NEW YORK CITY: 321 Theatrical Management and Barbara Whitman Productions, in partnership with the Epic Theatre Ensemble, have announced the establishment of the Sweets Factory Fellowship. The year-long paid fellowship will provide rising high school seniors in New York City the opportunity to experience a comprehensive education in commercial theatre.
The fellowship will be open to students enrolled in the Epic NEXT Arts Leadership initiative, Epic Theatre’s youth development program. As part of the fellowship program, one to four students will be selected for the opportunity to work alongside industry professionals. The seniors will participate in leadership development, civic engagement, and college readiness initiatives with a mentor. In addition to weekly meetings with a designated mentor, the selected fellows will work in a professional theatre office for the spring semester.
The Epic NEXT Arts Leadership initiative aims to empower young people to be arts leaders. The program works to build connections between a diverse cohort of professional theatre artists and young students of color whose schools and communities are under-resourced.
“Epic NEXT works with young people though an asset-driven lens, actively asking participants how they can uniquely contribute to the program and communities in order to level the playing field (notably in the field of professional theatre) for everyone, rather than promoting the voices of the advantaged minority,” the company said in a statement. “Epic NEXT is incrementally making the American theatre a more inclusive, more just, and more important place for new young leaders of color to assert their role as agents of change.”
The Sweets Factory comprises a collective of theatrical managers and producers including Nina Essman, Marcia Goldberg, Nancy Gibbs of 321 Theatrical Management; Barbara Whitman Productions; Patrick Catullo; Eric Cornell of Cornice Productions ; Amanda Dubois; Aaron Glick; Cody Lassen; and Darren Johnston and Christine Schwarzman of No Guarantees. These managers and producers share office space in the Sweets Factory building in Hell’s Kitchen.
Interested students can learn more about the fellowship here.
