[7] She is a three-time winner of the Samuel French Short Play Festival,[3][4][6][7][8] and eight-time finalist for the Heideman Award at Actors Theatre of Louisville.
[6][7] Hutton has received critical acclaim for her plays, which have been compared to the works of Horton Foote,[2][10][11] William Inge,[2][11][12] Jane Austen[10] and Lanford Wilson,[12] among others.
Of her, one journalist wrote, "In an era when playwrights are a vanishing species and Disney dominates Broadway, [Hutton] has fashioned a remarkable place for herself.
[1] Hutton's artist's residencies have included Access Theatre,[7] the Australian National Playwrights Conference,[7] the New Harmony Project,[7][14] Blue Mountain Center,[7] Greenville Centre Stage's New Play Festival,[7] the MacDowell Colony,[7][9][14] Yaddo[7][14] and Winterthur.
"[17] Chris Jones of Chicago Tribune awarded Last Train to Nibroc four stars, writing that it "most closely recalls the work of Horton Foote, although Hutton is very much her own writer.
"[11] David C. Nichols of the Los Angeles Times observed that "Had Arlene Hutton been around during Broadway's golden age, her finely wrought plays might rank with those of William Inge or Horton Foote.
"[2] In a review of See Rock City, Philip Brandes of the Los Angeles Times wrote "With so many dramas these days built around bad behavior — the worse the better, it seems — it's a downright anomaly to come across a genuinely compelling story about ordinary people trying to do their best.
"[18] In his review of Gulf View Drive, directed by Katherine Farmer, which won an Ovation Award for Best Production at the Rubicon Theatre,[7] Brandes wrote that the third play "thoroughly satisfies on its own merits.
"[5] Stasio believes that the three plays will attract audiences looking for "'event theater' that eschews flashy effects, demanding instead a long-term commitment to deserving characters caught up in trying circumstances.
"[20] Gina Bellafante in The New York Times calls the three parts of the work "exquisitely quiet, gently reaching plays" that "ought to be seen by anyone who doubts the capacity of front porch drama to tell a meaningful story beyond its own perimeters.
"[16] Hutton's first play, I Dream Before I Take the Stand, about a woman facing a hostile interrogator concerning a sexual assault incident in which she was the victim, was first performed, as noted above, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1995.
Two days prior, the September 11 attacks occurred, and on that night, the cast members responded by rehearsing the Shaker hymns performed in the play.
[28] Calling Hutton "one of the most richly humane voices in contemporary theater,"[29] F. Kathleen Foley of The Los Angeles Times described As It Is in Heaven as "amusing, intellectually stimulating and moving – a beautifully crafted piece that will endure.
[1][32][33] Her daughter, writer Ann Kirschner, was moved to write a book about the letters, Sala's Gift: My Mother's Holocaust Story.
[8][13] In addition to the above-mentioned honors and awards, Hutton received a New Play Festival Best Play honorable mention at the Chattanooga Theatre Center for Letters to Sala,[14] the Lippmann and Calloway Awards (as playwright) from New Dramatists,[3][6][7] and a Francesca Primus Prize finalist designation from the American Theatre Critics Association.