The ''Sidney Howard Memorial Award'' was a notable but short-lived theater prize established in 1939 by the

Playwrights' Company The Playwrights Company (1938–1960) was an American theatrical production company. History Maxwell Anderson, S. N. Behrman, Sidney Howard, Elmer Rice, Robert E. Sherwood and John F. Wharton established The Playwrights Company in 1938 (incorpor ...

. It was designed to support new playwrights who had no notable successes but had shown promise. Among the awardees are

Robert Ardrey Robert Ardrey (October 16, 1908 – January 14, 1980) was an American playwright, screenwriter and science writer perhaps best known for ''The Territorial Imperative'' (1966). After a Broadway and Hollywood career, he returned to his academic tr ...

and

Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thre ...

Sidney Howard

Sidney Howard (1891-1939) was an American playwright and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1925 for his play They Knew What They Wanted, which was later adapted for the screen by the first Memorial Award winner,

. In 1932 he was nominated for an

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

for his adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel '' Arrowsmith'', and he was nominated again in 1936 for '' Dodsworth'', which he had adapted for the stage in 1934.Berg, A. Scott. ''Goldwyn: A Biography.'' New York: Riverhead, 1998. In 1940 he was awarded a posthumous

for the screenplay for '' Gone with the Wind''. During his career he wrote or adapted over seventy plays and eleven films. Sidney Howard was one of the founding members of the Playwrights' Company. Howard died in 1939 at the age of forty-eight. He was working on his farm in Massachusetts when he was accidentally crushed to death by a tractor. Books Atkinson called the event "A Broadway calamity."Atkinson, Brooks. ''Broadway.'' New York: Atheneum, 1970. P. 268. Print. Following his tragic death his colleagues from the Playwrights' Company established the prize in his memory.

The Award

''Literary Prizes and their Winners'' gives the following description of the prize:

In 1939 the five directors of the
Playwrights' Company The Playwrights Company (1938–1960) was an American theatrical production company. History Maxwell Anderson, S. N. Behrman, Sidney Howard, Elmer Rice, Robert E. Sherwood and John F. Wharton established The Playwrights Company in 1938 (incorpor ...
, Maxwell Anderson,
S. N. Behrman Samuel Nathaniel Behrman (; June 9, 1893 – September 9, 1973) was an American playwright, screenwriter, biographer, and longtime writer for ''The New Yorker''. His son is the composer David Behrman. Biography Early years Behrman's parents, Z ...
, Elmer Rice,
Robert E. Sherwood Robert Emmet Sherwood (April 4, 1896 – November 14, 1955) was an American playwright and screenwriter. He is the author of ''Waterloo Bridge, Idiot's Delight, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, Rebecca, There Shall Be No Night, The Best Years of Our L ...
, and John F. Wharton, established the Sidney Howard Memorial Award of $1500. The prize ... is given annually to a new American playwright who, with no previous noteworthy success in the theater, has shown talent through the production of one or more of his plays in New York. The award is not designed to honor the "best play of the season," but to give support to a promising playwright."

The inaugural prize was awarded to

for his play Thunder Rock,Anderson, Maxwell. ''Dramatist in America: Letters of Maxwell Anderson, 1912-1958.'' Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Books, 2001. Print which had floundered on Broadway but went on to be an international classic.

Awardees

References

{{reflist American theater awards Dramatist and playwright awards