Tom Coash gave residents a platform for their writing when he launched BMDS’s Famous for 15 Minutes competition.

The American playwright has now scored big with work of his own.

His play, Veils, won the highly prized M Elizabeth Osborn Award from the American Theatre Critics Association this month.

By any standards it’s a huge deal.

The ATCA is the only nationwide professional association of theatre critics in the United States.

It hands out two major awards each year — Veils won the Osborn Award and was a finalist for the more prestigious Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award.

“They said it’s the first time that a play has actually been up for both in the same year,” said Mr Coash. “I didn’t win the big one but I’m very happy.”

The ATCA describes Veils as “a unique look at the differences and similarities between America and the Middle East as viewed in the clashing sensibilities of women’s rights and traditional roles in both civilisations”.

It follows two Muslim women studying at the American Egyptian University in Cairo just before the Arab Spring. The African American is the more traditional of the two; the Egyptian is enamoured of western pop culture.

“It’s about them getting to know each other and getting overwhelmed by the Egyptian revolution,” Mr Coash explained. “It’s about two young women working their butts off in school, dealing with issues, trying to find their place in the world.

“It sounds very serious but there’s a lot of humour in it.”

Mr Coash started the Bermuda Musical and Dramatic Society festival while living here in 2001.

He last visited the Island in 2013, when his wife Julie was artist-in-residence at Masterworks. The couple now lives in New Haven, Connecticut. He’s still involved with Famous for 15 Minutes and helps to choose the six plays that are produced for it each year.

However, he chose Egypt to lead the direction of his award-winning play. Mr Coash, a director and dramaturge, lectured at the American University in Cairo for four years.

“I loved it there,” he said. “I loved the people. It was fabulous. It always bothers me to see the negative side of the Middle East and Muslims, especially as portrayed by the American media, so I wanted to write about the Egypt we knew, the people we knew and how different it is to what we see in the paper.”

He started writing Veils just before the 2010 revolution. It was intended to be a one-act play until it was performed before an audience of veiled women in the United Arab Emirates.

“They really liked it, and in particular liked that I was talking about their issues; that an American man was talking about their issues,” he said.

“I was then able to ask them questions. We got into so many terrific conversations about it that I said, ‘this needs to be a full-length play’.

“There’s a million reasons why women veil or don’t veil and my thought was to put a lot of that information in the play in an entertaining fashion, so people can see the different angles in a way they can relate to.

“I thought I knew a lot about veiling when I started — I didn’t. It’s not a play about Tom’s opinions. I like to give both sides so the audience can make up their own mind.”

The play took him about five years to complete.

“With plays generally, that’s sort of the way it works,” he said. “You write it and then have readings and development and go on theatre retreats.

“I also got ideas from the cast and crew; really smart, talented people who come up with things — and they’re usually better than I ever imagined. You also learn a lot by watching how the audience reacts.”

The revision period might have gone on forever had he not attended “a really good development workshop in New York”.

“Somebody told me the play was way too long,” he said. “I cut 50 pages out.”

Almost immediately, he won the Clauder Competition for New England Playwrights. The esteemed Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award came soon after.

The play premiered at Maine’s Portland Stage in 2014 and then came the Osborn Award. Veils was nominated by one of the ATCA’s members.

“Basically the award is for a new play that premiered in 2014 outside of New York City by what they term as an ‘emerging playwright’, someone who has not had a Broadway or off-Broadway production,” Mr Coash said. “I’ve been writing and directing for a long time but this is a big leap for me — a play taking off and getting lots of awards. I think it will step me up to the next level.” Play ‘Veils’ explores cultural differences