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New Virtual Event

The Barlow Award Readings are streaming in November!

This summer, Nora’s Playhouse and History Matters: Celebrating Women’s Plays of the Past collaborated online to produce virtual readings and talkbacks for the 2020 and 2021 winners of the The Judith Barlow Prize: Leah Barsanti’s The Almost Emperor of the Unofficial Deestrick of Lake Michigan and Gelaine Vestal’s The Shop.

Nora’s Playhouse Associate Artistic Director Amy S. Green directed the reading of The Shop, and Co-Literary Curator Sharon Friedman and Amy provided feedback and facilitated a full discussion of the plays after each of the readings. The cast of The Shop included Artistic Associate Barbara Drum Sullivan as Greta and Managing Director Rebecca Lovett reading Stage Directions.

We are happy to announce that these readings will be streaming on the History Matters YouTube channel for a limited time this November and both recordings will include the post-show discussion with the playwrights and Amy and Sharon.


November 3-6, 2021:
The Almost Emperor of the Unofficial Deestrick of Lake Michigan

Watch the Zoom reading of Leah Barsanti’s 2020 Barlow Award prize-winning play and a post-show discussion streaming on YouTube for a limited time only.

November 10-13, 2021:
The Shop

Watch the Zoom reading of Gelaine Vestal’s 2021 Barlow Award prize-winning play, and a post-show discussion will be streaming on YouTube for a limited time only.


The Judith Barlow Prize is awarded annually by History Matters to a student playwright for an exceptional one-act play inspired by the work of an historic female playwright. The student winner of the prize receives a $2,500 award and a reading of their work in New York City, with a $500 award to the participating professor of the course in which the inspiring play was taught.