Culture Flash!

• Steven Tomlinson's American Fiesta (above) has been named one of six finalists for this year's Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award. The annual new play competition for works that premiere outside New York City bestows $25,000 on the winner, with a citation and $7,500 each for two runners-up. A committee of 12 ATCA members chose the finalists from 25 scripts nominated by theatre critics from around the country. Other finalists this year include: A Body of Water, by Lee Blessing; The Pain and the Itch, by Bruce Norris; Radio Golf, by the late August Wilson; Red Light Winter, by Adam Rapp; and Restoration Comedy, by Amy Freed. The awards will be announced April 1, at the Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville, Ky. The State Theatre will revive Tomlinson's monologue for a summer run July 19-Aug. 6. For more information, visit www.austintheatre.org.

• The Rude Mechanicals scored a nice grant from the New York-based Creative Capital Foundation in support of a proposed production called The Method Gun, which follows the life of Stella Burden, architect of the fictitious Method Gun technique. One of 43 projects in the performing arts and literature to be funded by Creative Capital this year, The Method Gun will initially receive a $10,000 award and may be granted additional funds up to $50,000 as it develops. The Rudes' next production, Decameron Day 7: Revenge runs April 6-29 at the Off Center, 2211-A Hidalgo. For more information, visit www.rudemechs.com.

• Katalin Hausel has won this year's Umlauf Prize, given annually by the Umlauf Sculpture Garden & Museum to an outstanding grad student in sculpture at UT-Austin, where Charles Umlauf taught for 40 years. Austin Museum of Art curator Dana Friis-Hansen, who served as juror this year, noted "power and promise" in the third-year M.F.A. student's work, which merges architecture with partially illegible texts. In addition to a $500 award (underwritten by sculptor and Umlauf board Chair Damian Priour and his wife Paula), Hausel will have one of her installations displayed at the museum starting April 15. For more information, visit www.umlaufsculpture.org.