ATC has named Puerto Rican playwright Edwin Sánchez the recipient of the 2025 National Latine Playwrights Award for his powerful new work Lottery Boy, marking Sánchez’s second time receiving the honor.
In addition to naming the NLPA winner, ATC celebrates its second year hosting a Festival at Tempe Center for the Arts on Saturday, October 4 that invites the community to enjoy a reading of the prize-winning play, connect with other artists, and more festivities.
When asked to reflect on winning the award this year, Sánchez responded, “While I treasured it the first time, this time feels sweeter to me. Maybe it’s because it’s later in life and it proves to me that I still have stories to tell, that I still matter as a playwright, or maybe it’s because it’s from a community I respect so much. I think it’s both, and I am truly grateful for the honor.”
Sánchez was first awarded the NLPA back in 2011 for La Bella Familia and currently has a play being adapted for film with Rising Tide Entertainment called Unmerciful Good Fortune with Rosario Dawson set to lead the production. A common theme resonates through each of Sánchez’s works – does the end justify the means?
Lottery Boy features a life transformed by money. At just 15 years old, Paco suddenly finds himself the winner of one of the largest lottery jackpots ever. But more money means more problems, more betrayals, and Paco finds that he is no longer sure which world he belongs in. He goes through the highest highs and the lowest lows as he realizes the only person he trusts isn’t really there. The play cleverly pierces the veil between this world and the next as Paco discovers the true power of his late father’s love.
The public is invited to attend the 2025 National Latine Playwrights Award & Festival which will take place at the Tempe Center for the Arts on Saturday, October 4, and will include a staged reading of Lottery Boy, an awards ceremony honoring Sánchez, and a post-show roundtable discussion. The event will be emceed by President & CEO of the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Monica Villalobos. The reading will be directed by Jerry Ruiz, Associate Professor at ASU’s School of Music, Dance, and Theatre.
Tickets will be available closer to the event date. Tickets may be available at the ATC Box Office at Tempe Center for the Arts the evening of the event, depending on previous demand.
About Edwin Sánchez
Winner of the National Latino Playwriting Award for La Bella Familia, Edwin Sánchez’s recent productions include Unmerciful Good Fortune and Trafficking in Broken Hearts, both in Los Angeles, as well as the world premiere of the romantic comedy I’ll Take Romance at the Evolution Theatre in Ohio. Other productions include: Diosa, produced by Hartford Stage after a successful workshop by New York Stage and Film, Trafficking in Broken Hearts at the Bank Street Theater in New York, Unmerciful Good Fortune at the Intar Theater in New York, for which he received the Princess Grace Playwriting Award in 1994, and Barefoot Boy With Shoes On at Primary Stages in New York. This play was selected by the Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference to represent the National Playwrights Conference at the Schelykovo Playwrights Seminar in Russia; Icarus produced by Fourth Unity, Actors Theatre of Louisville as part of their Humana Festival, San Jose Rep and regionally throughout the U.S.; and Trafficking in Broken Hearts Atlantic Theater in New York, and productions in Brazil and Switzerland. He was also among the playwrights involved with Brave New World, an organization commemorating the events surrounding September 11. Edwin is on the playwriting faculty at Wesleyan University.