Celebrating the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize’s Houston Roots

This past Friday we hosted a staged reading of the 2024 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize winning play, “1536” by Ava Pickett. We were originally supposed to do this in the summer, but Hurricane Berryl interrupted that. Who could have imagined that the week we rescheduled to we would be facing an unprecedented snow storm in Houston! Hurricanes we expect, but snow! We decided to forge ahead and had our first two rehearsals via zoom.

We started the first rehearsal with director Leslie Swackhamer (also the Executive Director of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize) sharing with the cast about how the Prize came to be and why it is so important to Houston and the international arts community. As she shared, I thought to myself, I bet many people have no idea the history of the Prize and its connection to Houston. 

Susan Smith Blackburn was originally from Houston, and she was an incredibly talented writer and performer appearing at The Alley and Little Theatre in Houston, and she tragically passed away at the age of 42. To honor her memory and her love for theatre, her sister and father established the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. They reached out to established artists they knew and called their rolodex of friends and raised the money, right here in Houston, to establish this international award. It is now the oldest and largest international playwriting prize honoring women+ writing for the English-speaking theater.  I am honored that 4th Wall is a contributing theater and continues to partner with the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize to highlight the work of women+ playwrights. You can find out more about the prize and the list of incredible women that have won over the years at their website: www.blackburnprize.org  

It is amazing to me that this was born out of the desire to pay tribute to Susan and supported by the philanthropic gifts of the Houston community. We know that theater can only continue to survive when individuals get behind it, realize its resonating value and support it. I say that, especially as we are preparing to present this play which so deeply speaks to events we are currently experiencing. Set in 1536 Tudor, England, the play echoes through the years the struggle of shifting power, patriarchy, and friendship. I wanted to share with you some of the words that the playwright, Ava Pickett, sent to the cast on her trip from London to Houston. I think she expresses most clearly the importance of The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and of artists, just like us….

Dear 1536 Team, 

I'm writing this from the BFI on London Southbank, nervously checking my phone in the hope that I get a flight out to make it to you! So I thought I would write to you in the meantime. 

Firstly, thank you so much for doing this; The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and company has completely changed my entire life in the last year and so it's such an honour to be given the time and space and talent of you wonderful people; these characters need people like you. Playwrights need actors like you. I am SO THRILLED you have agreed to do this.

 It's important to remember that your work is crucial, it's necessary, stories like this are needed, they shape the world we're in, we know who we are by seeing who we have been, we see what must be done now by talking about what we did not do before. The work continues. The fight lives on. Resist. Resist Resist. 

This is a play about violence, sisterhood, the rising tide of puritanism and the shifting sands of power and the double edged sword of what a "good" woman is. It came from a place of anger, white hot and all consuming and itchy fear. I wrote it as I consumed news story after news story of violence against women, women I knew, women I didn't know, women who had survived it, women had not survived it, women who had reported it, women who had not reported it, women whose names I knew, women whose names I did not know and in every single story I saw the women I had grown up with. So it's from a place of anger but filled with a real fierce love for female friendship, which I hope comes through. 

Ava xxx 

I am thrilled to see this kind of enthusiasm from our patrons and from the Houston community, which was the birthplace of this important prize, and excited about the future of what 4th Wall Theatre and The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize can do together.

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