This new award bestows $25,000 on a dramatist whose work "seeks to plumb the ineffable nature of being human," according to a press statement. The award is named after Pulitzer Prize-winning, Oscar-winning and Tony-nominated playwright Horton Foote, who passed away in 2009. Due to Foote’s longtime association with the Dramatists Guild, the award is administered by the Dramatists Guild Fund and will be presented annually at the Guild’s awards presentation.

Karam is also the author of Sons of the Prophet, a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize and the recipient of the 2012 Drama Critics Circle, Outer Critics Circle, Lucille Lortel and the DG’s Hull-Warriner Awards for Best Play. Other plays include Speech & Debate, the inaugural production of Roundabout Underground; and columbinus (New York Theatre Workshop).

The Horton Foote Playwriting Award was presented by David Richenthal, executive director of the Richenthal Foundation, on behalf on the Dramatists Guild of America.

Other awards went to Stephen Adly Guirgis, recipient of the Hull-Warriner Award for his play Between Riverside and Crazy; Lin-Manuel Miranda, recipient of the Frederick Loewe Award for Dramatic Composition for his score to Hamilton; Dael Orlandersmith, recipient of the Flora Roberts Award; Lauren Gunderson, recipient of the Lanford Wilson Award; and Stephen Schwartz and Marsha Norman, co-recipients of the Dramatists Guild Career Achievement Award.

The Dramatists Legal Defense Fund also presented their third DLDF Defender Award to Edward J. Davis Esq. of Davis Wright Tremaine, an attorney who recently successfully defended playwright David Adjmi in his recent fair use case regarding his play 3C.