Lisa D'Amour, Melissa James Gibson win playwright award

Lisa D'Amour, the playwright of the Broadway-bound "Detroit," and Melissa James Gibson, the writer of "This," are winners of the prestigious Steinberg Playwright Award, which honors achievements by playwrights every two years.

The awards, nicknamed "the Mimi," will be handed out at a ceremony Nov. 14 at Lincoln Center Theater in New York. Both playwrights will receive a cash award of $50,000 along with a statuette.

Previous winners of the Mimi include Tony Kushner, Bruce Norris, Tarell Alvin McCraney and David Adjmi. The award was established in 2008 and is organized through the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.

Gibson's "This" recently ran at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City in a production from New York's Playwrights Horizons. Her other stage work includes "[sic]," "Current Nobody" and the musical "Brooklyn Bridge."

"Detroit," by D'Amour, is expected to makes its Broadway bow this season following a staging at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, directed by Austin Pendleton. The play was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, losing out to Norris' "Clybourne Park."

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-- David Ng

Photo: A scene from "This" at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, with Saffron Burrows, right, and Eisa Davis. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times