Eric Pfeffinger won’t have any problem springing for an extra apple pie cold foam brew at Maddie and Bella Coffee Roasters after he won the American Playwriting Foundation’s Relentless Award, which comes with a $10,000 prize.
Mr. Pfeffinger, a librarian from West Toledo who prefers to write in local coffee shops, won for his short comedy, Love Your Work. In addition, his play and the five other winners will have their play performed in New York City on Nov. 5.
Among those performing the plays will be Vincent D’Onofrio, Hari Nef, Tavi Gevinson, Griffin Dunne, David Corenswet, and Daphne Rubin-Vega.
The American Playwriting Foundation, which was established in honor of Philip Seymour Hoffman, created the Picket Plays program during the Writers Guild of America strike earlier this year as a way to support playwrights who are WGA members.
“Many WGA members began their careers as playwrights,” said American Playwriting Foundation artistic director David Bar Katz. “The Relentless Award, the largest cash prize in theater, was created for the specific purpose of supporting playwrights so that writing for TV and film wouldn't be their only option if they wanted to eat and pay rent. But during this time, when those avenues have been closed to them, the American Playwriting Foundation – the theater community, the first artistic home to many of these artists – is here for them and has their backs.”
Mr. Pfeffinger, who will travel to New York to see the play, said he was thrilled when he learned the news.
“Every writer is chasing after respect and money. Conventional wisdom is that writing for the stage gets you respect, and writing for the screen gets you money,” Mr. Pfeffinger said. “The reason I've been in love with the American Playwriting Foundation since day one is because it asks, ‘Why not both?'”
The contest called for a play to be 14 pages or less and have a strike theme.
“I thought what would distinguish my entry that I almost write in a comic mode even when I am writing about some serious stuff, I come at it through comedy,” he said.
His play is set in an office and features a conversation between a manager and a creative worker.
“[It has a] tone that was one-part Joseph Heller and two parts Marx Brothers so that we saw the abusive nature of management’s relationship with the worker through the absurdity of expectations of the things that were being asked of this creative worker,” he said.
His playwriting started in the third grade when a teacher suggested that he write plays that were rehearsed during recess and put on in the classroom.
But he started getting serious in college when, instead of a senior thesis about another playwright, his adviser suggested a series of plays instead.
While he thought he would be a fiction writer after graduation, his college plays received more attention than his fiction writing and offered an added benefit.
“I realized this is actually more fun. You are actually doing it with people. You are not sitting alone in a room all the time,” he said.
Mr. Pfeffinger’s plays have been produced locally by Actors Collaborative Toledo, the Toledo Repertoire Theatre, the Glacity Theatre Collective, and the Purple Rose in Chelsea, Mich. Elsewhere, his work has been produced by the Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Humana Festival, the Denver Theatre Center, the Geva Theatre in Rochester, N.Y., and the Phoenix Theatre.
First Published October 22, 2023, 4:30 p.m.
