Two playwrights familiar to Chicago among Whiting Awards winners

On Friday, the New York-based Whiting Foundation announced 10 recipients of the Whiting Award, the prize given to emerging artists of exceptional promise. Four poets, three fiction writers and an essayist are among the winners, each of whom will receive $50,000.

The award, created 30 years ago by Flora Ettlinger Whiting — a New York investor, collector, and philanthropist with a lifelong commitment to culture — has previously been given to such writers as Jonathan Franzen, Tony Kushner and David Foster Wallace, among others.

The 2015 honorees include two playwrights whose work has been produced recently in Chicago: Lucas Hnath (whose “Isaac’s Eye” was staged by Writers Theatre and “Death Tax” was staged by Lookingglass Theatre), and Anne Washburn (whose “Mr. Burns: a post-electric play” is running through March 22 at Theater Wit).

The other award recipients are poets Anthony Carelli, Jenny Johnson, Aracelis Girmay and Roger Reeve; fiction writers Leopoldine Core, Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi and Dan Josefson; and essayist Elena Passarello.