ADVANCE STAFF WRITER
Popular novelist and playwright Richard Aellen's drama about farm worker activist Cesar Chavez has won the Stanley Drama Award, a 49-year-old playwrighting prize administered by Wagner College.
The presentation was made last night at the Lambs Club in Manhattan. Past recipients of the award include composer/lyricist Jonathan Larson, whose posthumous hit was the musical "Rent," and Terrence McNally, author of "Hot l Baltimore," "Master Class" and "Lips Together, Teeth Apart."
The 2006 award winner, "Farmers of Men" tracks the life of Chavez from his youth in the early 1940s through his heyday as an activist 20 years later.
Aellen, who lives in Tampa, Fla., has written plays that have been produced in significant venues, including "Square One" at the Manhattan Punchline Theater and "Right to Remain Silent" at the Actors Repertory Theater. He is the author of five thrillers, among them "No Sanctuary," "Redeye" and "The Cain Conversation."
Two recent Wagner College alumni who are working in the theater, Sarah Madej and Gregory Rose, were the co-hosts for last night's presentation.
Ms. Madej recently toured Central America with the National Symphony Orchestra. She was seen last year in a reading of "Choosing Helen," a new musical, at the York Theater.
Rose will be appearing next month at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center as Benny Southstreet in "Guys and Dolls." This summer, he'll head upstate to play Cogsworth in "Beauty and the Beast" at the Park Playhouse in Albany.
Director Drew Scott Harris, whose credits include "Johnny Pye and the Foolkiller" and "Ain't Broadway Grand," presented the prize.
A benefactor, Alma Stanley Timolat, endowed the award in 1957 "to encourage and support aspiring playwrights."
Michael J. Fressola is the arts editor for the Advance. He may be reached at fressola@siadvance.com.
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