Local playwright Elizabeth Orndorff's play "Aidan's Gift" won first prize in the Kentucky Theatre Associations' Roots of the Bluegrass Playwriting Award ceremony, held Nov. 13 in Morehead.
"Aidan's Gift" is about a crisis of conscience with a young priest and an old priest in a Benedictine monastery. Orndorff said this is the first year KTA has had a playwriting contest, which was open to people who live in Kentucky or who lived here for a couple of years.
The other finalist in the contest were Nancy Gall-Clayton of Louisville and Walter May of Lexington. Each finalist will get a staged reading of a 25-minute cutting from the play. Orndorff will get $250.
"Aidan's Gift" also is a finalist in Ohio State's Eileen Heckart Drama for Seniors Competition.
Orndorff recently won a Fellowship from the Wurlitzer Foundation for a three-month residency in Taos, N.M., at an artist's colony for writers, artists and composers. She will spend January 22-April 22 there in a furnished casita.
