4 weeks ago
Bess Wohl‘s acclaimed Broadway play Liberation has won nan 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, pinch nan announcement coming conscionable a time earlier nan season’s Tony Award nominations are revealed.
The Pulitzer statement called nan play, which ran astatine Broadway’s James Earl Jones Theatre from October 8, 2025, to February 1, 2026, “A striking blend of drama and sincerity that explores nan bequest of nan consciousness-raising feminist groups of nan 1970s, utilizing nan communicative of nan playwright’s mother to show really nan activity grew retired of conversation, and that anyone experiencing nan play has joined nan discussion.”
Read Deadline’s Broadway reappraisal of Liberation here. Deadline chose nan play arsenic nan champion of nan 2025 almanac year.
Liberation, developed by nan Roundabout Theatre Company and directed by Whitney White, premiered Off Broadway successful February 2025 and transferred to Broadway 8 months later.
The formed for some nan Off Broadway and Broadway productions was Susannah Flood, Betsy Aidem, Audrey Corsa, Kayla Davion, Kristolyn Lloyd, Irene Sofia Lucio, Charlie Thurston and Adina Verson.
Pulitzer finalists successful nan play class were Bowl EP, by Nazareth Hassan, and Meet nan Cartozians, by Talene Monahon, some of which played Off Broadway this season.
Also today, nan Pulitzers named Daniel Kraus’ Angel Down nan year’s champion fabrication book, saying astir nan work, “A breathless caller of World War I, a stylistic tour-de-force that blends specified genres arsenic allegory, magical realism and subject fabrication into a cohesive whole, told successful a azygous sentence.”
In January, Deadline exclusively revealed that Imagine is processing a movie based on Angel Down.
In a connection to Deadline astatine nan time, writer Kraus shared, “I had a dream acquisition pinch Imagine connected Whalefall, truthful erstwhile it came to Angel Down, location was only 1 location I wanted for it. This is precisely nan benignant of book I want to beryllium writing, 1 that uses heavy humanities investigation to excavate a genre-shredding communicative that goes successful wildly unexpected directions. This book goes all-in, and I’m happy to person Imagine going all-in too.”
Said Imagine Entertainment’s Allan Mandelbaum then, “Daniel Kraus is 1 of nan astir chopped voices and bonzer talents we’ve travel crossed successful caller memory. His expertise to blend bold, high-concept genre stories pinch profoundly quality characters is 2nd to none, and Angel Down is nary exception. All of america astatine Imagine had an unthinkable acquisition moving pinch Daniel to bring Whalefall to life, truthful we’re thrilled to beryllium collaborating pinch him again connected his outstanding and urgent caller novel.”
Angel Down follows Private Cyril Bagger, “who has managed to past nan unspeakable horrors of WWI done his wits and deception, swindling chap soldiers astatine each opportunity. But his endurance instincts are put to nan eventual trial erstwhile he and 4 different grunts are fixed a deadly mission: task into nan perilous No Man’s Land to euthanize a wounded comrade. What they find amid nan ruined battlefield, however, is not a man successful request of mercy but a fallen angel, seemingly struck down by artillery fire. This celestial being whitethorn clasp nan cardinal to ending nan sadistic conflict, but only if nan soldiers tin suppress their individual desires and activity together. As jealousy, greed, and paranoia return hold, nan group is torn isolated by their soul demons, threatening to move their angelic brushwood into a descent into hell.”
