NEW YORK CITY: National Alliance for Musical Theatre has named their 2023-24 award recipients for the Frank Young Fund for New Musicals Project Development & Production Grants and the 2024-25 award recipients of the Impact & Exploration Fund.
“We are thrilled to witness the unwavering commitment and innovation demonstrated by this year’s grant recipients,” said NAMT executive director Betsy King Militello in a statement. “These projects highlight the transformative power of musical theatre, pushing the boundaries of creativity and accessibility in ways that resonate deeply with producers, audiences, and artists alike.”
The Frank Young Fund for New Musicals has awarded $5,000 to $10,000 to support full productions at Aurora Theatre for King of Pangea by Martin Storrow; Diversionary Theatre for TL;DR: Thelma Louise; Dyke Remix by EllaRose Chary and Brandon James Gwinn; Goodspeed Musicals for Little Miss Perfect by Joriah Kwamé; Olney Theatre Center for Long Way Down by Dahlak Brathwaite and Khiyon Hursey; Philadelphia Theatre Company for Night Side Songs by Daniel Lazour and Patrick Lazour; TheatreWorks Silicon Valley in partnership with Center Repertory Company for Happy Pleasant Valley: A Senior Sex Scandal Murder Mystery Musical by Min Kahng; and Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre for Never Better by Preston Max Allen.
The Frank Young Fund for New Musicals has awarded $2,000 to $5,000 to support a workshop or reading at Ars Nova for Satellites by Zack Zadek; La Jolla Playhouse for Untitled Quiet Project by Sam Chanse, MILCK (AKA Connie Lim), AG (AKA Adrianne Gonzalez) and Jess McLeod; MCC Theater for MISS STEP by Melissa Li and Kit Yan; and Prospect Musicals for The Oscar Micheaux Project by Alphonso Horne, Jesse L. Kearney, Jr., Peter Mills and Cara Reichel.
Recipients of Writers Residency Grants, also part of the Frank Young Fund for New Musicals, will be announced later this year.
The Impact & Exploration Fund, with funding from the Capdevilla Gillespie Foundation to support their projects, has awarded $2,000 to $5,000 to The 5th Avenue Theatre for “Expansion of The 5th’s ASL Interpreted Performances”; Diversionary Theatre Productions Inc. for “Diversionary Goes Green: Roofing & Solar Panel Installation”; Ogunquit Playhouse for “Education and Community Programs Assessment”; The Old Globe for “Breaking Bread: Family Edition;” Philadelphia Theatre Company for “PTC & Art-Reach Strategic Accessibility Initiative”; Pittsburgh CLO for “Removing Barriers” initiative; and ZACH Theatre for “Website Redesign.”
The Frank Young Fund for New Musicals is overseen by Frankie Dailey, and the recommended grant recipients for the Production and Project Development Grants are selected by a panel of industry leaders, moderated by Gigi Bolt (formerly National Endowment for the Arts). The panelists for the 2024-25 cycle are Charles Vincent Burwell, Braley Degenhardt, Dan Knechtges, Søren Møller, Dámaso Rodríguez, Sushma Saha, Aaron Sanko, and Beatriz Westby. The Frank Young Fund for New Musicals has provided over $900,000 of funding to new musicals over the last 15 years.
The Impact & Exploration Fund is overseen by NAMT member services director Adam Grosswirth, and the recommended grant recipients are selected by a panel of industry leaders. This year’s panel was Kerry Candeloro, Victor Cervantes, Jr., Aislinn Frantz, Tad Fujioka, Nancy Gibbs, and Katie Pelkey. The Impact & Exploration Fund (formerly the Innovation & Exploration Fund) has provided over $130,000 of funding since 2017, for projects in areas of technology, accessibility, artistic innovation, and more.
The National Alliance for Musical Theatre, founded in 1985, is a not-for-profit organization serving the musical theatre community. Its mission is to be a catalyst for nurturing musical theatre development, production, innovation and collaboration. Their 125 organizational members and 55 individual members, located throughout 31 states and six countries abroad, are some of the leading producers of musical theatre in the world and include theatres, presenting organizations, higher education programs and individual producers.
LOS ANGELES: Geffen Playhouse announced its selection of L.A.-based writers to participate in the 2024-25 cycle of the Writers’ Room, a forum for engagement and collaboration among local playwrights. The participants are Sunny Drake, Keiko Green, Andrew Zepeda Klein, maatin, Samah Meghjee, and James Anthony Tyler.
The Writers’ Room is a product of Geffen Playhouse’s commitment to supporting new plays and specifically to fostering bold, relevant work by the vibrant artistic community of Los Angeles. During this 12-month residency, playwright members gather monthly to share their work and receive feedback from their peers in a forum facilitated by Geffen Playhouse literary manager and dramaturg Olivia O’Connor.
The 2024-25 cycle of the Writers’ Room will begin September 2024. At the conclusion of the residency, each playwright will have the opportunity to further develop their completed draft in a culminating reading produced by the Geffen.
The Writers’ Room is made possible through the generous support of the William Randolph Hearst Foundation.
NEW YORK CITY: Soho Rep has announced the cohort for the 2024-25 Writer Director Lab: Jean Carlo Yunén Aróstegui and Iraisa Ann Reilly; Zahra Budhwani and Salwa Meghjee; Iris McCloughan and Alex Tatarsky; and Jisoo Hope Yoon and Chloe Chow.
Instigated in 1998, the Writer Director Lab is an engine for the generation of new theatrical projects. The program supports four collaborative teams as they develop their projects over 12 months with the guidance of co-chairs William Burke and Jackie Sibblies Drury. The Lab culminates in work-in-progress presentations that are free and open to the public.
Soho Rep’s mission is to provide radical theatremakers with productions of the highest caliber and tailor-made development at key junctures in their artistic practice. The program seeks to elevate artists as thought leaders and citizens who change the field and society.
NEW YORK CITY: University Resident Theatre Association (URTA) has announced the recipients of the 2024 Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Training. The awards recognize outstanding work of undergraduate instructors, coaches, and mentors, as well as institutions, for excellence in the training and preparation of undergraduate theatre artists.
This year’s individual award recipients are professor Jacqueline Duprey (University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras) for acting; associate professor Janine McCabe (College of Charleston) for costume design & technology; associate professor/chair Jessica Greenberg (Weber State University) for lighting design & technology; senior lecturer Marius Boucher (Concordia University) for scenic design & technology; and director of production Trevor Norton (University of Redlands) for properties design.
Institutional award recipients are California State University, Long Beach for acting, and Concordia University for design & technology. These two institutions will receive Candidate Awards, providing free registration for the URTAs to a student of their choice.
Awardees will be honored at a reception during the URTA Auditions & Interviews (“the URTAs”) in January. Each year, nearly 1,000 candidates pursuing graduate training in theatre take part. The event includes classes, workshops, and panel discussions on theatre topics of interest to both candidates and recruiters.
The University Resident Theatre Association was founded in 1969 with the mission of supporting excellence in theatre training.
