Berea: Thornton Wilder Dramatic Writing Award 2001

Berea College in Berea, Kentucky has established The Thornton Wilder Dramatic Writing Award for "that student or students who demonstrate excellence in the field of creative writing." The award honors Wilder's long ties to the college beginning with the summer of 1917 when he worked on the college farm. (It was hot!). Berea College, established in 1869, serves the needs of students in the Appalachian region. The first recipients of this new award were an entire class: the ten students in THR 121 who participated in "The Grandparents' Project," taught by playwright Arthur Giron, Professor Emeritus, Carnegie Mellon University, and Professor Al DeGiacomo of Berea College.

"The Grandparents' Project" drew on the need for genuine voices in the American theater. The ten students who participated in the project submitted writing samples to the instructors and, after they were accepted into the project, used their summer months to research the lives of their grandparents, interviewed family members, read family letters, and examined their grandparents' clothing and possessions, all in an effort to understand the lives of their grandparents, and through that understanding, to understand their own lives from a new perspective. The ten students then transformed their research and memories into a tightly woven series of dramatic scenes which gave resonance to their own family histories and to the history of the Appalachia. "The Grandparents Project" was performed at the Musser Theater of Berea College's Jelkyl Drama Center for four performances, January 24-27, 2001. The production was a workshop in the truest sense: the writers performed their families' lives before audiences who understood the experiences and the region.