A Reward for a Reward

Wed, 20 Dec 2006 04:00:00

A reward for a reward

Sarah Ruhl

Each year, the MacArthur Foundation awards grants of $500,000 to people whom it judges to be doing extraordinary work.

Playwright Sarah Ruhl is one of this year's MacArthur fellows. She has already won many awards for her plays, which include "The Clean House" and "Eurydice." Sarah talks with Dick about the stories, both mythic and personal, that catch in her imagination--and what it's like for her to see those stories on stage.

One person who inspired Sarah is Carlos Moran, a young man she met during a playwriting project in Los Angeles. Carlos grew up in foster care, and has now adopted his younger siblings. Carlos talks to Dick on tomorrow's program.

Actors in the play "Demeter in the City." Demeter (Bahni Turpin, right) loses her baby to a social worker
(Danièle Watts, left), photo: Michael Lamont

See performances of Sarah's plays at Lincoln Theater and Second Stage
Read Sarah's plays in the book The Clean House and Other Plays
Visit Cornerstone Theater, where Sarah wrote "Demeter in the City" and met Carlos Moran
Learn about Shields, an organization that partners with Cornerstone and inspired Sarah
Read more about the MacArthur Fellows Program
Read the passage Sarah quotes from E. E. Cummings

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Ahmed's Diary

Ahmed's family has been living in Syria for months. He's decided to go live with them, but he can't quite shake free of Baghdad, and lives now both in despair that his beloved city will ever return to normal, and in hope that somehow it will.

I would like to live in a place where people don't look at me and think I'm a terrorist. As I'm writing these words right now, I'm hearing gunfire, more sounds of armed clashes going on in the streets. What is happening to Baghdad? May God help us.

- A Reward for a Reward

A Reward for a Reward

A reward for a reward

Ahmed's Diary