NEW YORK: The Guggenheim Foundation announced its 2025 fellows on April 15. This year marks its 100th class of fellows. The program is part of its yearlong celebration marking a century of transformative impact on American intellectual and cultural life. Theatre workers among the 198 fellows across 53 disciplines include choreographer and performer Monica Bill Barnes; 600 Highwaymen theatre artist Abigail Browde; choreographer Donald Byrd; playwright, director, and regional theatre movement leader Erik Ehn; playwright Larissa FastHorse, who received a fellowship in Indigenous studies with support from the Dorothy Tapper Goldman Foundation; director Lars Jan; theatre scholar Suk-Young Kim; Theater Mitu founding artistic director Rubén Polendo; director and choreographer Robert Saenz de Viteri; and journalist/author Rachel Shteir, in the general non-fiction category (she’s writing a book called Why Theater Matters).
As established in 1925 by its founder, Sen. Simon Guggenheim, the fellowship bestows a monetary stipend to pursue independent work at the highest level under “the freest possible conditions.” Many fellows’ projects directly respond to timely themes and issues such as climate change, Indigenous studies, identity, democracy and politics, incarceration, and the evolving purpose of community. Since its founding in 1925, the Guggenheim Foundation has awarded over $400 million in fellowships to more than 19,000 fellows.
PROVIDENCE, R.I.: On April 15, Trinity Repertory Company announced its 26th annual Pell Award honorees. Actors Tina Fey and Kelli O’Hara will each receive the Pell Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts. Mixed Magic Theatre co-founder and executive director Bernadet V. Pitts-Wiley will receive the Rhode Island Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts. This year’s recipient of the Pell Award for Leadership in the Arts is Lorén M. Spears, the executive director of Tomaquag Museum, Rhode Island’s only Indigenous arts, culture, and history museum. The awards will be presented at the company’s annual gala on June 10. Established in 1997 to honor the legacy of the U.S. senator Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.), the Pell Awards recognize excellence in artistry and advocacy, both regional and national.
NEW YORK: Actors’ Equity Association and the Actors’ Equity Foundation announced jointly that Perseverance Theatre artistic director Leslie Ishii will receive their 2025 Paul Robeson Award for 2025. The Paul Robeson Award recognizes the ongoing work in communities to leverage theatre beyond the stage and enact a commitment to the freedom of expression and conscience for all.
The award upholds Paul Robeson’s belief in the artist’s responsibility to society and dedication to the betterment of humankind that he embodied in his life and work. It is the only award jointly administered by the union and the foundation, given annually since Robeson himself received the first citation in 1974. This announcement came on the eve of Robeson’s 127th birthday.
Leslie Ishii is the artistic director of Perseverance Theatre, a 45-year-old company dedicated to creating professional theatre by and for Alaskans. She is a Yonsei (fourth-generation Japanese American) director, dramaturg, and performer. She debuted as an actor in Northwest Asian American Theater’s Breaking the Silence, which raised legal defense funds for WWII U.S. concentration camp resistor Gordon Hirabayashi and his Supreme Court case, and set about to begin intergenerational healing in the Seattle Japanese American community. Since then, Ishii has felt called to support the storytelling that is the healing justice of Black, Indigenous, and/or people of color (BIPOC) artists and communities. As a director, arts educator, activist, and community builder/organizer, Ishii worked with legacy BIPOC theatres, including El Teatro Campesino, East West Players, National Black Theatre, Penumbra Theatre, Theatre Mu, Native Voices, and emeritus, Asian American Theatre Company. These artistic opportunities have informed her passion for directing and creating theatre deep in community.
