Lydia Blaisdell's UTNT Play about Oscar Kokoschka Wins Kentucky Prize for Women Playwrights

Ahead of its spring staging at UTNT (UT New Theatre), Lydia Blaisdell's The Silent Woman recently won the Kentucky Women Writers Conference Prize for Women Playwrights. 

"This winner of the Kentucky Women Writers Conference Prize for Women Playwrights, Lydia Blaisdell's The Silent Woman, tackles one of art history's more curious footnotes: Oskar Kokoschka's months-long affair with a human-sized doll he commissioned to look like his former lover, Alma Mahler.

"Kokoschka, now recognized as one of the foremost painters in the German expressionist style, painted the doll obsessively until he eventually got over the loss, moved on, and apparently lived a totally normal life."