Department of Theatre Announces 2024 Kernodle New Play Winner, Mathilde Dratwa

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Playwright Mathilde Dratwa, winner of the 2024 Kernodle New Play Award.

The U of A Department of Theatre has named the play Dirty Laundry by Mathilde Dratwa as the winner of the 2024 Kernodle New Play Award.

The award, established in honor of theatre historian and U of A faculty member George R. Kernodle, received 150-plus submissions this year from established and emerging playwrights across the country.

Submissions are read by a committee composed of theatre faculty and graduate students who make the final selection for the annual award.

"One day, her mother died. Two weeks later, she's teaching her dad how to operate the washing machine."

—from Mathilde Dratwa's play, Dirty Laundry

The Kernodle committee found Dirty Laundry a thrillingly innovative yet deeply human and humorous story about a woman trying to find stable ground when the spin-cycle of her life throws her way off balance. In the play the woman, a new mother herself, discovers her father's marital infidelity just as her own mother is diagnosed with a terminal illness — the suds spill over, the colors bleed.

M.F.A. graduate playwright and Kernodle committee member Connor Johnson said, "Its playfulness with form is exciting and engaging, but never distances us from the human pain at the core of the piece. It's a play that made me want to write."

Dirty Laundry was originally commissioned through Audible's Emerging Playwright's Fund, an initiative dedicated to uplifting and supporting writers as they develop original plays driven by language and voice. Dratwa accomplishes this feat masterfully through the use of typography, inclusion of a chorus, as well as the play's unapologetic approach to the messiness that is left behind after a loved one leaves us.

Dratwa says the play "came spilling out of me as I wrestled with grief, shock and rage. It's a play about loss, but it's also a play about the failure to communicate. I very much hope that under all the anger, my love for my father shines through. And I hope that despite the heavy themes, it makes people laugh. Because I certainly get my sense of humor from my dad."

The Kernodle New Play Award includes a cash award, the possibility of further development of the script, as well as potential guest artist mentorships to further work with the graduate students in the Department of Theatre.

About the Play

A thrillingly innovative yet deeply human and humorous story, Dirty Laundry follows an adult daughter trying to find stable ground when the spin-cycle of her life throws her way off balance. Following the unexpected loss of her mother and simultaneous discovery of her father's infidelity, the daughter juggles grief and anger as she cycles through the messiness left behind after a loved one leaves us. Her dad attempts to put into words his complicated feelings about love, loss and lust. Meanwhile, the "other woman" ponders: What is an affair when it's no longer an affair?

About the Playwright

Dratwa is a Belgian playwright and screenwriter based in Brooklyn, New York. Dratwa's plays include Milk and Gall (Theatre503, London), A Play About David Mamet Writing a Play About Harvey Weinstein, Esther Perel Ruined My Life and Dirty Laundry (World Premier WP Theatre; Audible; Henley Rose Award).

Her work has been presented by the Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep, the Ojai Playwrights Conference, Roundabout Theatre Company, Rattlestick Theatre, Berkshire Theatre Group, American Players Theater, LAByrinth Theater Company, the Cape Cod Theater Project and in London at the Young Vic. Dratwa is an inaugural Powers Playwriting Fellow at the Old Globe, an Affiliated Writer at the Playwrights' Center and was recently a member of the Orchard Project's Greenhouse, a Dramatist Guild Foundation Playwriting Fellow and a member of New York Foundation for the Arts' Immigrant Artist Program.

She also writes for film and television; she has developed content for Netflix, FX, Chernin Entertainment, LuckyChap, Endeavor, Dirty Films, Red Wagon, Sony/TriStar and Wiip.

About the Department of Theatre: The University of Arkansas Department of Theatre has been providing exciting and affordable theatre for more than 60 years. The department combines a first-rate theatrical education full of hands-on experience with a wide selection of titles to challenge students and the community. The department offers the Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre, a broad spectrum program in the context of a liberal arts education, and the Master of Fine Arts degree in six concentrations: Acting, Directing, Playwriting, Costume Design, Scene Design and Lighting Design.