Last week Professor Peninno was given the 2015 Artist Fellowship Award from The New Jersey State Council on the Arts. The award is based on an “independent peer panel assessment of the artistic quality taken from work samples submitted by individual New Jersey artists.” The award is divided up into categories and certain categories are given awards each year. This year included crafts, photography, and playwriting. Dr. Peninno is one of seven artists who received an award in playwriting this year. The process allows an entree to submit his or her work anonymously, while it is anonymously critiqued by a practiced person of that category.
Dr. Peninno submitted a full-length play entitled Of Privilege and Property which takes place in 1741, during the time of a possible slave revolt in New York City. He says, “It explores underlying historic causes of racial and class conflict in that nation.”
This is Peninno’s second time winning the award after receiving it in 2005 from the council. He has also received the Fulbright Scholar award in 2008 for teaching Literature and Theater at Kadir Has University in Istanbul and an OOBR award for directing “A Soldier’s Death”.
Peninno studied English at Columbia where he received his M.F.A. in Playwriting and went on to get his Ph.D at London University. He currently teaches multiple literature and drama classes at Stevens including Shakespeare, American Culture, Western Literature, Modern Drama, and more. Peninno has also written and published multiple plays such as “Forgeries of Jealousy”, “Howard Hopped the A-Train”, and “The Story of an Unknown Man”.
The Council chair Elizabeth Mattson said, “We are extremely proud of these talented artists. They represent the best of the best of our state’s diverse and dynamic artistic community.” And it is indeed a great honor to be recognized, especially in the arts community.
“Working in any field in arts and entertainment is extremely difficult”, Peninno says, “An artist often finds it difficult to make ends meet, has a great deal of competition from other talented practitioners, and struggles on a daily basis to be seen. It takes a great deal of patience, fortitude, faith in one’s self, stubbornness, and, yes, a little bit of luck. So, of course, it is extremely gratifying to be recognized for all one’s hard work by one’s home state.
The State of New Jersey believes that art adds to the quality of life of its citizens, and I am being acknowledged for my small part in helping to maintain that quality of life. That is extremely humbling. Further, that I teach literature and theatre here at Stevens — which serves a global community but is still very engaged in maintaining the quality of life of New Jersey residents (witness the recent decision by NJ Transit in selecting Stevens for flood research) and welcomes a large proportion of its undergraduate student body from New Jersey — heightens my sense of responsibility and service to the people of New Jersey. And so my feelings of gratitude are doubled as well.”
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