Former EST-LA Artistic Director Tom Jacobson has been awarded The 2011 Pen Center USA Literary Award for Drama for his play The Twentieth-Century Way, which had its first reading as part of EST-LA’s Winterfest. The play, which tells the true story of two actors who hired themselves out to the Long Beach Police Department in 1914 to entrap “social vagrants” in public restrooms, went on to receive a full production at The Theatre@Boston Court, and has received numerous awards, including LA Weekly Awards, Ovation Awards, and the Outstanding Production of a Play at the New York International Fringe Festival.

EST-LA member Keliher Walsh has been awarded The 2011 Kentucky Women Writers Conference First Prize for Women Playwrights for her full-length play, Year of the Rabbit. In Walsh’s script, Afghanistan and Vietnam serve as the backdrop for the collision of race, marriage and motherhood when two fighter pilots fall in love. The prize carries a $500 cash award and a fully-staged theatrical production by Balagula Theatre, where it will open on March 25, 2012. Naomi Wallace served as judge for the contest and selected Walsh’s script from three finalists. Year of the Rabbit was developed through EST-LA’s Winterfest (fESTivityLA) 2010 program.