Posted on Tuesday, September 8, 2009
A Question of Taste, a one-act play written by Dr. Andrew Ade, Westminster College associate professor of English, won the 2009 Arts & Letters Prize in Drama.
A Question of Taste is a fable about the violent political chaos disrupting the most troubled countries in Africa today. Two men of different generations argue out their antithetical approaches to putting their country back on track. Despite some breakthroughs in their thinking, their encounter ends disastrously.
The play first appeared at the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theater Company's 2007 Theater Festival in Black & White, where it won four awards, including Best Play.
Arts & Letters, a literary journal, sponsors nationwide competition annually for new one-act plays, poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction. In addition to a cash prize, the award includes publication of the play in the journal next spring.
Ade's award will be presented at a ceremony in March, when a new production of the play will run on the campus of Georgia College and State University. Ade will participate in a question/answer session with the audience following one of the performances.
"Needless to say, I am thrilled with the good news," Ade said. "I had seen the advertisements for the competition for a number of years and had dreamt of having a play good enough to submit and try my luck. Arts & Letters is an exceptional publication."
"It was exciting enough to have the play succeed in Pittsburgh, and this follow-up only sweetens the experience of writing the play," he added. "I lived and worked in the Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire) right after my college graduation, and that experience informed the play and expresses my love for that chaotic country. The support for the work, first in Pittsburgh and now from Arts & Letters, has been very heart-warming, to say the least."
Ade, who joined the Westminster faculty in 2003, earned an undergraduate degree from Northwestern University and a master's and Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Contact Ade at (724) 946-7349 or e-mail adeaw@westminster.edu for additional information. Visit http://al.gscu.edu/ for additional information about the competition.
