Beacon Award

Our annual Beacon Award is given to a playwright for a play the exemplifies Beacon's mission to spotlight critical moments of our past to make a better future. The playwright receives a stipend and a staged reading produced by Beacon Theatre. 

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Past winners: 

2026

"The Bookstore" by Nancy Marie

Come see the 2026 Beacon Award Winner and Pulitzer-Prize-nominated play The Bookstore by Nancy Marie, directed by Zuhairah McGill, and presented by Beacon Theatre Productions. The staged reading is about how a young man’s attempt to fulfill his dream of meeting Malcolm X leads him to a bookstore in Harlem. Three years later, he returns as an unwilling participant in the COINTELPRO operation launched against it by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. The Bookstore is loosely based on and written in memory of Sister Una Mulzac and the Liberation Bookstore.

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2025

"Felipillo" by Tyler Rocio Ecoña

Nowadays, in Peru, the nickname "Felipillo" is attached to those considered national traitors — in this play, an investigation ensues. Based on the true history of a Native servant who translated for Spanish conquistadors during the invasion of the Inca Empire, we follow Felipillo and a chorus of historians examining his legacy through a time-bending reconstruction of his life. The mainstream story still circulated in Peru frames Felipillo as a traitor to his country. But exactly how much was lost in translation? Who determines what goes down in history, and is it possible to re-write?​