‘Fun Home’ Librettist, Composer-Playwright Win Kleban Prizes for Writing in Musical Theater
Image by Mike Pont/Getty Images
By Talya Zax January 16, 2017
Librettist Lisa Kron, best known for writing the book and lyrics to the Broadway darling “Fun Home,” and Daniel Zaitchik, a composer-playwright whose work has been developed by Lincoln Center Theater, have won the 2017 Kleban Prizes for writing in musical theater.
The prizes, which comes with a cool $100,000, are awarded by the Kleban Foundation, established in the will of the late composer and lyricist Edward Kleban. (Kleban, who passed away in 1988, was best known for his Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning work on “A Chorus Line.”) Judges for the 2017 awards included producer Ira Weitzman, songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, and actress Mary Testa.
Kron, who won the prize for most promising musical theater librettist, is also an actor. While working on the first off-Broadway production of “Fun Home” at the Public Theater in 2013, she was also performing in the same theater’s production of Bertolt Brecht’s “The Good Person of Szechwan.” Her previous plays include “In the Wake” and “2.5 Minute Ride.”
Zaitchik, who took home honors for most promising musical theater lyricist, is also a singer-songwriter. His musicals include “Picnic at Hanging Rock” and “Darling Grenadine.”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Dive In
-
Culture Should Diaspora Jews be buried in Israel? A rabbi responds
-
Culture Is this heaven or is it New Jersey? 9 innings of the Jewish-American pastime
-
Culture How one Jewish woman fought the Nazis — and helped found a new Italian republic
-
Culture Everything you need to know about every Pope Leo — even the antisemitic Leo and the one with the elephant
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Ye debuts ‘Heil Hitler’ music video that includes a sample of a Hitler speech
- 2
Opinion It looks like Israel totally underestimated Trump
- 3
Fast Forward Student suspended for ‘F— the Jews’ video defends himself on antisemitic podcast
- 4
Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Hamas and Trump say Edan Alexander to be freed from Gaza after US negotiates release
-
Culture Should Diaspora Jews be buried in Israel? A rabbi responds
-
Fast Forward In first Sunday address, Pope Leo XIV calls for ceasefire in Gaza, release of hostages
-
Fast Forward Huckabee denies rift between Netanyahu and Trump as US actions in Middle East appear to leave out Israel
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.