Primary Trust Wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama

Jay O. Sanders and William Jackson Harper in
Primary Trust, Pulitzer Prize winner for 2024.
Credit: Joan Marcus

Primary Trust, Eboni Booth's drama of a bookstore clerk dealing with losing his job and childhood trauma, has won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The runners-up are Here There Are Blueberries by Moises Kaufman and Amanda Gronich (currently playing at New York Theater Workshop) and Public Obscenities by Shayok Misha Chowdhury. Primary Trust played last summer at Roundabout Theater Company's Off-Broadway Laura Pels stage. The cast included William Jackson Harper, Eric Berryman, Jay O. Sanders, April Mathis, and Luke Wygodny. The play was directed by Knud Adams who also directed last year's Pulitzer winner, English. 

The citation reads "A simple and elegantly crafted story of an emotionally damaged man who finds a new job, new friends and a new sense of worth, illustrating how small acts of kindness can change a person’s life and enrich an entire community."

The jury members for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama included Janice Simpson (chair), Lisa Fung, Lily Janiak, Chay Yew, and Tracy Letts.

Justin Chang, film critic for the Los Angeles Times won the Pulitzer for Criticism, with the New Yorker's theater critic Vinson Cunningham, and Zadie Smith, contributing to the New York Review of Books, runners-up.

Ilyon Woo's Master Slave Husband Wife won the Biography Award in a tie with King: A Biography by Jonathan Eig. (I just finished reading Woo's book.)