her B.A. in English in 2014. A radio play she wrote for a playwriting course was eventually produced by Shoestring Radio Theatre in San Francisco. She began her graduate studies in literature, but switched gears to pursue her true passion — playwrighting. Over the course of her studies, she has had short plays produced in New York City and in Houston and was named a semi-finalist in the prestigious Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference for one of her full-length plays (Imagine That, which will be produced by the Department of Theatre and Dance in October 2018).

Certainly, one of the biggest highlights of her academic and writing career has been receiving the Judith Barlow Prize. As part of her application, Audrey wrote a one-act play in response to a script written by an historic female playwright, inspired by Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. Her play, The Only Hills We’ve Ever Had, focuses on the dreams of a mother for her college-bound boy and her attempts to help him escape the snares of the housing project in which they live.

She is tremendously grateful to the organizers of the Judith Barlow Prize for this chance to have her voice heard and to be introduced to the theatrical community there. Her goal after graduation is to write as much as possible, whether for stage, television, or film — which she feels well-prepared for given the rigorous education she’s received in her master’s program.

Congratulations, Audrey — we can’t wait to see what’s next!