Theatre artist Melody Anderson wins 2023 David King Prize for new comedic script, Home
The $3,000 juried award, overseen by Touchstone Theatre, is named for the beloved West Coast playwright who died in 2021
Melody Anderson switched to playwriting after a career creating hundreds of masks for local productions.
VETERAN STAGE DESIGNER, mask-maker, and emerging playwright Melody Anderson has been awarded the 2023 David King Prize—a $3,000 cash prize awarded by a jury for the development or production of a new comedic work.
She’s won the award to work toward the premiere of her play Home, a revenge comedy about an elderly woman who seeks justice after the death of her husband and a subsequent home invasion.
The jury for the prize, handed out by Touchstone Theatre, said it “was pleased with Anderson’s use of broad farcical style and her alternating hilarious and compassionate renderings of the elderly….There’s a particular pleasure in seeing a group of women, that typically are seen as helpless and feeble, granted agency through means of revenge.”
Anderson plans to use the funding from the prize to stage a workshop with actors and a public reading.
She has been creating masks for theatre productions for four decades—perhaps best known for her creations for the hit The Number 14—and has recently published a book on her creaetive process called Making Masks. After shifting her focus to playwriting in the mid-2000s, her first play, The Emperor’s New Threads, toured nationally for Axis Theatre. Her Me and You premiered at the Arts Club Theatre in 2018.
The award, given annually to assist in the development or production of a new comedic play, is named for a beloved West Coast playwright, screenwriter, and songwriter known for his sharp wit. King, who penned Jessie Award-winning plays like Garage Sale and Life Skills, died in January 2021 after a prolonged battle with prostate cancer. Vancouver's Pippa Mackie won the inaugural prize last year, for her Hurricane Mona.
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