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Rona Siddiqui (Courtesy Photo) |
Rona Siddiqui Receives the 2025 Mark O’Donnell Prize for Emerging Theater Artists
In a partnership that continues to highlight the next generation of visionary theater voices, the Entertainment Community Fund and Playwrights Horizons have announced that Rona Siddiqui, the Grammy-nominated composer and lyricist known for her inventive storytelling and sharp humor, is the 2025 recipient of the Mark O’Donnell Prize.
Based in New York City, Siddiqui has built a remarkable career defined by innovation and cultural honesty. She has received the Kleban Prize for lyric writing, the Jonathan Larson Grant, and the Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award. Her show The Brown Musical: A New Brown Musical—an autobiographical comedy about growing up bi-ethnic in America—was developed at Playwrights Horizons and premiered at 54 Below in 2022.
The Mark O’Donnell Prize honors an emerging theater artist each year whose work embodies “America’s most anomalous, singular and curious” creative voice. The award includes a cash prize, a week’s use of The Mark O’Donnell Theater at the Entertainment Community Fund Arts Center in Downtown Brooklyn to develop a new work, and counseling to help navigate two of the biggest challenges facing emerging artists: applying for affordable housing and obtaining health insurance. The prize is made possible through a gift from Steve O’Donnell, in memory of his brother Mark.
Since its inception, the award has recognized a lineup of artists who have gone on to shape the theater landscape: Alex Tatarsky (2024), Dustin H. Chinn (2023), Shayok Misha Chowdhury (2022), L Morgan Lee (2021), Iyvon Edebiri (2019), Julia Jarcho (2018), and Leah Nanako Winkler (2017).
The Schermerhorn, a 216-unit supportive housing development in Downtown Brooklyn, houses The Mark O’Donnell Theater, which serves as both a creative laboratory and a community bridge. Operated by the Entertainment Community Fund in collaboration with Breaking Ground, a nonprofit developer providing permanent affordable housing, the theater gives artists access to space and resources while connecting residents to the arts.
Mark O’Donnell, the award’s namesake, remains one of Broadway’s most distinctive voices. After years of critical acclaim, he achieved widespread success when he co-wrote the book for Hairspray with Thomas Meehan, earning the pair the 2003 Tony Award and a seven-year Broadway run, later adapted into the 2007 film. The collaborators reunited for Cry Baby in 2008, which also earned a Tony nomination.
At Playwrights Horizons, O’Donnell’s work included That’s It, Folks!, Fables for Friends, and The Nice and the Nasty. His other plays—Strangers on Earth, Vertigo Park, and Tots in Tinseltown—demonstrated his trademark wit and surreal imagination. He also collaborated with Bill Irwin on an adaptation of Molière’s Scapin, co-authored a translation of A Flea in Her Ear by Georges Feydeau, and adapted Feydeau’s Private Fittings for La Jolla Playhouse.
A prolific humorist, O’Donnell published two collections of comic stories—Elementary Education and Vertigo Park and Other Tall Tales—as well as the novels Getting Over Homer and Let Nothing You Dismay. His cartoons, poems, and essays appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Esquire. He received both a Guggenheim Fellowship and the George S. Kaufman Award.
The Mark O’Donnell Theater at the Entertainment Community Fund Arts Center is supported in part by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and Council Member Stephen Levin.
Siddiqui’s body of work reflects a balance of humor, heart, and cultural identity. In addition to The Brown Musical, her other musicals include Father Time (co-created with Bryce Pinkham, Zack Fine, and Kirya Traber), Expect Victory (book and co-lyrics by Kris Dias), Rattle the Cage (book by Lynn Rosen and Pia Wilson), and Hip Hop Cinderella.
Her list of honors is extensive: the ASCAP Harold Adamson Lyric Award, ASCAP Foundation Mary Rodgers/Lorenz Hart Award, and ASCAP Foundation/Max Dreyfus Scholarship. She has appeared on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and Late Night with Seth Meyers. On Broadway, she served as music director for A Strange Loop, which earned her an Obie Award and a Grammy nomination.
Her orchestration credits include Monsoon Wedding, An Untitled New Play by Justin Timberlake, and numerous albums through Broadway Records and Broadway Backwards. She has held residencies with Musical Theatre Factory’s Makers Residency and Ars Nova’s Vision Residency, where her musical experiments continue to expand the language of contemporary theater.
Formerly known as The Actors Fund, the Entertainment Community Fund has served the performing arts and entertainment industry since 1882, offering vital support through programs in health and wellness, career and life development, and housing. Its mission is to ensure stability and resilience for those shaping the nation’s cultural landscape.
Playwrights Horizons, celebrating over half a century as a home for groundbreaking playwrights, continues to define itself by its steadfast commitment to the writer’s voice. The organization develops and produces daring new work on its two stages each season, while supporting artists through its New Works Lab, commissions program, and Almanac—its literary magazine dedicated to the theatrical art form.
Playwrights Horizons describes its audience as “risk-taking and adventurous,” a reflection of the artists it champions. The theater’s mission—to center the playwright, encourage dialogue, and expand the range of American storytelling—remains central to its identity.
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