California based playwright Naomi Iizuka has received the 2024-2025 Hermitage Award.
This jury-selected prize, established by the Hermitage in 2021 with generous support from Flora Major and the Kutya Major Foundation, offers one of the largest unrestricted nonprofit theatre commissions in the United States. Iizuka will receive a cash prize of $35,000, a residency at the Hermitage Artist Retreat in Florida, and a developmental workshop in a major arts capital—which for this commission is anticipated to be Chicago in late 2026.
Iizuka is a playwright and educator whose body of work includes Anon(ymous), 36 Views, Polaroid Stories, At the Vanishing Point, Language of Angels, Skin, Tattoo Girl, and more. Her plays have been produced at theatres across the country, including BAM’s Next Wave Festival, Berkeley Rep, the Goodman, Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, the Guthrie, Cornerstone, Children’s Theater Company, the Public Theater, and Campo Santo. lizuka is an alumna of New Dramatists and a previous recipient of a PEN/Laura Pels Award, an Alpert Award, a Whiting Award, a Stavis Award from the National Theatre Conference, a Joyce Foundation Award, and a Hodder Fellowship. She was a Berlind Playwright-in-Residence at Princeton University. She is the head of the MFA Playwriting program at University of California, San Diego.
“Naomi Iizuka confirmed herself to be a passionate and insightful playwright who impressed us all with her timely and compelling proposal,” said Hermitage Artistic Director and CEO Andy Sandberg. “We are honored to support Naomi as she creates this ambitious new play at this exciting stage of her career. I must thank our brilliant and dedicated Award Committee—Susan Booth, Glenn Davis, and Chay Yew—for their passion, intelligence, and care throughout this process. I also want to congratulate Luis Alfaro, Zora Howard, and José Rivera, each of whom are innovative and exceptional playwrights with thrilling, original ideas for new theatrical works.”
In describing her intended HMTA commission, currently titled Casa de Mañana Iizuka shared the following. “Casa de Mañana is a dark comedy that explores what it means to make art when your life and the world around you are imploding. Set in an assisted living and memory care facility, the play tells the story of an underemployed theater artist who’s trying to make a play based on stories that the residents tell her about their lives—except the residents don’t want to talk to her. And who can blame them? They have their own problems to deal with and their own secret agendas. Why should they tell stories to a stranger? Casa de Mañana asks what it means to tell the story of your life. How do you make sense of the craziness and mystery of the people around you? How do you tell the truth? And what choices do you make in the time you have left?”
A leading national arts incubator, the Hermitage is the only major arts organization in Florida’s Gulf Coast exclusively committed to supporting the development and creation of new work across all artistic disciplines. The Hermitage recently experienced devastating impact from hurricanes Helene and Milton, and the organization is working to reopen its beachfront campus on Manasota Key as quickly as possible.
Visit HermitageArtistRetreat.org.
