What A Pulitzer Prize Winner Looks Like

Yay, a Philadelphia playwright won the Pulitzer for her play Water By The Spoonful. Quiara Alegria Hudes grew up at 49th Street and Baltimore Avenue in West Philly and her play, about a war vet returning to his hometown (Philly), is the second in a trilogy which takes place in our fair city and involves characters “based on my family, on my relatives, on people I met and talked to all around me as I grew up. They’re totally Philadelphia.”

There’s a nice article by Jim Timpane in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer (from which I stole that quote) about Hudes and her work. Read it here.

The only disappointing thing is, of course, Hudes, like many successful native-Philadelphian artists, no longer lives in Philly, but in Manhattan. And she teaches playwriting at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, so no local university can claim her either. If only there were enough opportunities and enough of a theater arts economy in Philadelphia to support playwrights and allow them to have careers here. One day soon! Till then, congratulations to Hudes, we’ll still take it as a victory over New York.