Lynn Nottage Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters

By
Christina Rumpf
April 16, 2017

Professor Lynn Nottage has been elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The award marks another success for Nottage this spring. Nottage was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in drama for her playSweat, making her the first woman to win two Pulitzer Prizes in drama (she previously won the award with her play Ruined in 2009). Sweat also marks Nottage’s Broadway debut, where it is currently running at Studio 54.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is made up of over 4,900 Fellows and 600 Foreign Honorary Members, including over 200 Nobel Prize laureates and 100 Pulitzer Prize winners. As a learned society and independent policy research center, the Academy frequently sponsors meetings, lectures, panel discussions for leaders from the academic, business, and government centers to meet and discuss contemporary issues.

“From its beginnings, the Academy has engaged in the critical questions of the day. It has brought together the nation’s and the world’s most distinguished citizens to address social and intellectual issues of common concern and, above all, to develop ways to translate knowledge into action,” according to the Academy’s website. “Since 1780, Academy members have included both those who discover and advance knowledge and those who apply knowledge to the problems of society. Working together, they have established a legacy of leadership that continues to produce reflective, independent, and pragmatic studies that inform public policy and lead to constructive action.”

Nottage is also the recipient of a MacArthur "Genius Grant" Fellowship, Steinberg "Mimi" Distinguished Playwright Award, the Dramatists Guild Hull-Warriner Award, the inaugural Horton Foote Prize, and the Helen Hayes Award, among others. Her plays include By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (Lily Award, Drama Desk Nomination); Ruined(Pulitzer Prize, OBIE, Lucille Lortel, New York Drama Critics’ Circle, Audelco, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Award); Intimate Apparel (American Theatre Critics and New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards for Best Play);Fabulation, or The Re-Education of Undine (OBIE Award); Crumbs from the Table of JoyLas MeninasMud, River, StonePor’knockers; and POOF!.