The American Playwriting Foundation has named emerging musical theatre writer and composer Jack D. Coen as winner of the 2025 Relentless Musical Award for his sci-fi musical comedy Jo Jenkins Before the Galactic High Court of Consciousness. Coen will receive $65,000.
The Relentless Award, the largest annual cash prize in American theatre for an unproduced show, emphasizes works that are fearless in their choice of subject matter. The 2025 Relentless Musical Award—given in honor of Philip Seymour Hoffman and Fountains of Wayne co-founder Adam Schlesinger—is the second devoted specifically to musical theatre. (The musical award is presented bi-annually, alternating with the Relentless Award for plays, in honor of Hoffman.)
Coen’s musical follows Jo Jenkins, a marine-biologist-turned-actuary, who has finally embraced ordinary existence and accepted what she can’t control—climate change, the death of the universe, etc. But now, her boyfriend is proposing not just marriage, but children, and an alien is at her door, demanding that she defend humanity to an intergalactic council.
Relentless Award Artistic Director David Bar Katz commented, “By selecting Jo Jenkins Before the Galactic High Court of Consciousness, our sub-committee and judges succeeded in their near-impossible task of finding a work of art that embodied both Phil’s relentless rip your heart out passion and Adam’s crystalline ironic pop sensibility. Our hope is that by winning this year’s award, Coen’s stunning climate change science fiction, character-driven allegory, will be one step closer to getting the full production it deserves.”
Coen added, “I’m humbled to be honored in the legacy of Philip Seymour Hoffman and Adam Schlesinger, whose artistry radiated a sincerity and intense humanity I deeply aspire to. My love for this art form stems from its capacity to teach us about ourselves by disarming us through comedy. In that spirit, I followed what still feels like a crazy impulse to write a sci-fi allegory for living through the unfolding climate and biodiversity crises. This award encourages me to keep following those impulses—and to meet this urgent moment, as we all must, with relentlessness.”
Finalists, who are awarded $2,500, include Jaime Cepero’s Francois & the Rebels; Brandy Hoang Collier, Clare Fuyuko Bierman, and Erika Ji’s Yoko’s Husband’s Killer’s Japanese Wife, Gloria; and Cheeyang Ng’s Legendary.
All of the works will be honored October 12 at a ceremony at Theatre Row featuring a performance from Chris Collingswood—Fountains of Wayne frontman playing the classics he and Schlesinger created—and songs from the musicals, performed by Jesse Malin and others to be announced.
Judges included Rachel Bloom, Jason Robert Brown, David Javerbaum, Sam Hollander, Laura Grill Jaye, David Bar Katz, Lynn Nottage, Brontez Purnell, and Lucy Thurber.
The Relentless Musical Award seeks un-produced full-length musical works by applicants who haven’t previously been produced on Broadway. All submissions were judged anonymously.
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