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Martyna Majok

Playwright, Pulitzer Prize in Drama

Born in: Poland
Martyna  Majok

“I think people are more alike than we are different. We all understand love and loss, betrayal, despair, hope,” playwright Martyna Majok said in “Playbill” earlier this year. Majok is the winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play "Cost of Living." The Pulitzer board describes the play as "an honest, original work that invites audiences to examine diverse perceptions of privilege and human connection through two pairs of mismatched individuals: a former trucker and his recently paralyzed ex-wife, and an arrogant young man with cerebral palsy and his new caregiver." Majok, who has won numerous prestigious awards for her work, is known for giving the voiceless a voice in her plays, which include stories of people who are immigrants, women and disabled. Says Majok: “I grew up in a multicultural neighborhood where almost everyone was from somewhere else. And we rarely see conversations between immigrants from different places onstage.”  Major works include her 2016 drama “Ironbound,” a portrait of an independent Polish immigrant searching for the American Dream and “queens,” which examines the sacrifices made by two generations of immigrant women living in New York City. Updated July 2018

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