PLAYHOUSE ON THE SQUARE NEWWORKS and MILDRED and ALBERT PANOWSKI Playwriting Competition
Read the press release here!
Learn more about the partnership and how to submit a work.
Information about the Panowski Playwriting Competition
The Playwriting Award was established in 1977 at Northern Michigan University. From 1978 through 1993, the Shiras Institute, a prominent Upper Michigan philanthropic fund, participated in this event, which was known as the Shiras Institute/Forest Roberts Theatre Playwriting Award. Beginning with the fourteenth annual competition, Dr. James A. Panowski, director of the Forest Roberts Theatre, provided financial assistance for the competition in memory of his parents, Albert and Mildred Panowski. In 1993, Dr. Panowski became the sole benefactor of the competition, which now bears the name of his parents. The award is designed to encourage and stimulate artistic growth among educational and professional playwrights. It provides students and faculty the unique opportunity to mount and produce an original work on the university stage. The playwright will benefit from seeing the work on its feet in front of an audience and from professional adjudication by guest critic.
Past Competition Winners
Year | Title | Playwright |
2021 | A Complicated Hope | John Mabey |
2020 | no winner | |
2018 | no winner | |
2016 | Building Madness | Kate Danley |
2014 | A Paper Tiger in the Rain | David J. Swanson |
2012 | Bears | Mark Rigney |
2010 | no winner | |
2008 | Tracks in the Snow | Neil McGowan |
2007 | no winner | |
2006 | Tell-Tale | Rebecca Gorman |
2005 | no winner | |
2004 | Burning Mona Lisa in the Reptile House | Mark Rigney |
2003 | A Rembrandt's Eyes | Cynthia Holm |
2002 | Everything's Relative | Richard Davis, Jr. |
2001 | Ghosts | George Sapio |
2000 | The Seventh Monarch | Jim Henry |
1999 | no winner | |
1998 | The One-Eyed Man Is King | Carter Lewis |
1997 | no winner | |
1996 | Edgar | David Grimm |
1995 | Doin' Time at the Alamo | Mary Hanes |
1994 | no winner | |
1993 | The Night the War Came Home | Hindi Brooks |
1992 | The Black Pope | Warren Sherlock |
1991 | Beast | Susan Arnout Smith |
1990 | Bravado | Joan Garner |
1989 | The Devil and All His Works | Ernest Joselovitz |
1988 | Franz and Dora | Harold Lieberman |
1987 | The Queen's Knight | Frank Cossa |
1986 | Father Mosley | William Hathaway |
1985 | The King Has Gone to Tenebrae | George Herman |
1984 | Burial Customs | Phoef Sutton |
1983 | Forgotten Verdict | Richard Aellan |
1982 | High Road, Low Bridge | Joel Wyman |
1981 | Fragments of an August Night | Richard DeLong |
1980 | The Ripper | Tim Kelly |
1978 | The King's Clown | David Vando |
1977 | The Spirit of Happy Hollow | Peg Kehret |