BOSTON: The New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) has announced the recipients of the 2020 National Theater Project (NTP) creation and touring grants and artist development awards. This year, NEFA has awarded $1,017,000 to support the creation and touring of 10 new works. Additionally, NEFA has awarded $78,000 through 18 artist development awards
“The long-term support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation has enabled the program to experiment, learn, and, most recently, react responsively to the field in a time of great challenge,” said NEFA executive director Cathy Edwards in a statement. “The performing arts have been acutely impacted by Covid-19. These artists and ensembles are at the forefront of creating theater that celebrates belonging, activism and community building.”
NTP supports the development and touring of artist-led, ensemble, and devised work. Since 2010, when the first round of NTP grants went out, NEFA has awarded $8.59 million through the program and supported 75 new works through creation and touring grants. Grants for this round ranged from $90,000 to $125,000, with creation and touring grant recipients receiving an additional $7,500 toward capacity building for touring their project.
“We are very proud of this year’s cohort of grantees,” said Quita Sullivan, senior program director for theater at NEFA, in a statement. “Between the excellence of every project under consideration and our need to be responsive to artist needs during this pandemic, this year may have been the hardest for the NTP advisors to make decisions about this year’s grantees. I am extremely grateful to the artists, the advisors, and the NTP team for the difficult work that went into selecting this year’s amazing group awardees.”
The 2020 NTP creation and touring grant recipients are:
- Baba Israel and Grace Galu, New York City, for Cannabis! A Theatrical Concert (working title)
- Black Benatar’s Black Magic Cabaret, Vallejo, Calif., for Black Benatar’s Black Magic Cabaret Tour
- Borderlands Theater, Tucson, Ariz., for Antigone at the Border
- Daniel Alexander Jones, Bronx, N.Y., for Altar no. 5
- Eugenie Chan Theater Projects (ECTP), San Francisco, for The Truer History of the Chan Family, A New Vaudeville (THCF)
- Kinetic Light, Los Altos, Calif., for Wired
- Mark-n-Sparks, Los Angeles, for Exiled in America
- Mondo Bizarro, New Orleans, for Invisible Rivers
- the Nouveau Sud project, Charlotte, N.C., for La Bestia, a Contemporary Circus take on the Central American immigrant path
- VARIEDADES, Oakland, Calif., for VARIEDADES: Little Central America 1984
The 2020 NTP artist development awardees are:
- All My Relations Collective, Brooklyn, for GIZHIBAA GIIZHIG | Revolving Sky
- Anonymous Ensemble, Brooklyn, for Flight
- Bay Area Theater Cypher, Berkeley, Calif., for CURRENCY
- Critical Mass Performance Group, Los Angeles, for MARIOLOGY
- DNAWORKS, Fort Worth, Texas, for The Secret Sharer
- Double Edge Theatre, Ashfield, Mass., for We The People
- Hamid Rahmanian, Brooklyn, for Song of the North
- Hand2Mouth Theatre, Portland, Ore., for This Town
- Open Flame Theatre, Minneapolis, for The Garden
- PearlDamour, New Orleans, for Ocean Filibuster
- PULLproject Ensemble, Gardena, Calif., for TALES OF CLAMOR
- Tall Order, Philadelphia, for Those With Two Clocks (formerly known as A Hard Time)
- Taylor Mac, New York City, for The Hang
- Teo Castellanos D-Projects, Miami, for F/Punk Junkies
- The Civilians, Brooklyn, for Talent Show
- The She Chronicles, Austin, for She Came Home
- The TEAM, Brooklyn, for RECONSTRUCTION (STILL WORKING BUT THE DEVIL MIGHT BE INSIDE)
- Theater Mitu, Brooklyn, for UTOPIA
