Pulitzer for Rabbit Hole

Playbill reports that the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama was given to David Lindsay-Abaire's five-person play, Rabbit Hole.

The play's win is somewhat unusual because it was not one of the original three nominated plays selected for the jury: Orpheus X by Rinde Eckert; Bulrusher by Eisa Davis; and Elliot, a Soldier's Fugue by Quiara Alegria Hudes. Since the jury could not agree on a majority vote on any of the final three, they agreed to look at Rabbit Hole, which went on to win.

Playwright Lindsay-Abaire is respected for such quirky, freewheeling Off-Broadway comedies as Fuddy Meers and Kimberly Akimbo, but his more serious Rabbit Hole is about a family recovering from the death of a child. The play received five Tony nominations, including Best Play (it lost the Best Play Tony to The History Boys). Cynthia Nixon received the Tony for her performance as a mother grieving the loss of her young son.

"The [Rabbit Hole] rehearsal process was difficult for everybody," said playwright Lindsay-Abaire at a 2006 Tony Awards press event. Stars "Cynthia Nixon and John Slattery have kids the same age as the boy in the play. Once we were up and running, you sort of forgot about that for a while. Then, when I'd revisit it, with friends or relatives who were experiencing the play for the first time, it would remind me how scary the stuff was that I wrote about."

Lindsay-Abaire wrote the drama after fellow playwright Marsha Norman -- who was his teacher at Juilliard -- told him to write a play about something that frightened him. A father, Lindsay-Abaire began shaping a story about a husband and wife who lose their only child in a freak car accident.