Play by NW Instructor Lands Award

Northwest English Instructor Alice Shen has been honored with the Southeastern Theater Conference’s 2010 Charles M. Getchell New Play Award. Her play, “Entitled,” will receive a staged reading and adjudication at SETC’s conference March 3-7 in Lexington, Ky.

“Entitled” is Shen’s first full-length play, written while she was a Master of Fine Arts candidate at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. The play chronicles the life of David Winter, a writer who penned a pretty good novel four years ago, but hasn’t produced a follow-up. When his estranged and pregnant half-sister, Renee, arrives in town, Winter finds himself struggling with past baggage and future responsibilities.

Shen continues sending out full-lengths and one-act plays and is looking to land her first full production. She currently is working on “Magical Thinking,” a psychological drama about a woman who weighs the personal benefits and familial disapproval of her decision to divorce her comatose husband.