First Winners of Kennedy Playwriting Prize Announced

Two plays, Dan O’Brien’s “Body of an American” and Robert Schenkkan’s “All the Way,” are the inaugural winners of the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History, Columbia University and one of the late senator’s sisters, Jean Kennedy Smith, will announce on Friday. The two writers will each receive $50,000 and collaborate with Columbia librarians to create Web sites featuring scholarly articles and discussion relating to the content of the plays.

The annual prize, endowed by Ms. Smith to honor her brother and his birthday, Feb. 22, was initially described as a $100,000 award for a play or musical that “enlists theater’s power to explore the past of the United States.” But the judges, who included Columbia President Lee Bollinger and the playwrights Lynn Nottage (a Pulitzer Prize-winner for “Ruined”) and Itamar Moses (“Completeness”), voted unanimously to divide the 2013 award between “two exceptionally deserving works,” according to a statement fom Columbia and Ms. Smith, a former United States ambassador to Ireland.

Jenny Graham Robert Schenkkan.

“All the Way” by Mr. Schenkkan, a Pulitzer winner for “The Kentucky Cycle,” focuses on the first year of Lyndon Johnson’s presidency in the aftermath of the assassination of President Kennedy. The play is told by several real-life figures from the era, including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and J. Edgar Hoover as well as Johnson.

“The Body of an American,” meanwhile, examines the challenges of war reporting, specifically the ethical and personal consequences of the publication of a famous photograph showing the body of an American soldier being dragged through the stre! ets of Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993.

David Bornfriend Dan O’Brien.

Three other plays were finalists for the award: “Hurt Village” by Katori Hall, “Party People” by the performance ensemble Universes, and “Rapture, Blister, Burn” by Gina Gionfriddo.

The contenders were chosen through nominations from about 20 theater professionals in the United States. Ms. Smith created the award last year with the assistance of the Pulitzer winner Tony Kushner (“Angels in America”) and officials at Columbia.

“My brothr loved the arts â€" museums, books, the performing arts,” Ms. Smith said in a statement. “Music was perhaps dearest to him, but he and I shared an enjoyment of theater â€"especially, for Teddy, musical theater. He was also a great student of American history and made it come alive for many of us in the Kennedy family.”