According to students in Quiara Alegria Hudes’ Advanced Playwriting Workshop, the Visiting Writer in Theater left the classroom briefly today to answer a phone call. When she returned, her face was white. “I, uh, just won the Pulitzer Prize,” she told her students, who promptly applauded. According to the Washington Post, Hudes isn’t delusional.
Indeed, a hearty congratulations is in order for Professor Hudes, whose Iraq War-themed play, “Water by the Spoonful,” has won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for drama. The play was staged last year at the Hartford Stage Company. Additionally, Hudes notably wrote the book for Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02’s “In the Heights,” so it’s no wonder she managed to get Miranda himself on campus for a tweet-heavy rendez-vous earlier this month.
Hudes, the Post reports, is still totally dazed:
“I’m still kind of in a daze about it but I’m very excited,” she said by phone from Middletown, Conn., where she is teaching a play writing workshop to undergraduates at Wesleyan University. “I’m really delighted that something that was a little off the beaten path was considered.”
[ . . . ]Hudes hopes the prize will extend the life of her play and get it mounted in New York and, of course, her hometown of Philadelphia, “which I love to bits.”
You can read more about Hudes’ play at the Washington Post and more about her work generally at her professional website. We’ll let you know when you can catch “Water by the Spoonful” in the ’92.
VISITING FACULTY!