Alley Theatre announced today that it has received an Edgerton Foundation New Play Award for Dear Alien by Liz Duffy Adams, directed by Shelley Butler. The award provides support for additional rehearsal time with the full creative team prior to the world premiere, with the aim of extending the life of the work beyond its first run. Dear Alien will premiere at the Alley on May 8, 2026, and run through May 31, 2026.
“Each year, the Edgerton Foundation’s support sustains the heartbeat of new play development,” said LaTeshia Ellerson, TCG’s Co-Executive Director of National Engagement. “By giving playwrights, directors, and their collaborators more time to experiment and refine, these awards ensure that the most daring and transformative stories can take root and thrive beyond their premieres.”
“I’m so grateful to the Edgerton for their support of Liz Duffy Adams’s play Dear Alien. The titular role (played by Resident Acting Company member Dylan Godwin) is on stage the entire show, and it is going to be quite a challenge. Getting an additional week of rehearsal makes a tremendous difference. Supporting new plays is incredibly important for the health of the American Theatre. Four years ago, Alley Theatre premiered Liz’s play Born with Teeth, and it just finished its run on the West End after having graced the stages of major theatres in the U.S. such as the Guthrie, Asolo Rep, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival. This support of new plays makes a real difference, and I deeply appreciate the Edgerton award,” remarked Rob Melrose, Alley Theatre Artistic Director.
As part of the 2025 Edgerton Foundation New Play Awards, Dear Alien joins 15 other new works receiving support this year. The full list of recipients include:
Reconstruction
at Alabama Shakespeare Festival
by Robert Schenkkan
Dear Alien
at Alley Theatre
by Liz Duffy Adams
Fremont Ave.
at Arena Stage
by Reggie White
Cowboys and East Indians
at Denver Center Theatre Co
by Nina McConigley & Matthew Spangler
Sylvia Sylvia Sylvia
at Geffen Playhouse
by Beth Hyland
Ashland Avenue
at Goodman Theatre
by Lee Kirk
Iceboy!
at Goodman Theatre
by Erin Quinn Purcell & Jay Reiss
The Heart
at La Jolla Playhouse
by Kait Kerrigan
The Heart
at La Jolla Playhouse
by Kait Kerrigan
The Recipe
at La Jolla Playhouse
by Claudia Shear
Aztlan: a Journey Back to Homeland
at Magic Theatre
by Luis Alfaro
The Balusters
at Manhattan Theatre Club
by David Lindsay-Abaire
The Land of the Living
at National Theatre
by David Lan
My Joy is Heavy
at New York Theatre Workshop
by The Bengsons
The Woman Question
at People’s Light
by Suli Holum
Giulia
at Perelman Performing Arts Center
by Jennifer Nettles
The Monsters: A Sibling Love Story
at Two River Theater
by Ngozi Anyanwu
Over the last 19 years, the Edgerton Foundation has awarded $19,670,534 to 569 productions, leading to nearly 1,600 subsequent productions at TCG Member Theatres following their world premieres. Forty-three have made it to Broadway, including Skeleton Crew, Paradise Square, Curtains, 13, Next to Normal, 33 Variations, In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), Time Stands Still, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, A Free Man of Color, Good People, Chinglish, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Bronx Bombers, Casa Valentina, Outside Mullingar, All the Way, Eclipsed, Bright Star, Hamilton, The Columnist, In Transit, A Doll’s House Part 2, Indecent, Dear Evan Hansen, Oslo, Escape to Margaritaville, The Prom, JUNK: The Golden Age of Debt, SUMMER: The Donna Summer Musical, Head Over Heels, Cost of Living, English, Prayer for the French Republic, McNeal, and The Constituent.
Twenty-one plays have been nominated for Tony Awards, with All the Way, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, and Oslo winning Best Play or Best Musical. Sixteen plays have been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, with wins for Primary Trust (2024), English (2023), The Hot Wing King (2021), Cost of Living (2018), Hamilton (2016), The Flick (2014), Water by the Spoonful (2012), and Next to Normal (2010).
The Edgerton Foundation New Plays Program, directed by Brad and Louise Edgerton, was piloted in 2006 with Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles by offering two musicals in development an extended rehearsal period for the entire creative team, including the playwrights. The Edgertons launched the program nationally in 2007 and have supported 564 plays to date at over 50 different Art Theatres across the country.
Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for theatre, leads for a just and thriving theatre ecology. Since its founding in 1961, TCG’s constituency has grown from a handful of groundbreaking theatres to over 750 organizations (including member theatres, affiliates, universities) and over 3,000 individual members. Through its programs and services, TCG reaches over one million students, audience members, and theatre professionals each year. TCG offers networking and knowledge-building opportunities through research, communications, and events, including the annual TCG National Conference, one of the largest nationwide gatherings of theatre people; awards grants and scholarships to theatre companies and individual artists; advocates on the federal level; and through the Global Theater Initiative, TCG’s partnership with the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, serves as the U.S. Center of the International Theatre Institute. TCG is North America’s largest independent trade publisher of dramatic literature, with 21 Pulitzer Prizes for Drama on the TCG booklist. It also publishes the award-winning American Theatre magazine and ARTSEARCH®, the essential source for a career in the arts. TCG believes its vision of “a better world for theatre, and a better world because of theatre” can be achieved through individual and collective action, adaptive and responsive leadership, and equitable representation in all areas of practice. TCG is led by co-Executive Directors, Emilya Cachapero, LaTeshia Ellerson, and Alisha Tonsic. www.tcg.org.
