As previously reported, Yale School of Drama graduate Meg Miroshnik's Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls is the 2012 winner of the Kendeda Competition and will receive a full production as part of the Alliance season, running Feb. 3-26, 2012.

The four finalist plays will receive readings in Atlanta and New York in 2012. The competition is open to all playwriting students at accredited MFA programs within the U.S.

Bartlett hales from the Yale School of Drama, while Guillot attends Catholic University, Maggio UCLA and Snyder is enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin.

Here's a look at the plays:

Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls (Miroshnik)
The play "collides the rapidly-changing setting of modern Moscow with the darkly funny world of traditional Russian fairy tales. 20-year-old Annie, who left the collapsing Soviet Union for American shores as a baby, has just been sent back to the city of her birth for the summer to stay with her aunt, a woman who acts an awful lot like the girl-eating witch, Baba Yaga. There, she meets the two Katyas, the tragic Masha, whose boyfriend has recently turned into a bear, and a fairy godmother prostitute named Nastya—and the adventures begin. When the lines between reality and fairy tale start to blur, then vanish, things get seriously dicey." Whales (Bartlett)
"While visiting his family's secluded cottage on the lower Outer Banks of North Carolina, Owen, a typically urban fourteen-year-old boy, and his fisherman father clash until an unlikely and healing communion with an injured whale awakens in Owen a forgotten boyhood and connection with the sea."

We Fight We Die (Guillot)
"A pack of passionate urban poets, speaking in furious rhythms, echoing the styles of hip-hop and spoken word tell the story of Q, a homeless, virtuosic graffiti artist who has transfixed the local city with his stunning and subversive work. Finally caught by the police, Q must license his talents to the local government in order to avoid jail. Faced by a power hungry mayor, indebted to his one and only friend, Q must decide – defiance or conformity? Echoing the power and passion of the ancient Greeks, this is a striking look at urban life."

Lost Cause (Maggio)
"Dartmouth freshman Shawn has a crush on his debate partner, Gillian. But Gillian has the hots for Conor, a hardcore Confederate re-enactor, and she convinces Shawn to come with her to the Battle of Bentonville State Historic Site in North Carolina to join in the process of 'reliving history' as a volunteer in the C.S.A. There’s only one problem: Shawn happens to be black. A mad-cap journey through the imagined past and fraught present of the American Civil War."

Shoe Story (Snyder)
"An urban fairy tale about love, loss, and the metaphysical significance of a fresh pair of kicks."

Visit AllianceTheatre.