Spotlight Award to Minh-Anh Day for Thirteenth Night
Minh-Anh (he/they) is a playwright and book writer, specializing in deeply researched confrontations of classic works. His most recent play, Singularity, was a finalist for the Woodward/Newman Award and the Neukom Literary Arts award, received a reading at Chicago Dramatists in 2023, and has an upcoming workshop at Leviathan Lab, NYC. His Spotlight Award winning play Thirteenth Night was workshopped by the Actors’ Shakespeare Project, then produced as part of the New York Theater Festival in 2022.
About Thirteenth Night
Moments after the closing lines of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, the apparent “happy ending” starts to unravel. Viola, who has just experienced the privilege and freedom of life as a man, is now married to a man with very clear ideas on a woman’s place in life. Sebastian and Olivia have their own marital troubles, having known each other all of three hours, and Sebastian’s best friend Antonio has just been dragged off to prison. Meanwhile, Maria deals with Sir Toby’s alcoholism and his paranoia – justified, considering that Malvolio has sworn to take revenge on the pranksters, and Sir Toby specifically. As these characters collide and fight for respect, love, and justice, Thirteenth Night reveals the dark laughter lurking behind the light of Shakespeare’s play.
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