FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 23, 2022
CONTACT: Elissa Borges, Curator of Public Programs, 907-586-0966, elissa.borges@juneau.org
Juneau playwright and retired family medicine doctor, Maureen Longworth, has been awarded the 2022 Marie Darlin Prize. The $5000.00 Marie Darlin Prize is administered through the Juneau-Douglas City Museum (JDCM) and is awarded annually to an individual or collaboration whose work, through a combination of vision and shared sense of community, expresses a regional commitment to women’s rights, social history, or community advocacy. The Friends of the Juneau-Douglas City Museum (FOJDCM) and the Juneau Community Foundation support the funding for the prize. Maureen Longworth was chosen to receive this prize because of her outstanding achievements and work which expresses a regional commitment to social history, women’s rights, and the history and advocacy for the LGBTQ+ community.
Maureen Longworth earned her bachelor’s degree in liberal arts with a full scholarship at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and then attended the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine. While attending UCSF, Maureen encountered regular gender bias and was inspired to shed light on the problem by writing skits based on these experiences. The compiled skits became a play which was performed at UCSF’s first International Women’s Day celebration in 1980. As a result of the play, UCSF mandated gender harassment be reported directly to the dean. With the assistance of the American Medical Student Association, Maureen obtained grant money to transform her play into a film titled, Turning Around: Sexism in Medicine. Maureen completed the film during her final year at UCSF School of Medicine. Turning Around: Sexism in Medicine subsequently became required viewing for all UCSF faculty.
In 1992 Maureen Longworth moved to Juneau and worked at SEARHC in family medicine from 1993 to 2005. She continued to practice medicine in Juneau until 2013 when she retired due to a broken back. Once retired, Maureen began to write more seriously. She attended summer writing programs at the University of Iowa from 2015-2016 and it was there she began writing Blue Ticket, a historical fiction play based on Juneau’s history of forced deportation of homosexuals in 1963. Maureen completed writing Blue Ticket in 2017 and was awarded a Juneau History Grant in 2018 to help bring her play to stage in Juneau. Blue Ticket premiered in Juneau in 2019 to sold-out audiences. In June 2022, the film version of Blue Ticket became available online and was shown at the Gold Town Theater.
“This play challenged an entire community to see a marginalized group living among us and to learn about our own damaging history. It takes a deep talent and bravery to write and produce a play that makes a whole community sit up and take note,” writes Emily Wall, MFA, professor of English at UAS.
Patricia Turner Custard states, “Maureen Longworth, through Blue Ticket, cast a lens on a dark part of Juneau and Southeast Alaska history. By humanizing the topic through compelling and relatable characters, Blue Ticket added to the discussion of LGBTQ+ rights that resonates from past to present, broadening the conversation to the community as a whole.”
The 2022 Marie Darlin Prize selection committee, the JDCM, the FOJDCM and the Juneau Community Foundation are pleased to recognize Maureen Longworth’s commitment to presenting Juneau history and her advocacy for the rights of marginalized members of the Juneau community.
