Contributed with joy by Social Media Manager Emma Welch
We are beyond excited to announce the recipient of our 2020 Corrieri Literary Prize – Roy Scandela!!
Snapshot of our virtual gathering to surprise Roy with the news! Top row: Roy Scandela with digital script of The Rituals, & Studio Manger Kristan Brown. Bottom row: Claudia Corrieri, & Terry Knickerbocker
Roy took the 9-Week Meisner Intensive with TK Faculty Kendrick Merdani in the fall of 2019. Planning to continue this spring, he was unable due to financial considerations. But now, with the aid of this monetary scholarship prize of $1500, Roy will resume training at the studio this fall! We are elated that he can continue to train and develop his incredibly imaginative and passionate instrument.
The prize, generously granted by former TK Student Claudia Corrieri, had its first launch last year. It was awarded to current 2nd-year student Daley Baker, who has continued to workshop his submission Cotton Bolls and In Between with Claudia.
Applicants were asked to submit the beginning 5-10 pages of a short story, the first 1-2 scenes of a play, or the the first 1-3 scenes of a film script, along with a paragraph breakdown of the overall story, and a short paragraph of a personal biography.
Out of many incredible submissions this year, Roy was awarded the scholarship based on the beginnings of his television script The Rituals: a coming-of-age story centered around two siblings dealing with the loss of their parents and development of their inherited magical abilities in “a modern world where witches are very much real and very much a part of our society.” Roy, who spent the first 6 years of his life in Venezuela before moving to New York, says the story is heavily influenced by his upbringing and his mother’s stories of the Amazon. He says of his writing:
“I’ve always been fascinated with mythology, lore and folk-lore….I became obsessed with throwing that into a modern world, a modern metropolis – how does it survive, and how does it hide within that world. [My mother’s stories are] just in me and it’s seeped into all of the writing I do now. You know, all of these stories she tells me, a lot of them feel so fictitious, but there’s something that’s much darker than you realize in a lot of mythology. Even though I’m writing about, you know, magic or rituals or what have you, I don’t want to focus on the fact that it’s a fairy-tale world. I always wanted to focus on how humans react to that kind of power or presence in a very real world — politically or otherwise.”
Claudia has said of his submission
“The world he creates is vivid and clear. It leaves an impression after reading. His use of language is crisp yet colorful in its creation and description. He sets up a clear framework to further develop his story – I find myself wanting to know what these young people are about to do.”
Congrats, Roy & Claudia! We are so excited to see this resonant, beautiful, imaginative piece develop, and to welcome Roy back to the fold this fall.
And congrats to our two runners-up: Lilianna Hogan for her short story “One Pretty Hand and One Ugly Hand” and Chris Nester for the excerpt of his play “The Importance of Subtext.”
Claudia Corrieri is an artist based in New York, an alumni of University of the Arts London, Central Saint Martins and Chelsea College of Art (Foundation & B.A.) and New York University, Gallatin School of Individualized Study (M.A.), and the William Esper Studio where she studied with Terry.
She has been twice ‘Extraordinary Artist’ awarded, to live and work in New York as an actress. She has written, ‘Chiara’, a new musical, with accompaniment from Jonathan Hart (Obie Award) on piano, which was the recipient of a Silver Award for ‘Lead Actress’ & ‘Documentary Short’ at London’s Latitude Film Awards and “Best Voice Acting” from the LA Actors Awards. This project has had a stellar team including the Sound Engineer from The New York Times ‘In Performance’ series.
She has published an artist’s book of stories at age twenty-six, which went on sale globally with Barnes and Noble and Amazon. An artist’s edition of the book, including soundtrack and film, was placed at the Serpentine Gallery and the Whitechapel Gallery, London. Corrieri has also created written and visual content for: Art Review, New York Times T Magazine and The Telegraph, among others.
She has been invited to work with internationally acclaimed artists such as sound composer, Bill Fontana, who trained first-hand with John Cage and artist, Pedro Reyes (National Medal of the Arts). Corrieri assisted Mr. Reyes by directing a play that presented at The Boston Museum of Fine Arts. As well as collaborating with him and members of the United Nations, New York, for the re-launch of the Queens Museum, NY, an event covered by The Weekend Arts, The New York Times.
She has also been teaching for the last sixteen years and has taught workshops at Chelsea College of Art, the Royal College of Art and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. As well as in London, Austria, Italy, China, Abu Dhabi and New York. She has been a Visiting Artist at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, in the Shakespeare class for undergraduates and has also designed an M.A. program in Theater at New York University.