The Kleban Foundation has announced the winners of its 32nd annual Kleban Prize for Musical Theatre. The 2022 recipients are César Alvarez, named most promising musical theater lyricist, and Isabella Dawis, named most promising musical theater librettist. In recent years, the Kleban Foundation Board has set the prize at $100,000 in each category, paid in two annual installments to recipients. Richard Maltby Jr. and Maury Yeston will again host the ceremony, which will once more be held virtually, available for streaming from February 21 at 7 p.m. through February 28 on Broadway on Demand.
César Alvarez is a composer, lyricist, playwright, and performance-maker with a background as a jazz saxophonist, band leader, and sound artist. Alvarez is currently assistant professor of music at Dartmouth College and has written five full-length musicals: Futurity, The Elementary Spacetime Show, The Universe is a Small Hat, Noise, and The Potluck. Alvarez has also released four albums with The Lisps and composed the music for Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ An Octoroon and The Foundry Theater’s Good Person of Szechwan. In 2015, Alvarez co-founded Polyphone, a festival of new and emerging musicals at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts, serving as artistic director for five seasons. Below is “Practically Impossible” (music and lyrics by César Alvarez), performed by Alvarez as part of the 2018 Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge.
Isabella Dawis is a performer and playwright. Trained as a classical singer and pianist, she collaborates with artists of all disciplines to create genre-crossing new works. With Tidtaya Sinutoke, with whom she received the 2021 Fred Ebb Award, Isabella wrote Half the Sky and Sunwatcher. Isabella holds a B.M. in piano performance from University of Minnesota and has appeared with the Minnesota Orchestra, Dakota Valley Symphony, and Minneapolis Civic Orchestra. She recently starred opposite her sister Francesca in Jiehae Park’s Peerless at Theater Mu. When not performing, Isabella is an accompanist and piano teacher. Below is “Outside” from Half the Sky (book and lyrics by Isabella Dawis, music by Tidtaya Sinutoke), performed by Isabella Dawis and her sister as a part of Reclaiming Our Time at Joe’s Pub in 2019.