“We have always been passionate and active theatergoers for as long as we can remember. We wanted to give back to the theatre community and since everything starts with the writer, we felt we could be most effective by awarding grants to talented playwrights to help foster and develop new plays. Since we believe that London and New York are the theatre capitals of the world, we decided to create an award that celebrates playwrights on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Berwin Lee & Brown London New York Playwrights, Inc. was founded in 2012 by Dorothy Berwin and Mark Lee. We are delighted that JK Brown has joined in January 2023 as the third trustee and Tom Kirdahy will now become Trustee Emeritus. Our thanks to Tom for all his wonderful support over the years.
Founders / Trustees
Dorothy Berwin
Dorothy Berwin like her fellow partners Mark lee, Jk Brown and Tom Kirdahy has been a life long passionate theatregoer. She is an award-winning independent film producer and a passionate champion of visual arts. Born in London and based in New York, she began her career as an entertainment lawyer before becoming a director of Zenith, one of the UK’s leading TV and film production companies where she worked with the directors Todd Haines, Hal Hartley and Robert Altmann. After founding InFilm Productions in 1995, Berwin produced a succession of critically acclaimed independent films. Bedrooms and Hallways, directed by Rose Troche, won the audience award at the 1998 London Film Festival. On a Clear Day directed by Gaby Dellal with a cast including Peter Mullan and Brenda Blethlyn, opened the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and won the Scottish BAFTA Award for Best Film. Berwin’s other films include Safety of Objects directed by Troche, adapted from A.M. Homes's book of short stories and starring Glenn Close, Patty Clarkson and Kristen Stewart in her first film role. Berwin developed and executive produced the award winning 2015 film Carol by Todd Haynes, starring Cate Blanchet and Rooney Mara, nominated for six Academy Awards and eight BAFTAs. In 2015 she produced 3 Generations directed Gaby Dellal starring Elle Fanning, Naomi Watts and Susan Sarandon. The film premiered in Toronto and was released in 2017 by the Weinstein Company. Berwin is executive producing a new film by Gaby Dellal starring Fiona Shaw which will shoot in NY in May 2023.
Berwin joined the Lincoln Center Theater Board in 2011 and the North American Acquisitions Committee of Tate in 2013. She is an ambassador at large for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York, where amongst other work she was a founding member of the Annual Fashioned Center Dinner which has raised over $2.5 million to date.
Mark Lee
Mark Lee is a lifelong impassioned theatre devotee and supporter of the arts in addition to his long career in luxury fashion. Mark Lee retired from his fashion career in 2017 after serving more than 7 years as Chief Executive Officer for luxury specialty retailer Barneys New York. Prior to Barneys he was Chief Executive Officer for the global brands Gucci (2004-2008) and Yves Saint Laurent (1999-2004). Earlier in his career he served in other roles for the Gucci, Jil Sander, Giorgio Armani and Valentino brands prior to beginning his career as an Assistant Buyer at Saks Fifth Avenue.
Mark was born and raised in San Francisco, California and moved to New York City in 1980 to attend New York University where he graduated in 1984 with a Bachelor or Fine Arts in Cinema Studies. He presently lives in both New York and Los Angeles.
He has Executive Produced three documentary films: Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel, Love, Cecil (about Cecil Beaton) and Terrence McNally Every Act of Life. Mark is currently a producer on a documentary in work on the life of Truman Capote which will be his third film with director LIsa Immordino Vreeland.
In the commercial theater Mark has been a Co-Producer of the following Broadway productions: Mothers and Sons, The Visit, It’s Only A Play, Anastasia. He has also been a co-producer of The Inheritance since its premiere at London’s Young Vic and it’s Olivier Award winning West End Run and will be a co-producer of the Broadway production in 2019.
JK Brown
James-Keith Brown joined Coatue Management in the beginning of 2018 as a Senior Managing Director. Brown came from Och-Ziff where he was an Executive Managing Director, Member of Och-Ziff’s Partner Management Committee, Member of Executive Operating Committee, Member of Business Risk Committee and Global Head of Investor Relations. Prior to joining Och-Ziff in 2003, Brown spent more than four years at Goldman, Sachs & Co., where he was a Managing Director and Head of U.S. Institutional Sales and Relationship Management. He began his career at J.P. Morgan, followed by a position at Dartmouth College. Brown then moved to Bankers Trust, where he was a Managing Director of Asset Management. Brown has served on several Executive Advisory boards for Institutional Investor.
Brown and his partner Eric Diefenbach are avid contemporary art collectors and have been named by Art News as one of the top 200 global art collectors, in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. In the early 90s, they helped establish the Young Collector’s Council at the Guggenheim Museum, which was later responsible for building the institution’s diverse collection of photographs. Eric and JK were recognized for a Distinguished Service award by BOMB Magazine in 2018.
Brown is President of the Board of Trustees for the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York and also serves on the following boards: Executive Committee and Head of Development of Lincoln Center Theater; Board Member of the New School for Public Engagement; Chair of Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School and former Executive Board Member and Head of the Investment Committee of the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts (2007-2015), and still serves as an Advisor to foundation. Brown is on the following Boards/Acquisition Committees at the Museum of Modern Art in New York; Painting and Sculpture, Drawings, Library Council and Conservation. Brown is also on the Collections committee at North Carolina Museum of Art. Brown was formerly Chair of the Stephen Petronio Dance Company, a former Board Member of Dance Theater Workshop in New York and a former Stieglitz Photography Committee Member at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, each for over ten years. JK received a New School Outstanding Service Award in 2018.
Brown is actively involved with his alma mater – the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. He serves as Chair Emeritus of the Ackland Art Museum’s National Advisory Board, after being Chair of the Ackland board from 2006 to 2016, and is a member of the Advisory Board for the Institute of the Arts and Humanities at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is an Advisory Board member at the Kenan Institute at the North Carolina School of the Arts (2018-present). He also serves on the UNC Investment Board and UNC Foundation Board. Brown was on the Visitors Board of Overseers and has been active with the UNC-Chapel Hill Campus, receiving the Distinguished Service award in the early 2000s. He is also Chair of the campus wide Arts Everywhere Campaign at UNC-Chapel Hill (2016-present).
Brown holds a B.A. with honors in Psychology from UNC-Chapel Hill.
Trustee Emeritus
Tom Kirdahy
Tom Kirdahy is currently producing the smash-hit HADESTOWN (8 Tony Awards including Best Musical), the highly-anticipated upcoming Broadway production of THE INHERITANCE, and the off-Broadway revival of LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS starring Tammy Blanchard, Jonathan Groff, and Christian Borle. Other select Broadway credits: Terrence McNally’s FRANKIE & JOHNNY IN THE CLAIR DE LUNE starring Audra McDonald and Michael Shannon, ANASTASIA, IT'S ONLY A PLAY,THE VISIT (5 Tony noms.). Select West End credits: THE INHERITANCE (4 Olivier Awards including Best New Play), THE JUNGLE, Edward Albee's THE GOAT, OR WHO IS SYLVIA?. Select off-Broadway credits: THE JUNGLE, WHITE RABBIT RED RABBIT. Additional Tony nominations: MOTHERS AND SONS, AFTER MIDNIGHT, RAGTIME, MASTER CLASS. Earlier this year, Kirdahy received the Robert Whitehead Award for Outstanding Achievement in Commercial Theater Producing. Kirdahy currently serves as the Chairperson of the Broadway League Government Relations Committee and is on the Board of Trustees for Broadway Cares/ Equity Fights AIDs. As an attorney, Kirdahy spent nearly two decades providing free legal services to people living with HIV/AIDS and served for many years on the Executive Committee of the NYC LGBT Center. He is a proud alum of NYU and NYU School of Law.
Advisory Board
Dominic Cooke is a theatre director and playwright. For The Royal Court: The Low Road, In the Republic of Happiness, Choir Boy, In Basildon, Chicken Soup with Barley, Clybourne Park (& Wyndham’s); Aunt Dan & Lemon, The Fever, Seven Jewish Children, Wig Out!, Now or Later, War & Peace/Fear & Misery, Rhinoceros, The Pain and the Itch, Other People, Fireface, Spinning into Butter, Redundant, Fucking Games, Plasticine, The People Are Friendly, This is a Chair, Identical Twins. Other Theater Includes: Comedy of Errors (National); Arabian Nights, Pericles, The Winter’s Tale, The Crucible, Postcards from America, As You Like It, Macbeth, Cymbeline, The Malcontent (RSC); By the Bog of Cats (Wyndham’s); The Eccentricities of a Nightingale (Gate, Dublin); Arabian Nights (Young Vic/UK & World Tours/New Victory Theatre, New York); The Weavers, Hunting Scenes from Lower Bavaria (Gate); The Bullet (Donmar); Afore Night Come, Entertaining Mr Sloane (Clwyd); The Importance of Being Earnest (Atlantic Theatre Festival, Canada); Caravan (National Theatre of Norway); My Mother Said I Never Should (Oxford Stage Co./Young Vic); Kiss of the Spider Woman (Bolton Octagon); Of Mice and Men (Nottingham Playhouse); Autogeddon (Assembly Rooms). Opera Includes: The Magic Flute (WNO); I Capuleti E I Montecchi, La Bohème (Grange Park Opera). Awards Include: Laurence Olivier Awards for Best Director and Best Revival for The Crucible; TMA Award for Arabian Nights; Fringe First Award for Autogeddon. Dominic was the Artistic Director of the Royal Court 2007-2013, Associate Director of the Royal Court 1999-2002, Associate Director of RSC 2002-2006 & Assistant Director RSC 1992-1993. Dominic is an Associate Artist of the RSC.
Lucas Hnath’s plays include Dana H., The Thin Place, Hillary and Clinton, A Doll’s House, Part 2, Red Speedo, The Christians, A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay about the Death of Walt Disney, Isaac’s Eye, and Death Tax. He is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect, a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre, and an alumnus of New Dramatists. Awards: Whiting Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, Kesselring Prize, Outer Critics Circle Award for Best New Play, Obie Award for Playwriting, Steinberg Playwright Award, Windham-Campbell Literary Prize, Lucille Lortel Award, and a Tony Nomination for Best Play.
Joyce Hytner previously served as Head of Development at the Royal Court Theatre, which is Britain’s leading national theatre company dedicated to promoting new work by innovative writers from the United Kingdom and around the world. She currently serves as a board member for the Old Vic, Royal Court and Criterion Theatres and serves as a board member for the Hightide Festival and the Manchester International Festival.
Cherry Jones is an actress who has spent most of her career on Broadway. She won the 1995 Tony Award for best leading actress in a play for her performance in The Heiress and the 2005 Tony Award for best leading actress in a play for her performance in Doubt, Her other Broadway credits include Imaginary Friends, Angels in America, A Moon for the Misbegotten and Our Country’s Good. She is considered to be one of the foremost theatre actresses in the United States.
Mel Kenyon currently works as a theatrical agent with Casarotto, Ramsay & Associates. Her many awards winning clients include Simon Stephens, Caryl Churchill, Howard Brenton, Dennis Kelly, David Greig and Frank McGuinness.
Alan Mark is a passionate and die-hard theatergoer. It may have started back in high school when he discovered the enjoyment of reading plays. He is a Board Member of the Roundabout Theatre Company, NY; a Member of the Director’s Circle, The Wooster Group, NY; Board Member of Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture / Golden Gate National Parks, San Francisco. He’s a former Board Member of the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco and served on the Executive Committee of the Urban Land Institute, San Francisco for many years. As an industry leader, innovator and entrepreneur, Alan founded The Mark Company in 1997. As the West Coast’s premier urban residential analytics, design development, marketing and sales firm, The Mark Company sold and marketed more than $5 billion of residential condominiums, accounting for over 10,000 units in the Western United States. Alan sold his company to Compass in 2018. He is now a consultant and strategic advisor to a range of real estate developers.
Donna Murphy is a two time Tony and Emmy award winning actress. Theatre credits include Fosca in Stephen Sondheim’s PASSION(Tony Award, Best Actress in a Musical); Anna in The King and I(Tony Award, Best Actress in a Musical); The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1985); Birds of Paradise (1987); Privates on Parade (1989); Hello Again (1993): Twelve Dreams (1995); Helen (2002); Wonderful Town(Tony nomination, Best Actress); The People in the Picture(Tony nomination, Best Actress); and Into the Woods (2012).
Jon Stokes is a director of the leadership advisory firm Stokes & Jolly. He is a Chartered Clinical Psychologist, a Clinical Associate of the British Psychoanalytical Society and a former Senior Fellow at Said Business School, Oxford University. Jon has worked as a leadership advisor for over 30 years across many sectors in both the UK and abroad. Recent publications include ‘From Ego to Eco: Leadership for the 4th Industrial Revolution (Said Business School, (2020), and ‘The New Landscape of Leadership: Living in Radical Uncertainty’ in ‘The Tavistock Century: 2020 Vision’ (Phoenix, 2020)
Thank you for your interest in Berwin Lee & Brown. Please note that we do NOT accept play submissions. Please do not send as they will not be read and they will not be returned. Thank you.