The Entertainment Community Fund and Off-Broadway's Playwrights Horizons recently named Grammy nominee Rona Siddiqui the 2025 recipient of The Mark O'Donnell Prize.

The annual prize is presented to emerging theatre artists in recognition of their talent and promise. The award includes a cash prize; use of The Mark O’Donnell Theater at the Entertainment Community Fund Arts Center in downtown Brooklyn for one week to develop a reading of a new work; as well as counseling from the Fund on two major challenges often faced by emerging artists: how to apply for affordable housing and obtaining health insurance.

The award was presented to composer and lyricist Siddiqui October 3 during The Mark O’Donnell Lunch at The Mark O’Donnell Theater at the Entertainment Community Fund Arts Center (located at The Schermerhorn in Brooklyn).

Based in NYC, Siddiqui was previously a recipient of the Kleban Prize for lyric writing, the Jonathan Larson Grant, and the Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award. Her show The Brown Musical: A New Brown Musical, an autobiographical comedy about growing up bi-ethnic in America, was developed at Playwrights Horizons and premiered at 54 Below in 2022.

The Mark O’Donnell Prize has previously been presented to Alex Tatarsky (2024), Dustin H. Chinn (2023), Shayok Misha Chowdhury (2022), L Morgan Lee (2021), Iyvon Edebiri (2019), Julia Jarcho (2018), and Leah Nanako Winkler (2017).

Mark O'Donnell achieved commercial success when he co-wrote the book of the musical Hairspray, based on the John Waters film, with Thomas Meehan. The production earned the pair the 2003 Tony Award and a celebrated seven-year run on Broadway, followed by the 2007 musical film adaptation. The writers went on to adapt the Tony-nominated musical Cry Baby for Broadway in 2008, based on a Waters film of the same name. O’Donnell’s Playwrights Horizons credits included That’s It, Folks!; Fables for Friends; and The Nice and the Nasty. His other plays include Strangers on Earth, Vertigo Park, and the musical Tots in Tinseltown. O'Donnell also published two collections of comic stories, Elementary Education and Vertigo Park and Other TALL Tales, as well as two novels, Getting Over Homer and Let Nothing You Dismay.

The Mark O’Donnell Prize is made possible by a gift from Steve O’Donnell in memory of his brother.