“It’s a play about the fog of war and sweet potato pie.” That is what South Florida theater artist and educator Lowell Williams says about Thanks for Your Service.

The public can experience it, perhaps for the first time, later this month. More specifically, Thanks for Your Service will receive a public reading at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, April 24. Although the event will take place in New Jersey, a Zoom streaming option will be available.

A paraphrased online description of the play reads as follows: The time is 1963, a few days before President Kennedy’s assassination. Elijah, high school senior, is at odds with his father, Jasper, a WWII veteran over school and his grades. Elijah’s remedy for the discord is to join the army to get away. His father is dead set against it, especially having experienced the treatment he and his fellow black vets received upon their return from WWII.

Elijah defies his father and joins the Army, serving in Vietnam for seven years before returning a paraplegic in a wheelchair. Another serviceman, Andre, visits Elijah after both are back from service. The latter becomes an extended member of Elijah’s family as they deal with war’s aftermath.

For a Zoom link, send an email to maebornot@aol.com.

The sponsors of the reading are the Office of Residential Life at Stockton University and the NAACP.  If you live in or near Pomona, N.J., the reading will take place in Stockton University’s West Quad, Room 104, at 101 Vera King Farris Drive in Pomona.

Admission is free and includes snacks as well as a question-and-answer session with the playwright.

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The American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) has announced the six finalists for a prominent annual award. The 2025 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award will recognize playwrights who produced the best scripts that premiered outside New York City in 2024.

The public will learn about the winner and runners up on May 2 at the 2025 Pacific Playwrights Festival in Costa Mesa, Calif. The top award winner will receive $25,000, while two runners-up will receive $7,500 each. At $40,000, Steinberg/ATCA is the largest national new play award program of its kind.

Since 2000, the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust has funded the award.

The 2025 finalists are:

An Army of Lovers by R. Eric Thomas, produced by Azuka Theatre in Philadelphia. In the play, an aging queer activist is invited to the sleek, enclosed campus of a global communications company to give a speech for their first Pride celebration. However, she does not come in peace. An Army of Lovers is about radical acts of existence, corporate culture as an oxymoron, and the freedom to be public.

Galilee, 34 by Eleanor Burgess, produced by South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, Calif. With Yeshua dead, his disciples are determined to keep spreading his message. However, the Roman Empire might want them dead. And they don’t have a leader. And they can’t quite agree on what Yeshua’s message was.

The Janeid by Anna Ziegler, produced by Alley Theatre in Houston. Longing for a lost love connects Jane to Penelope. While Penelope waits for Odysseus to return from the Trojan War, Jane’s husband was lost to 9/11.  Penelope kindles an eternal hope for her husband’s return, yet Jane is counting on the miraculous for her reconciliation. Do you believe in miracles?

Judgement Day by Rob Ulin, produced by Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Sammy Campo is a staggeringly corrupt, morally bankrupt lawyer. A terrifying angel has threatened Campo with eternal damnation after a near-death experience. In a desperate attempt to redeem himself, Sammy forms an unlikely bond with a Catholic priest who is experiencing his own crisis of faith.

Little Bear Ridge Road by Samuel D. Hunter, produced by Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. In the outer limits of rural Idaho, the last two estranged members of the Fernsby family tree, a reclusive aunt and her gay nephew, reunite to sort the mess left behind after a troubled father’s passing. They face an uncomfortable and universal question: How do we deal with other people? And is connection more trouble than it is worth? As their relationship begins anew, the two reluctant Fernsbys—separated by age and experience—​start to understand the joys and perils of letting someone else into your own story, even if only for a moment.

Purpose by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, produced by Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. The Jasper family is a prominent Black family deeply involved in politics and religion. The play explores the cracks within this influential family as they must confront their legacy and faith when the youngest son, Nazareth, returns home with an uninvited friend.

Critics chose these six finalists from eligible scripts recommended by ATCA members around the country. A committee of theater journalists evaluated the plays.

ATCA dedicates this year’s ceremony to longtime member and theater journalist Misha Berson. She co-chaired the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Committee with Cameron Kelsall from 2021 until her sudden death in February.

“Misha was a fierce advocate for new play development, and this award meant so much to her,” Kelsall says. “I can think of no greater way to honor her memory, and her life’s work, than to continue the tradition in which she proudly participated.”