Distinguished British playwright David Hare, the second judge in the Yale Drama Series competition, has awarded 26-year-old Francis Ya-Chu Cowhig the D.C. Horn Foundation prize of $10,000 for her original play entitled "Lidless." Publication of the play by Yale University Press will follow a staged reading of the play at Yale Repertory Theatre on September 21, 2009.

Over 650 manuscripts were received and read by Sir David Hare and his distinguished team of professionals, including other award-winning playwrights.

"Lidless" was the clear winner, an extraordinary and original attempt to show the enduring strain on the victims of the U.S. deployment of torture at Guantánamo," Mr. Hare said about the selection of the winning play, which was announced in The New York Times on March 16, 2009. Francine Horn, the sponsor of the playwriting award, also praised the play for its strong writing and moral relevance.

“Lidless” centers on the reunion of a male Guantánamo Bay detainee and his former female Army interrogator. Fifteen years after his release, the prisoner revisits his captor and demands half her liver as recompense for the physical and psychological wounds inflicted during their interrogations.

Despite the political backdrop, the playwright contends the play centers on emotions. “It’s really a play about the senses — how visual and sensory experiences inform the moral and political issues,” Cowhig said. “There’s messy biological stuff. In a sense, I’m taking a political thing and putting a mirror of magical realism over it. No one wants to see a play that should be an op-ed piece.”

Ms. Cowhig is a graduate of The International School of Beijing, Brown University, where she studied playwriting with Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel, and has spent the last three years in Austin Texas as a fellow at the Michener Center for Writers doing a multi-genre MFA program.

Mr. Hare also chose “The Danger of Bleeding Brown” by Enrique Urueta and “Hell Money” by Ruth McKee as runners up in the 2009 Yale Drama Series competition. He will serve as judge for the 2010 prize, as well.

"Lidless" was published by Yale University Press in August 2010.

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