Vassar Quarterly - Summer 2018 - 32

BEYOND VASSAR

Tony
News!
Ethan Slater '14, the breakout star
of SpongeBob SquarePants: The
Broadway Musical, won the 2018
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding
Actor in a Musical for his Broadway
portrayal of the infectiously upbeat
lead character. He also earned a
nomination for a Tony Award for
Best Performance by a Leading Actor
in a Musical. The musical received
12 nominations in all, winning in the
category of Best Scenic Design of
a Musical. (See the Spring 2018

The audiobook and podcast company Audible is trying something new. It is
producing a series of short audio plays with no more than two characters-
literary bites that can be consumed in one sitting. And it has commissioned
15 up-and-coming playwrights-chosen for their "unique stories, distinct
styles, and diverse perspectives"-to create them.
Playwright Chisa Hutchinson '02 is among the first recipients of funding
from the company's $5 million Emerging Playwright Fund. Hutchinson's play
She Like Girls, which focuses on a budding romance between two teenage girls,
earned her a GLAAD award in the Off-Off Broadway category in 2010. She is
also the recipient of the Lilly Award (2010), which honors women in American
theater, and the Dramatists Guild's Lanford Wilson Award (2015), which
acknowledges talented playwrights early in their careers.
She holds a BA in dramatic arts from Vassar and an MFA in playwriting
from New York University. Her work has been presented at such venues as the
National Black Theater and Second Stage Theater in New York City. She is a
former staff writer for Blue Man Group.
32

SuMMEr 2018

and his co-star Lilli Cooper '12.)
Jason Blum '91 was a producer
on two Tony-nominated plays-The
Iceman Cometh by Eugene O'Neill
and Three Tall Women by Edward
Albee. The dramas earned eight
and six nominations, respectively.

Seth Freeman / Joan Marcus

Kudos to Playwright
Chisa Hutchinson '02

edition of VQ for a profile of Slater



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Vassar Quarterly - Summer 2018

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