2011 Grant Awards: Access to Artistic Excellence

[ March 11, 2010 deadline ]

Artists Communities | Dance | Design | Folk & Traditional Arts | Literature
Local Arts Agencies | Media Arts | Museums | Music | Musical Theater
Opera | Presenting | Theater | Visual Arts

Some details of the projects listed below are subject to change, contingent upon prior Endowment approval.

Theater

13 Playwrights, Inc. (aka 13P)
Brooklyn, NY
$10,000
To support 13P's production of Late: A Cowboy Song written and directed by Sarah Ruhl. The "dramedy" about defining and redefining self in the pursuit of happiness portrays second-grade sweethearts who meander into their adult relationship.

About Productions
Pasadena, CA
$20,000
To support the development and premiere of Evangeline, The Queen of Make-Believe, an interdisciplinary theater work co-written by Theresa Chavez and Rose Portillo in collaboration with songwriter and musician Louie Perez. Set in the early 1970s, the work will combine text, music, media, and original murals to portray a young working class East Los Angeles woman who becomes intrigued by various aesthetics, politics, and feminism of her Westside counterparts.

Actors Theatre of Louisville, Inc.
Louisville, KY
$50,000
To support the 35th annual Humana Festival of New American Plays, a showcase of new theatrical work featuring American playwrights. The company will fully produce seven full-length plays, including an anthology project written by multiple playwrights to be performed by its Acting Apprentice Company, and a number of 10-minute plays.

African-American Shakespeare Company
San Francisco, CA
$20,000
To support a production and adaptation of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, directed by L. Peter Callender in collaboration with jazz musician/composer Marcus Shelby and his orchestra. The play will be set in the early 1940s era of big band, swing, and jazz.

Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Inc.
Montgomery, AL
$25,000
To support the Southern Writers' Project. From commissioning to the development and production of new plays about the South and by Southern playwrights, the project will feature The Flagmaker of Market Street by Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder and Blood Divided by Jeffry L. Chastang.

Alley Theatre
Houston, TX
$40,000
To support the production of the world premiere of The Medusa Body by Rajiv Joseph. A psychological thriller, the play will be developed during a residency of workshops and readings, and will include Joseph's participation in an "Affinity Series Symposium" with his collaborators and local experts whose area of expertise relate to the larger societal issues raised by the play.

Amherst College (on behalf of Folger Shakespeare Library)
Amherst, MA
$25,000
To support the Folger Theatre's world premiere production of a new translation of Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, translated and adapted by Michael Hollinger and Aaron Posner. The Folger Shakespeare Library's Education Division will develop complementary programs for grades K-12, including study guides and interactive workshops, and create educational opportunities for adult audiences that draw upon the library's extensive research collection of 17th-century materials.

Ars Nova Theater I, Inc.
New York, NY
$20,000
To support Final Project, a week-long presentation of thematically connected short plays created by the writers in Ars Nova's Play Group. The project provides a creative forum and peer-support system in which emerging playwrights assist each other in developing plays and navigating the business aspects of the field.

ArtSpot Productions, Inc.
New Orleans, LA
$25,000
To support the development and performance of Miss Julie: Tongue Tied and Kiss Twisted. The ensemble will collaborate with new-media and performance ensemble Mondo Bizarro to investigate the power dynamics of relationships by drawing on Swedish playwright August Strindberg's tragic play Miss Julie and the history of New Orleans' Storyville District.

Asolo Theatre, Inc.
Sarasota, FL
$20,000
To support the development and world premiere of Eduardo Machado's Hamlet: Prince of Cuba, an original bilingual play based on Shakespeare's Hamlet. The play will be set in present-day Miami during the rehearsals of an American regional theater company's production of Hamlet which has been set in Cuba during the fall of Fulgencio Batista.

Berkeley Repertory Theatre
Berkeley, CA
$20,000
To support a development workshop of Tarell McCraney's play Again and Again. The playwright, director Les Waters, and a yet to be identified choreographer will work on a re-imagining of Sophocles' Antigone (which places the Greek chorus at the center of the play and incorporates movement and dance with spoken classical text).

Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble, Inc.
Bloomsburg, PA
$21,000
To support Theatre in the Classroom, a touring educational theater program. Original 45-minute shows will take place in elementary and middle schools, libraries, and community venues throughout Pennsylvania and neighboring states to introduce students to live theater. The shows are augmented by curricula guides designed to enhance students' knowledge of world history.

Boxtales Theatre Company
Santa Barbara, CA
$25,000
To support the production of Popol Vuh adapted for stage. Based on the Mayan book of creation, the story is filled with magic, close connections to the animal world, and the struggle between life and death.

Bristol Riverside Theater Company
Bristol, PA
$10,000
To support a new staging of The Little Prince based on the book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Designed to engage a new generation, the production will use life-size puppets and combine the author's illustrations from his book with contemporary design elements by Monkey Boys Productions.

Center for Puppetry Arts
Atlanta, GA
$35,000
To support the development and production of a bilingual puppet theater adaptation of Beauty and the Beast directed by artistic director Jon Ludwig. Staged for a contemporary setting and using original modern music, the cross-cultural production will feature a cast of five puppeteers, with an emphasis on found-object puppetry (puppets made from everyday objects).

Cherry Lane Alternative, Inc.
New York, NY
$20,000
To support the Mentor Project, a program that pairs established dramatists with emerging writers in a season-long new play development program. Noted playwrights Gretchen Cryer, David Henry Hwang, and Jean-Claude van Itallie will mentor participants who will benefit from readings, one-on-one workshops, master classes, and the opportunity to showcase a production.

Children's Theatre Company and School
Minneapolis, MN
$30,000
To support the world premiere of Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy, a new play adapted by Cheryl West, and the development of The Last Firefly by Naomi Iizuka.

Childsplay, Inc.
Tempe, AZ
$40,000
To support the development and world premiere production of The Color of Stars written by Dwayne Hartford and directed by Artistic Director David Saar. The play follows the narrator, 18-year-old Allie, as she uncovers the stories, truths, and childhood experiences of her grandfather Eddie's coming of age in rural Maine during early World War II.

Circuit Network
San Francisco, CA
$22,000
To support the further development and premiere of Cat Lady, a darkly comic ensemble work for five performers, anchored by solo performer and writer Kristina Wong. The multimedia theater piece incorporates the psychology behind hoarding, anecdotes from unmarried women who live alone with cats ("cat ladies"), and Wong's attempts to simultaneously end racism and get her own pet to stop spraying.

Cleveland Public Theatre, Inc.
Cleveland, OH
$20,000
To support the creation and production of Rusted Heart (Broadcast Live). Through a process of ensemble-based collaboration, the play will be developed by Artistic Director Raymond Bobgan and will investigate contemporary icons and the search for the divine in modern society.

Clubbed Thumb, Inc.
New York, NY
$20,000
To support the 16th annual Summerworks, a festival of new works by playwrights and other emerging theater artists. Activities will include an evening of thematically linked short pieces by different writers who will use New York's subway lines as their central focus and will feature Libby Emmons' Zeropia and Kirsten Greenidge's Luck of the Irish.

Contemporary American Theater Festival, Inc.
Shepherdstown, WV
$15,000
To support the final development and world premiere of The John Brown Project (working title) by commissioned playwright Lucy Thurber. Exploring the relationships of class, religion, and race within the worlds of abolitionists John Brown and Harriet Tubman and terrorist Timothy McVeigh, the play will encourage dialogue as it portrays issues affecting contemporary society.

Cornerstone Theater Company, Inc. (Consortium)
Los Angeles, CA
$50,000
To support the development and production of The Watts Residency Project, a community-based collaboration among Watts' citizens, a playwright, and directors. In partnership with the Watts Village Theater Company, actor/playwright/poet Lynn Manning will create a work reflecting the history, stories, and current issues facing the Watts community with co-direction by Cornerstone ensemble member Juliette Carrillo and Watts Village Theater's Artistic Director Guillermo Aviles-Rodriguez.

Creative Ammo, Inc.
New York, NY
$15,000
To support the Downtown Urban Theater Festival, an annual festival of new works by multicultural playwrights. The festival will focus on urban experiences as well as on playwrights whose work is typically under-represented in mainstream theater.

Cutting Ball Theater
San Francisco, CA
$15,000
To support the production of the new play Tontlawald by Eugenie Chan. Developed in collaboration with director Paige Rogers and an ensemble of actors using song and the movement-based techniques of Polish experimental theater director Jerzy Grotowski, the play will build on the Estonian fairy tale of the same name, which tells the story of a young girl who flees the beatings of a cruel stepmother.

Denver Center for the Performing Arts
Denver, CO
$20,000
To support the world premiere production of Map of Heaven by Michele Lowe. The play deals with complex issues and ideas such as the balance of power in relationships, the responsibility of doctors to their patients, mistakes, guilt, and redemption.

District of Columbia Jewish Community Center (on behalf of Theater J)
Washington, DC
$35,000
To support Theater J's Voices from a Changing Middle East: Portraits of Home. Featured works will include the American premiere of Cameri Theatre's Return to Haifa, a critically acclaimed production to be performed in Hebrew and Arabic with English subtitles; and associated staged readings and workshops.

Double Edge Theatre Productions, Inc.
Ashfield, MA
$10,000
To support the ensemble development and presentation of The Grand Parade. The project will be the first major work of The Chagall Cycle (a five-year performance cycle inspired by the work of Russian artist Marc Chagall), created in collaboration with international artists.

El Teatro Campesino
San Juan Bautist, CA
$20,000
To support the development and world premiere of a theatrical pageant based on Popol Vuh, the Quiché Mayan book of creation, with accompanying educational and outreach activities. Founding Artistic Director Luis Valdez will lead playwrights Rubén C. Gonzalez and his son Lakin Valdez in the script's development and local practitioner of the oral tradition Yaocoatl Noe Montoya will serve as lead musical composer in collaboration with resident musicians.

Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati
Cincinnati, OH
$20,000
To support the regional premiere of August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone, directed by Ron OJ Parson, with accompanying educational and outreach programming. The play is about the first generation of freed black Americans struggling to define an African American identity in the post-slavery era of the early 20th century.

Eugene O'Neill Memorial Theater Center, Inc.
Waterford, CT
$20,000
To support the creation and development of new plays and musical theater works by emerging and mid-career artists in the National Playwrights Conference and the National Music Theater Conference. Approximately 1,600 manuscripts received through an open-submission process, culminating in the selection of ten plays and four musicals, will receive a rehearsal period and staged readings that are open to the public.

Eyes and Ears Foundation
San Francisco, CA
$10,000
To support the presentation of the Polish theater company Teatr Zar as part of the San Francisco International Arts Festival. 

Fiji Theater Company, Inc. (aka Ping Chong & Company)
New York, NY
$60,000
To support a festival commemorating the 40th anniversary of Ping Chong's artistic career and the 20th anniversary of the Undesirable Elements series, with related outreach programs. Festival highlights will include a new multidisciplinary work; the re-mounting of several classic Ping Chong works, re-imagined by young emerging directors; a revival of the original production of Undesirable Elements alongside a new version; and ancillary commemorative events.

Foundry Theatre, Inc.
New York, NY
$15,000
To support the creation of The Cost of Value, a new work by playwright Kirk Lynn and director Melanie Joseph. The work will explore the notion of value, the human relationship to money, and our qualitative relationship to material possessions.

George Mason University (on behalf of Theater of the First Amendment)
Fairfax, VA
$20,000
To support Theater of the First Amendment's development and production of Live Wire, a stage performance of selected radio plays from the archives of the Federal Theatre Project Radio Division. The piece will recreate a 1930s-era radio studio in live broadcast mode, recorded for future broadcast.

Geva Theatre Center, Inc.
Rochester, NY
$20,000
To support a production of August Wilson's Radio Golf directed by Tim Bond and a free reading of Wilson's King Hedley II. As the culmination to the August Wilson Century Project, these programs will be complemented by student/teacher activities, post-show discussions, pre-show lectures, Downtown Community Forum discussions, student matinees, and gospel choir performances.

Gilloury Institute (aka Silk Road Theatre Project)
Chicago, IL
$20,000
To support the Silk Road Theatre Project's production of Yellow Face by David Henry Hwang. Inspired by incidents from his own experience in producing on Broadway, the Obie Award-winning comedy chronicles Hwang's struggle to define racial identity and ethnic authenticity in contemporary America.

Guthrie Theatre Foundation
Minneapolis, MN
$20,000
To support a production of The Burial at Thebes, Seamus Heaney's contemporary verse translation of Sophocles' Antigone, directed by Marcela Lorca. The play poses questions about family, leadership, authority, and defiance that align with the theater's community engagement goals, and as a modern translation of Greek drama, the production will provide Minnesota educators with the opportunity to elicit key academic outcomes for high school students.

HartBeat Ensemble
Hartford, CT
$10,000
To support the workshop development of a new hip-hop theater work titled Flipside. The HartBeat Ensemble will collaborate with Hartford spoken-word artists MIRA and Mind Evolution and physical-theater choreographer Brian Jennings to develop a piece that presents a nuanced view concerning drugs and drug policies.

Hartford Stage Company, Inc.
Hartford, CT
$40,000
To support the world premiere production of Divine Rivalry by Michael Kramer and directed by Artistic Director Michael Wilson. Adding a modern twist to timeless themes, the work explores the psychology and importance of art and politics and takes its name from the clash of two titans of art: Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.

Heart of the Beast Theatre, Inc.
Minneapolis, MN
$35,000
To support the development of puppet and mask pieces in PuppetLab, an intensive workshop process for artists. Selected through a competitive jury, participants will receive time and space to develop scripts; design puppets, objects, and sets; rehearse puppets/objects manipulation; and present a completed work.

History Theatre, Inc.
St. Paul, MN
$25,000
To support the final development and world premiere of A Tale of Twin Cities, a new play with music by the collaborative team of storyteller/playwright/actor Kevin Kling and local composer Simone Perrin. The play will weave together history, storytelling, scenes, and original music as it portrays the history of Minnesota's two dynamic rival cities -- Minneapolis and St. Paul --  each with a distinct identity.

Home for Contemporary Theatre and Art, Ltd. (aka HERE Arts Center)
New York, NY
$50,000
To support The HERE Artist Residency Program for mid-career performing and visual artists collaborating and experimenting with new approaches to expand the parameters of performance work. The development of participating artists' work is nurtured through cross-disciplinary exchange, workshops, panel discussions, artist retreats, career development services, and productions.

Honolulu Theatre for Youth
Honolulu, HI
$60,000
To support the development and production of Where Do Things Go?, a science-based theatrical work. From the compelling drama of an autistic teenager on a first date to a commission that explores the current cultural relevance of ancient Polynesian navigation, this production will culminate the season's theme that explores both scientific and theatrical forms.

Illusion Theater & School, Inc.
Minneapolis, MN
$30,000
To support the commission and development of a new play titled 36 by James Still. The play will explore a Jewish mystical belief that at all times there are 36 special people in the world whose role in life is to justify the purpose of humankind in the eyes of God, and without them, the world would come to an end.

InterAct, Inc.
Philadelphia, PA
$15,000
To support the world premiere production of Etched in Skin by Kara Lee Corthron. A story about an African American woman who immigrates to Reykjavik, Iceland, the play explores the relationship between racial identity and self esteem, and the concept of race-related issues in a place defined by racial and ethnic homogeneity.

Intersection
San Francisco, CA
$20,000
To support the creation of The New River by California playwrights Sean San Jose and Richard Montoya. Through a research and development process that will engage urban and rural communities, the project will explore California through the lens of the Southeast border towns of Calexico and Mexicali alongside the New River, a region that was once a resort destination and is now widely considered to be the most toxic river in North America.

Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Inc. (aka KC Rep) (Consortium)
Kansas City, MO
$30,000
To support KC Rep's production of  Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, in partnership with La Jolla Playhouse.

Kitchen Dog Theater Company
Dallas, TX
$10,000
To support the development of new plays during the 13th annual New Works Festival, complemented by educational and outreach activities. Over the course of the festival's five-week run, activities will include a mainstage production of Ponzi by Elaine Romero; a week-long workshop and staged readings of six winning scripts chosen from more than 350 submitted manuscripts; and Playwrights Under Progress (aka PUP Fest), which consists of five staged readings of short plays written by local high school students.

La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, Inc.
New York, NY
$30,000
To support the recreation of Ping Chong's seminal work The Angels of Swedenborg, an interdisciplinary performance piece. Commissioned by Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art in 1985 and inspired by the life of 17th-century Swedish scientist Emanuel Swedenborg, who turned from science to spiritualism late in life, the work explores the fate of modern man caught between a material existence and spiritual aspirations.

Mabou Mines Development Foundation, Inc.
New York, NY
$15,000
To support a tour of Mabou Mines Dollhouse to Boston, Massachusetts, and Washington, DC.

Magic Theatre, Inc.
San Francisco, CA
$50,000
To support the rolling premiere of Taylor Mac's The Lily's Revenge in collaboration with other Bay Area performing arts organizations. The five-hour, site-specific theatrical event in five acts tells the story of a flower that goes on a quest to become a man in order to wed his beloved bride.

Miracle Theatre Company
Portland, OR
$20,000
To support the commission and world premiere of Carlos Alexis Cruz's theatrical work Lazarillo. Set in the 1980s modern urban life of New York City and combining the traditions of commedia dell'arte, circus, and hip hop, the play is based on a 16th-century novel (La vida de Lazarillo) about a poor boy and his eight masters.

Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts (Consortium)
San Francisco, CA
$40,000
To support a production of Placas written by Paul S. Flores and directed by Michael John Garcés. In partnership with the Central American Resource Center, the project involves the production of a bilingual play that weaves together the story of three generations of a family who lived through the El Salvadoran civil war, their subsequent migration to the United States, and the resulting formation of immigrant gangs in California's inner cities.

Mixed Blood Theatre Company
Minneapolis, MN
$50,000
To support the production of new plays and the commission of world premiere works designed to advance and engage artists and audiences with disabilities. The project will include Cori Thomas's My Secret Language of Wishes, a story about an African American teenager with cerebral palsy; Ken LaZebnik's Theory of Mind, about a young man with Asperger's syndrome; the commission and development of a new play for veterans with acquired disabilities by playwright Mike Sulsona; a play on autism by Ken LaZebnik; and a play based on Matthew Sanford's Mind Body Solutions approach to yoga for people with physical disabilities.

National New Play Network, Ltd. (aka NNPN)
Washington, DC
$37,500
To support multiple productions of new plays across the country through the Continued Life of New Plays Fund. With a minimum of three productions in a single year, a play will attain the momentum needed to join the repertoire of frequently produced new American works.

New Dramatists, Inc.
New York, NY
$85,000
To support the development of new plays in the Playwrights Lab. Through writer-driven readings and workshops, the lab provides writers with invaluable resources through each stage of the play development process and provides playwrights the opportunity to explore or revisit new plays and musicals.

New Federal Theatre, Inc.
New York, NY
$30,000
To support a production of a new play titled Court Martial at Fort Devens by Jeffrey Sweet. Based on an historical incident, the play tells the story of a group of young black women in the Women's Army Corps during WWII who face a court martial for refusing to follow orders from a racist colonel.

New Harmony Project, Inc.
Indianapolis, IN
$25,000
To support the New Harmony Project, a new play development conference. Participating writers will work with a company of artists for developmental readings of new work, and emerging writers and high school and college participants will receive mentoring by more established playwrights-in-residence.

New Paradise Laboratories Theatre, Inc.
Philadelphia, PA
$15,000
To support the development and premiere of Extremely Public Displays of Privacy, a new interdisciplinary performance work. Using social media and live performance techniques, the piece will investigate "the value of anonymity, the social demand for disclosure, the therapeutic value of transparency, and the efficacy of public action."

Northwestern University Settlement (on behalf of Adventure Stage) (Consortium)
Chicago, IL
$10,000
To support Adventure Stage's production of 500 Clown Nose. In partnership with Chicago's 500 Clown, the co-production will use the company's highly physical theater to tell a story about a group of clown-actors who find themselves trapped in a giant sandbox and discover a world of play, imagination, and transformation in the objects buried beneath the sand.

Oregon Children's Theatre Company
Portland, OR
$30,000
To support the world premiere of Diary of a Worm, a Spider, and a Fly by commissioned playwright Joan Cushing, complemented by outreach activities. Adapted from the New York Times' best-selling picture books by Doreen Cronin and Harry Bliss (Diary of a Worm, Diary of a Spider, and Diary of a Fly), the play will portray characters who each face developmental growth challenges similar to those of pre-K to third-grade audiences.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival Association (Consortium)
Ashland, OR
$100,000
To support the world premiere of Ghost Light, a play directed by Berkeley Repertory Theatre Artistic Director and playwright Tony Taccone. In partnership with Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the project involves a new play about a fictional story instigated by the assassination of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and developed through an artistic collaboration between Taccone and the mayor's son.

Perseverance Theatre, Inc.
Douglas, AK
$35,000
To support the world premiere production of The Blue Bear, a new play based on the memoir by Juneau, Alaska, author and former wilderness guide Lynn Schooler. The play chronicles the author's friendship with Japanese wildlife photographer Michio Hoshino as they search to find and photograph the elusive glacier bear, and it demonstrates how cultural barriers can be bridged by common values.

Philadelphia Theatre Company
Philadelphia, PA
$20,000
To support a production of Ruined by Lynn Nottage, complemented by related outreach and educational programming. Set in war-torn Congo and based on real interviews conducted by the playwright in Africa, the play tells the story of a brothel owner who keeps the peace between her customers on both sides, which in turn explores issues of loss and hopelessness, hope, and affirmation in life.

Pig Iron Theatre Company
Philadelphia, PA
$15,000
To support a production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The production will be the culmination of a two-year investigation into the play that has included workshops centered on text, music, stop-motion animation, and robotics conducted in collaboration with designers Mimi Lien, James Clotfelter, Jeff Sugg, and cardboard-artist Beth Nixon.

Plan-B Theater Company
Salt Lake City, UT
$10,000
To support the development and premiere of a new play titled Borderlands by Eric Samuelson. Set on a used car lot in Provo, Utah, the play examines the challenges faced by gays, lesbians, and other outsiders within the Mormon culture.

PlayPenn, Inc.
Philadelphia, PA
$15,000
To support an annual conference of play development workshops. Each playwright is provided living quarters during the two-week conference period while they work closely with a director, designer, and dramaturg to develop a specific play.

Playwrights Foundation, Inc.
San Francisco, CA
$20,000
To support the Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Professional and emerging playwrights will collaborate with other arts professionals. Participating playwrights will develop new work for a week in the studio and two weekends of public staged readings of new works to be presented at The Thick House in San Francisco.

Playwrights Horizons, Inc.
New York, NY
$25,000
To support a world premiere production of Kin by Bathsheba Doran and directed by Sam Gold. Traversing great distances and spanning many years in the lives of its nine characters, Kin is a tale about the eventual marriage of Anna and Sean (an unlikely but somehow perfect match), and provides a panoramic view of their extended network of family and friends.

Portland Center Stage
Portland, OR
$20,000
To support the world premiere of Futura written by Jordan Harrison and directed by Kip Fagan. Futura posits a near-future society where actual ink-on-paper printing has been relegated to the stuff of academic lectures, entirely displaced by electronic communication that is changeable and easily manipulated by the corporate powers-that-be.

Portland Stage Company, Inc. (aka Portland Stage Company)
Portland, ME
$10,000
To support the world premiere production of a new play titled The Center of Gravity, or the Disinvention of the Airplane by Gregory Hischak. Employing elements of mechanical engineering, magic realism, and comedy, the work is an historical fiction in which the Wright Brothers' final attempt at manned flight ends in disaster, suspicion, and the realization that not everyone from Dayton, Ohio, is bound for greatness.

Pregones Touring Puerto Rican Theatre Collection, Inc.
Bronx, NY
$40,000
To support the development and premiere of Hard Tails, a new play with music based on the life of Juanito (Xtravaganza) Rivera, a companion in the 1980s to the internationally famous pop artist Keith Haring. Adapted from Rivera's first-person accounts that were published in a book by scholar Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé, the production will render a dramatic portrait of New York City where young gay men of color, such as Rivera, continue to build an enduring sense of community.

Quantum Theatre, Inc.
Pittsburgh, PA
$15,000
To support the creation of an original production using text, music, and tango, based on Maria de Buenos Aires by Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla and librettist Horacio Ferrer. The company will collaborate with Uruguayan composer/conductor Andres Cladera to create a bilingual piece that will be staged on the site of contemporary architectural significance that reveals layers of Pittsburgh's industrial past.

Robert W. Woodruff Arts Center, Inc. (on behalf of Alliance Theatre)
Atlanta, GA
$30,000
To support the Alliance Theatre's world premiere of Carapace by David Mitchell Robinson and a readings series for finalists in the Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition. Set in Minneapolis one year after the 2007 interstate bridge collapse, Carapace tells the story of a Midwestern man struggling with alcoholism and his own limitations.

Sautee Nacoochee Community Association, Inc.
Sautee Nacoochee, GA
$10,000
To support the commission and development of a new play in the Headwaters community story performance series. Community residents will participate in story collecting. The material will then be transcribed and given to playwrights Jo Carson and Jerry Grillo, who will create theatrical material designed for performance by local residents.

Seattle Children's Theatre Association
Seattle, WA
$10,000
To support the world-premiere production of Jackie and Me, adapted by playwright Steven Dietz from the book by Dan Gutman with direction by Sheila Daniels. In Jackie and Me, young Joey Stoshack travels back in time to meet baseball legend Jackie Robinson and discovers what it was like to be the man who broke baseball's color barrier.

Seattle Repertory Theatre
Seattle, WA
$25,000
To support a production of The Brothers Size by Tarell Alvin McCraney and directed by Artistic Director Jerry Manning, with related educational and outreach activities. The Louisiana bayou, West African mythology, and family interplay swirl together in a drama as it portrays two brothers as they both grasp their own ideas of freedom.

Shakespeare Theatre (aka Shakespeare Theatre Company)
Washington, DC
$20,000
To support a production of Shakespeare's Cymbeline directed by Rebecca Bayla Taichman. The production will be the theater's first staging of the play in its 25-year history, and will be accompanied by educational programming that will include scholarly discussions, seminars, publications, and the Shakesperience student matinee series.

Signature Theatre Company
New York, NY
$30,000
To support a production of The Illusion by Tony Kushner with direction by Michael Mayer. An adaptation of L'Illusion Comique by 17th-century French dramatist Pierre Corneille, the work preserves the original epic and magical story while reconstructing it for contemporary audiences.

South Coast Repertory, Inc.
Costa Mesa, CA
$40,000
To support the 14th annual Pacific Playwrights Festival. World-premiere productions and workshop readings are open to local audiences and visiting theater professionals from across the country to attend featured plays during the festival's culminating three-day weekend.

St. Ann Center for Restoration and the Arts, Inc.
Brooklyn, NY
$40,000
To support the presentation of Beautiful Burnout, an original production of the National Theater of Scotland. Conceived by playwright Bryony Lavery and Frantic Assembly artists Stephen Hoggett and Scott Graham, the piece recreates the experience of a live boxing match, capturing the physical skill and brutality of the event, while exploring the class issues that often lead participants into the sport.

St. Louis Black Repertory Company, Inc.
Saint Louis, MO
$30,000
To support the production of The Real McCoy by playwright Andrew Moodie. The play tells the tale of the extraordinary Black inventor Elijah McCoy, born in Canada to runaway slaves and educated in Edinburgh, whose invention of the self-lubricating hydraulic pump in 1872 revolutionized steam engine travel.

Stagebridge
Oakland, CA
$20,000
To support the commission, development, and world premiere production of Counter Culture by playwright Joan Holden. Based on Candacy Taylor's book by the same name that profiles waitresses who have worked many years in restaurants across the U.S., Counter Culture uses interview quotes, photography, and oral histories to document an unrecognized group of women who have brought meaning and culture to the American roadside dining experience.

Steppenwolf Theatre Company
Chicago, IL
$50,000
To support the production of Middletown written by playwright Will Eno and directed by Les Waters, associate artistic director of Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Eno has created an Our Town for the 21st century -- a play that explores the nature of community in the modern age and focuses on the isolation and alienation that is pervasive in contemporary America.

Studio Theatre, Inc.
Washington, DC
$10,000
To support the production of plays by contemporary Irish playwright Enda Walsh and related educational activities. The Walworth Farce examines social pathologies and accepted structures and The New Electric Ballroom covers themes as broad as hope, isolation, and disappointment as it portrays two older spinster sisters and their younger sister who together have withdrawn from the world.

SU Theatre Corporation (aka Syracuse Stage)
Syracuse, NY
$30,000
To support Syracuse Stage's production of the 2004 play The Clean House written by Sarah Ruhl and directed by Michael Barakiva, complemented by educational and outreach activities. The comedic play embraces fundamental human concerns of love, mortality, and family with mixed genres and styles as it challenges the misconceptions about immigrants from Latin America.

Sundance Children's Theatre Inc. (aka Sundance Theatre Program)
Park City, UT
$30,000
To support the Sundance Theatre Lab for the development of new work by emerging and mid-career theater artists. Providing an environment and the resources to advance new play scripts toward full productions, the lab offers a full range of support to enable the fellows to focus on strengthening the storytelling and authentic voice of their projects.

Sweet Jane Productions, Inc. (aka International WOW)
Brooklyn, NY
$15,000
To support International WOW's The Recovery Project, an interactive and participatory drama about home construction and the building boom. Over the course of the performance run, audiences will be trained in carpentry, construction, and green technology to modify an existing structure in an effort to investigate what constitutes a home and how inappropriate development has contributed to foreclosures, unfinished buildings, and limited viable community spaces.

Theater Breaking Through Barriers Corp.
New York, NY
$20,000
To support a production of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice with an integrated company of able-bodied and disabled actors. The piece will be performed by a multicultural company of seven actors performing all the roles, with the goal of making disability an integral, easily acceptable part of classic plays.

Theater Mu, Inc.
Saint Paul, MN
$20,000
To support the world premiere of the new play Four Destinies by Katie Hae Leo, an emerging Asian American playwright. The play is a satire that explores the multi-layered experience of adoption in America through a non-linear structure, highlighting and drawing into question traditional narratives and the mythology surrounding adoption.

Theatre Squared, Inc.
Fayetteville, AR
$15,000
To support the world premiere production of Sundown Town by Arkansas playwright Kevin Cohea. The play's title refers to the early to mid-20th-century practice of prohibiting minority groups from remaining within city limits after sundown, and the play itself will include hymns and gospel songs incorporating the rich musical tradition among rural populations of all backgrounds.

True Colors Theatre Company, Inc.
Atlanta, GA
$20,000
To support the production of a new play titled Broke-ology by playwright Nathan Louis Jackson. Winner of two Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Awards, this young playwright has infused into his play humor, love, and realism while telling a story about the African American King family as two brothers are called home to a Kansas City ghetto to take care of their ailing father.

Victory Gardens Theater
Chicago, IL
$30,000
To support the world premiere production of The Boys' Room by Joel Drake Johnson, a member of the Victory Gardens Playwrights Ensemble. The play tells the story of two middle-aged brothers who return home to live with their mother and how they face their adult dilemmas and struggle with past behavior patterns developed during their early years as a family unit.

Vivian Beaumont Theater, Inc. (aka Lincoln Center Theater)
New York, NY
$100,000
To support Lincoln Center Theater's North American premiere of War Horse, an epic theatrical piece based on Michael Morpurgo's novel, adapted by Nick Stafford. Directed by Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris, the project will be a co-production with the National Theatre of Great Britain. The piece tells the story of a loving friendship between a boy and a horse from the animal's point of view, moving from an idyllic English farmland setting to the horrific background of brutal World War I conflict.

Washington Drama Society, Inc. (aka Arena Stage)
Washington, DC
$50,000
To support Arena Stage's production of Ruined by Lynn Nottage and directed by Charles Randolph Wright. Set in war-torn Congo and based on real interviews conducted by the playwright in Africa, the play tells the story of a brothel owner who keeps the peace between her customers on both sides, which in turn explores issues of loss and hopelessness, hope, and affirmation in life.

Watts Village Theater Company
Los Angeles, CA
$15,000
To support the production of Meet Me @ Metro, an interactive, multidisciplinary theatrical project that will take place aboard and around the Los Angeles Metro Rail System. Audiences will be guided through a series of Metro stops to view six original, site-specific performance works focused on the theme of movement in America today.

WaxFactory, Inc.
New York, NY
$15,000
To support 416 minutes, a multidisciplinary theater production conceived and directed by Ivan Talijancic in collaboration with the company?s extended artistic ensemble.  Combining the elements of sound, text, movement, architecture, and video, the piece will investigate how personal relationships are affected by the relentless rhythm of urban living and the effects of globalization in present-day society.

William Inge Festival Foundation
Independence, KS
$30,000
To support new play development activities for professional playwrights. Activities offered to playwrights in residence include week-long play development workshops of original work with professional actors and directors selected by the writers; public readings; mentoring of young playwrights at the high school and college level; and subsidized time for writing, research, and reflection.

Wilma Theater, Inc.
Philadelphia, PA
$20,000
To support a production of In The Next Room (Or The Vibrator Play) written by Sarah Ruhl and directed by Co-Artistic Director Blanka Zizka and accompanied by educational activities. Depicting American sexuality and intimacy in the 1880s, the play explores the force that technology exerts on emotional lives as it portrays a picture of a marriage, occurring in and constructed by a particular era.

Women's Project & Productions
New York, NY
$10,000
To support the Women's Project Playwrights Lab. The program provides mentorship for early and mid-career women playwrights during two-year residencies, and includes dramaturgical sessions, career counseling, professional readings, and 29-hour workshops.

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
Washington, DC
$60,000
To support a production of Luis Alfaro's Oedipus El Rey, an adaptation of the Greek classic. The play's all-male cast tells their stories within prison walls set in modern-day barrios of Southern California while exploring issues of sexuality, class mobility, loyalty, and honor within the context of contemporary Hispanics' concerns of identity, gender roles, and recidivism.

Yale University (on behalf of Yale Repertory Theatre)
New Haven, CT
$30,000
To support the Yale Repertory Theatre's U.S. premiere of Autumn Sonata, adapted for the stage and directed by Robert Woodruff. Based on the film by Ingmar Bergman, the play tells the story of a successful concert pianist who is confronted by the angry and neglected daughter whom she cast aside in the pursuit of her music career.

Young Jean Lee's Theater Company, Inc.
Brooklyn, NY
$20,000
To support the continued development and production of Untitled Feminist Multimedia Technology Show, a new piece written and directed by Young Jean Lee. Created in collaboration with female artists and technicians from diverse backgrounds, the multimedia production will be focused on the objectification and exploitation of women through visual media.

Zachary Scott Theater Center
Austin, TX
$35,000
To support the regional premiere and second fully staged production of The Book of Grace by playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, with accompanying educational and outreach activities. The play is the story of a prodigal son reunited with his father that explores border issues in Texas, the ways we create community, our national identity, and the creation of history by those charged with recording it.

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