Forgive the headline for being so crass about bucks—the honor at stake is the Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award—but $25,000 is serious money for a play.

The play in question is Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World, which had its world premiere at ACT Theatre last summer. I loved it, especially for its light sympathetic resonance with Annie Hall. But El Guindi's New York love story concerns a neurotic honkey gal and a recent Egyptian immigrant instead of a blissfully ignorant shiksa and a neurotic Jewish guy. A dose of one of my favorite moments, from the review:

Later in the scene, Sheri picks up Musa's Koran and starts reading it aloud. Actor Shanga Parker's tense physical comedy (directed by Anita Montgomery) in this moment is magnificent. Musa doesn't want to be inhospitable and doesn't want to seem too physically aggressive—Sheri has already expressed nervousness about whether it's "safe" for her to visit the apartment of a man she barely knows—but is clearly uncomfortable about her cavalier handling of and reading from his Koran. He keeps trying to sneak up behind her and snatch it back, but she always turns away at the last moment. He had told her earlier that he learned English by reading mystery novels—Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett—and she makes a reckless comparison to his Koran:

Sheri: This is a kind of mystery book, too, right?

Musa: Not really.

Sheri: It's a whodunit, isn't it?

Musa: We know who done it! God!

The script is full of trap-door surprises and characters you're not expecting—it's a complicated, romantic thriller, if such a thing exists—but remains humane and intelligent and doesn't succumb to the gimmicks of a thriller. My fingers are crossed for El Guindi. He, and his play, deserve laurels.