Michel Hausmann & Miami New Drama to Receive Wilder Prize

Michel Hausmann

The Thornton Wilder Society will present its annual Thornton Wilder Prize to Michel Hausmann and the company he co-founded Miami New Drama at a ceremony in NYC on Monday, November 14, it has been announced by Tappan Wilder, Thornton Wilder’s nephew and literary executor, and Jackson R. Bryer, president of the Thornton Wilder Society.  Mr. Hausmann is artistic director of Miami New Drama; the award to the company will be accepted by the troupe’s Board President David Scharlin.

The event at the American Academy of Arts and Letters will be highlighted with an onstage dialogue about Miami New Drama’s multilingual production of Wilder’s OUR TOWN, along with Wilder’s life, career and enduring popularity worldwide between Mr. Hausmann, the playwright Sarah Ruhl and Tappan Wilder, moderated by author, journalist and Wilder buff Jeremy McCarter. 

Our Town at Miami New Drama (2017). Pictured here is Keith Randolph Smith as the Stage Manager. Photo by Stian Roenning.

Mr. Hausmann’s troupe is the resident theater company at the Colony Theatre in Miami Beach, where he has also begun a popular educational program along with online programming that has made Miami New Drama’s work accessible to people around the world.  Under Hausmann’s leadership, Miami New Drama produced the first-ever trilingual production – in Spanish, Haitian Creole and English – of Thornton Wilder’s classic drama, OUR TOWN.

Tappan Wilder notes, “My uncle once said in exasperation to a reporter trying to tie him down to a specific place, 'Young man, [Grover’s Corners] is everyone’s home town.'   It’s an honor for all of us associated with The Thornton Wilder Society to honor a gifted director and his theater which, through an inspired trilingual production of Our Town, celebrates the “everywhere” address on this planet where we all grow up, love, live and die.”

Cover of the multilingual Our Town, published by Concord Theatricals.

Sarah Ruhl, whose newest work BECKY NURSE OF SALEM is presently in rehearsals for its NY premiere at Lincoln Center Theater this season, has written the introduction to Theatre Communications Guild’s new edition of Thornton Wilder’s LONG CHRISTMAS RIDE DINNER AND OTHER PLAYS.    Jeremy McCarter is co-author of the books HAMILTON: THE REVOLUTION with Lin-Manuel Miranda, and YOUNG RADICALS, and has written about culture and politics for New York Magazine, Newsweek and The New York Times.

The Thornton Wilder Society supports efforts which expand the literary legacy of Thornton Wilder and encourages projects which emphasize the timeless importance of his literature and drama to world culture.  The Society twice a year publishes the Thornton Wilder Journal and periodically presents a prize to artists who reflect the values espoused by Wilder.  Past recipients: Russell Banks, Robert MacNeill, Rocco Landesman, Paula Vogel and Donald Margulies.