Alumni News: Nadia Hopkins Receives the Relentless Award

Nadia Hopkins, Class of 2020, received the prestigious Relentless Award! Given in honor of Philip Seymour Hoffman by the American Playwriting Foundation, the award honors “fearless, honest storytelling with the largest annual cash prize for unproduced work in American theatre.”  Hopkins is the 10th recipient of the award in APF's history. The Relentless Award confers $50,000 to Nadia for "her relentlessly playful and arrestingly thoughtful Humane Traps." 

Nadia’s love for theater began to truly blossom at Meridian. Nadia took part in a number of theater classes and participated as an actor and director in a number of Meridian plays. She went with one of her classes to see a production of The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe, which had won the Relentless Award in 2015. Nadia said in an interview with American Theatre, “At the time it felt like the craziest play I’d ever seen. I wanted to be in it.” Nadia went on to attend Connecticut College and actually wrote part of Humane Traps for her honors thesis. 

Nadia’s Meridian education gave her the opportunity to get deeply involved with the theater program in a variety of ways, including after school, in arts courses, and even in her yearlong Junior Research Project (JRPS). Her project focused on the Stanislavski system of acting. After writing a lengthy literature review, she interviewed five professional actors about their training, acting process, and use of the Stanislavski method. During the interviews, she learned about how the actors sought to transform an audience. She then compiled those interviews in a podcast for her final project. Nadia wrote in her JRPS abstract, “The research process changed how I see the role of theater. Instead of acting to personally experience another perspective, I found that a performance can radically change the audience. To me, this felt like a whole new reason to make theater, and I felt a new responsibility to deeply understand and play my characters truthfully.” 

As part of the Class of 2020, Nadia’s theater directing opportunities were cut short by COVID-19. Nadia was in the middle of directing Blood Relations when the pandemic hit. However, we are so happy and proud that Nadia went onto Connecticut College and continued her work in acting and writing! One of her classmates said of her, “Nadia is a wonderful actor, director and student…I spent most of my time with her in [theater], where she really showed her passion. She was always motivated and cared for what she was doing. For the few months she directed Blood Relations I cannot express how impressed I was with her ability to lead and get in touch with her actors and the scene. It was an amazing experience to be a part of that play, even if we didn't get to perform.”

Cheers to you, Nadia! We are grateful to have been able to cultivate your theatrical wings and are so proud to see you soar!