ENGLEWOOD, FLA.: The Hermitage Artist Retreat has announced today that playwright Naomi Iizuka has been selected as the fifth recipient of the Hermitage Major Theater Award. This jury-selected prize, established by the Hermitage in 2021 with generous support from Flora Major and the Kutya Major Foundation, offers one of the largest unrestricted nonprofit theatre commissions in the United States. Iizuka will receive a cash prize of $35,000, a six-week residency at the Hermitage Artist Retreat in Florida, and a developmental workshop in a major arts capital, which for this commission is anticipated for Chicago in late 2026.
Naomi Iizuka is an award-winning playwright, educator, and theatremaker based in California. Her body of work includes Anon(ymous), 36 Views, Polaroid Stories, At the Vanishing Point, Language of Angels, Skin, Tattoo Girl, and more. Her plays have been produced at theatres across the country, including BAM’s Next Wave Festival, Berkeley Rep, the Goodman, Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, the Guthrie, Cornerstone, Children’s Theater Company, the Public Theater, and Campo Santo. lizuka is an alumna of New Dramatists and the recipient of a PEN/Laura Pels Award, an Alpert Award, a Whiting Award, a Stavis Award from the National Theatre Conference, a Joyce Foundation Award, and a Hodder Fellowship. She was a Berlind playwright-in-residence at Princeton University. Iizuka has written for The Terror: Infamy (AMC), Tokyo Vice (HBO Max), Bosch: Legacy (Amazon), and The Sympathizer (HBO Max). She is the head of the MFA Playwriting program at University of California-San Diego.
Three distinguished finalists for the fifth Hermitage Major Theater Award include playwright Luis Alfaro, the 2024 TCG World Theater Artist and the recipient of a 2024 recognition in literature from the American Academy of Arts & Letters; Zora Howard, a Pulitzer finalist, writer, performer, and Hermitage alumna whose plays include Stew, Hang Time, The Master’s Tools, Bust, and Good Faith; and playwright and screenwriter José Rivera, who has won two Obie Awards for his plays Marisol and References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot and was nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay to The Motorcycle Diaries. Each finalist has been awarded a Hermitage residency and Fellowship, in addition to a cash prize of $1,000.
NEW YORK CITY: Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF), the nonprofit foundation of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), has announced that the 2023-24 Joe A. Callaway Awards will be awarded to Daniel Aukin for excellence in directing for Stereophonic (Playwrights Horizons) and nicHi douglas for excellence in choreography for (pray) (National Black Theatre & Ars Nova). The Callaway Awards will be presented in a virtual ceremony in spring 2025.
Daniel Aukin is a New York-based director. In addition to David Adjmi’s Stereophonic and Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love on Broadway, his recent Off-Broadway credits include Mia Chung’s Catch as Catch Can (Playwrights Horizons) and Emily Feldman’s The Best We Could (MTC). He has also worked on world premieres of new-plays by Joshua Harmon, Abe Koogler, Dan LeFranc, Amy Herzog, Melissa James Gibson, Itamar Moses, Michael Friedman, Mark Schultz, Mac Wellman, Quincy Long, and María Irene Fornés. He has won three Obie Awards for his work and was artistic director of Soho Rep (1998-2006) and a founding member of Physical Plant based in Austin.
nicHi douglas is a Lucille Lortel, AUDELCO, and Princess Grace award-winning, Brooklyn-based experimental theatre- and dance-maker interested in leading community-care-centered creative processes. She is currently a HARP resident artist at HERE Arts Center, where she is creating a new dance theatre piece called ONLY I. They are an assistant arts professor at NYU/Tisch where they teach dance & movement methodologies. Recent theatre includes (pray) (NBT/Ars Nova, playwright/director/choreographer), The Cotillion (The Movement Theatre Company + New Georges, Choreographer), WEIGHTLESS (WP Theater, choreographer), SKiNFoLK: AN AMERICAN SHOW (Bushwick Starr + NBT, choreographer).
First presented in 1989, the Callaway Awards are peer-given awards recognizing excellence in the arts of stage direction and choreography in each New York City Off-Broadway season.
BOSTON: The Latinx Theatre Commons (LTC) has awarded the 2024 Diane Rodriguez Teatrista Award to Miranda Gonzalez. The Diane is the LTC’s award dedicated to an individual working in the theatre field who is committed to increasing Latinx representation across disciplines. Named in honor of director, writer, performer, and advocate Diane Rodriguez, this award aims to support theatremakers in continuing her legacy and includes a $5,000 unrestricted award.
Miranda Gonzalez, born and raised in the city of Chicago, is a writer, director, producer, facilitator, and organizational strategist with a BS from DePaul University, and has co-created addressing anti-blackness in the Latiné community. Currently the producing artistic director for UrbanTheater Company (UTC) in Humboldt Park, she has curated and led numerous interdisciplinary projects that blend theatre, music, dance, and oral history to tell the stories of Chicago’s history that mirror her identity and lived experience. A collective member of Culture Change Lab, she helps support arts organizations, funders, and lobbyists in reimagining collective structures through operational management. She serves on the National Latinx Theater Initiative Steering Committee advocating for the advancement of Latinx artists and organizations, influencing policy. She is a recipient of the Leaders for a New Chicago Award, 3Arts Award and the International Centre for Women Playwrights 50/50 Award.
Nominations for the 2025 LTC Diane Rodriguez Teatrista Award will open in early 2025. Applicants will be nominated by peers and colleagues throughout the field and recipients will be selected by an appointed committee.
NEW YORK CITY: Dramatists Guild Foundation (DGF) has announced the 2024-25 class of Fellows. The Fellows program is a year-long intensive for New York City-based emerging dramatists looking to develop existing work in the next level of their careers. This cohort of dramatists will work together under the guidance and leadership of professional playwrights to develop current work in pursuit of commercial development and production. The fellows are:
- Arianna Afsar, Musical Theatre Writing
- Emma Ashford, Musical Theatre Writing
- Sophie Boyce, Musical Theatre Writing
- Fouad Dakwar, Musical Theatre Writing
- Jen Diamond, Playwriting
- Matthew Jellison, Playwriting
- Yilong Liu, Playwriting
- Jaime Lozano, Musical Theatre Writing
- Veronica Mansour, Musical Theatre Writing
- Ro Reddick, Playwriting
- Phillip Christian Smith, Playwriting
Fellows receive a $5,000 stipend, access to career resources, an industry mentor, and the opportunity to partner with several arts organizations. At the end of the program, each fellow will have an opportunity to participate in a presentation of their work for top theatre professionals. The program is highly sought after for its successful format of partnering playwrights and musical theatre writers together in the learning process.
The Fellows program also welcomes a new group of chairs this year. Anne Washburn and Migdalia Cruz serve as the playwriting chairs for this year’s class of fellows. Rona Siddiqui and Itamar Moses serve as the musical theatre chairs for this year’s class.
Dramatists Guild Foundation (DGF) is a national charity that fuels the future of American theatre by supporting the writers who create it. DGF fosters playwrights, composers, lyricists, and librettists at all stages of their careers. DGF sponsors educational programs; provides awards, grants, and stipends; offers free space to create new-works; and gives emergency aid to writers in need of immediate support.
NEW YORK CITY: The Tank has announced the 2024-25 fellows for the Tank Producers Cohort, an innovative program designed to support the unique needs of emerging creative producers and to invest in pathways to increase and expand representation for those who have been traditionally excluded from producing opportunities. This program engages three to five early-career producers for one-year fellowships, with annual awards of $15,000 and opportunities for additional funding for creative work and professional development. The 2024-25 class of fellows will include Carlton V Bell II, Kathleen Capdesuñer, Jessie Char, and Kyra Davis.
Carlton V Bell II “CJ” (they/them) is a Black, queer Southerner creating space and time at the intersections of theatre, film, and cultural organizing to facilitate liberation strategies in marginalized ecosystems. Carlton spends their day to day primarily operating as the program associate for the Sex Worker Giving Circle at Third Wave Fund, where they are a former fellow and advisor to its annual grant-making cohort. They are also the co-founder of the award-winning Birmingham Black Repertory Theatre Collective, a Black queer-led nonprofit organization building power and capacity for marginalized artists while catalyzing a culture of Black theatre in the South. Carlton also serves as the Development Lead for Write It Out!
Kathleen Capdesuñer is an immigrant-raised and Florida-grown Cuban American director and producer working in English, Spanish, y Spanglish. Kathleen is deeply committed to democratizing modes of creation, increasing accessibility and representation in the industry, and championing the work of living writers. Select credits include Sunset Blvd. (SDCF observer/Broadway), Los Empeños de una Casa (director/Repertorio Español), The Detour Plays (director/Playwrights Horizons & The Parsnip Ship), Red Bike (director/The New School), Into the Woods (community producer/New York City Center), True West (assistant director/Broadway), and SHAME (director/Orlando & Edinburgh International Fringe Festivals). Kathleen is currently in residence at Colt Coeur and at NYU Tisch School of the Arts.
Jessie Char cut her teeth in the classical music world as a cellist before accidentally landing a job in tech. She then became a career shifter, moving rapidly between various disciplines in tech before founding the Layers design conference, which ran in tandem with Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference 2015-20. For reasons she barely understands, she stumbled into theatrical design, working on productions like Invasive Species (the Tank, the Vineyard) and JOB (Soho Playhouse, the Connelly). Her sound design and creative direction have been acclaimed by The New York Times and New York magazine, and now she’s not entirely sure how to describe what she does for a living.
Kyra Davis is a dedicated artist from the South. She was a part of the inaugural class in the Uptown Collective’s Renaissance playwright residency. Her play SugarHill will be produced by Dramatic Question Theatre in 2025. She is currently excited about her web series Front of House Faux Pas, which she wrote, produced, and starred in. Her inspirations are the Black women who came before her and the young Black women who have been forgotten, counted out, and under-estimated. She desires to create works that empower them, fill them with laughter, and encourage them to live their lives unapologetically. Select credits include: Law and Order: Organized Crime: Jitney (Rena), Intimate Apparel (Esther), and The Christians (Elizabeth).
Fellows will participate in regular meetings, including both practicum discussions and guest artist sessions with mentor practitioners in the field, as well as take on hands-on learning opportunities by producing at the Tank. As a capstone to their fellowship, each fellow will have the opportunity to produce a presented show at the Tank as the instigating artist, whether as the generative artist, a curatorial force, or another model that centers creative producing as artistic practice.
ATLANTA: The Fox Theatre is pleased to announce 12 grant recipients, totaling $500,000 in financial support to theatres in Georgia. These single-year grants were funded in two categories: preservation and facilities, and technical assistance. The Fox Theatre, through its nonprofit partnerships program Fox Gives, is dedicated to strengthening communities and their iconic performing arts institutions while providing support through financial investments. This grant funding addresses financial deficiencies through the nonprofit’s community engagement program.
The Fox Gives preservation and facilities grant is designed to engage community-wide participation and support for local preservation projects, fostering a sense of communal pride and ownership. This year’s recipients include:
- Arts & Cultural Authority of Claxton and Evans County (Claxton): $75,000
- Canton Theatre (Canton): $20,000
- Earl and Rachel Smith Strand Theatre (Marietta): $33,000
- Festival Hall (Greensboro): $25,000
- Marigold Auditorium (Winterville): $58,000
- Ritz Theatre (Brunswick): $50,000
- Royal Theatre (Hogansville): $34,000
- Springer Opera House (Columbus): $60,000
- The Arts Council (Gainesville): $75,000
- Tooga Theatre (Summerville): $20,000
The Fox Gives technical assistance grant enables grant recipients direct access to experts and resources tailored to meet a variety of specific technical preservation needs. This year’s recipients include:
- Georgia Historic Preservation Division (Atlanta): $25,000
- Sautee Nacoochee Center (Sautee Nacoochee): $25,000
The Fox Theatre is one of Atlanta’s premier venues for live entertainment, welcoming more than 150 performances a year in its 4,665-seat theatre. From concerts to ballets, comedy, and movies, the historic venue attracts more than 500,000 visitors annually.
NEW YORK CITY: The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) has announced Aliyah Curry as the 2024 recipient of its Ryan Hudak LGBTQ+ Dramatic Writing Award, an $8,000 cash grant awarded to a playwright or screenwriter based in New York state who identifies as LGBTQ+.
The annual award honors the life and work of playwright Ryan Hudak, who died tragically in May 2022 at age 32 after a long battle with leukemia. In addition to his work as a playwright, Ryan was a theatremaker, filmmaker, and a valued member of NYFA’s staff, serving on the executive and development teams.
Aliyah Curry is a queer, Southern-bred writer and filmmaker who focuses on Black sexuality and mental health. After studying dramatic writing at Savannah College of Art and Design, she was accepted into Horizon Theatre Company’s New South Young Playwrights contest and festival, which contributed to her being a Dramatist Guild of America Young Playwright Award semi-finalist. She has since worked with Working Title Playwrights, Alliance Theatre, the Tank, and more.
