Ph.D. student Adam Pasen wins the Kennedy Center Ten-Minute Play Award.
by Katy TerBerg
Department of English Ph.D. candidate Adam Pasen is the latest recipient of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival’s Ten-Minute Play Award—thus putting another notch in his professional career belt.
“The Ten-Minute Play Award is given at the national level by the Kennedy Center each year to one play deemed the best in that submission period,” said Pasen.
The title of Pasen’s play is “Starf*cker.” The story takes place between two Hollywood hopefuls outside the mansion of an A-List star. “It is the exploration of the shallow and the profound and a deconstruction of the rom-com genre,” he said. “On a semiotics level it is also a rumination on the instability of labels and the imprecision with which they capture the soul of the person they attempt to describe.”
According to Pasen, the 10-minute play is rapidly growing in popularity and significance. “The 10-minutes are easily the most competitive in terms of sheer volume of entries,” he said.
To win, the play must be selected as one of six regional finalists in one of the eight regions (each region received about 100 plays) and then be chosen as one of two winning regional plays to advance. Of those 16 plays, four are chosen to receive readings at the Kennedy Center, and of those four, one is named the winner.
Pasen, who holds an M.A. in English and Rhetoric from Northwestern University, is a 2012 Ph.D. graduate in English – Creative Writing with a focus in Playwriting. He recently presented his dissertation, a play titled “Tea with Edie and Fitz,” to Drs. Steve Feffer, Jon Adams, Cynthia Klekar and Terry Williams.
He has published several plays, scenes, adaptations, and musicals across the United States. He also is a prominent actor around Kalamazoo and in his hometown of Chicago.
Links:
Department of English
Adam Pasen
Kennedy Center
