LOS ANGELES: LA New Play Project (LANPP) has announced its second year of financial support for original works in small and midsized Los Angeles-area theatres. The funding will award excellence in playwriting, encourage the production of new and untried plays on smaller stages, and help stabilize theatrical productions that originate in L.A. but resonate beyond its borders.

“We are passionately invested in the fact that live theatre will not just come back, but will come roaring back and flourish as we process what we’ve been missing,” LANPP director Paula Holt said in a statement. “We will accept original writing submissions this April and plan to announce the second grant recipients in September.”

The two-tiered grant program offers $20,000 grants to playwrights for unproduced plays and $20,000 grants to producers to support world-premiere productions. Producers, in partnership with playwrights, are invited to submit new scripts by June 1. A panel will select one to three projects for the awards. More information on submission guidelines can be found on the LANPP website.

Winners of the 2021 LANPP grants include Carolyn Ratteray for Both And (A Play About Laughing While Black), currently running at Boston Court Pasadena; Carla Ching for Revenge Porn, to be produced by Ammunition Theatre Company; and Josh Wilder for The Hands That Could, to be produced by Watts Village Theater Company.

The LA New Play Project was founded by Holt and associate director Nathan Birnbaum, both producers. It is administered in partnership with the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and the UCLA Foundation.