2011 Grant Awards: Access to Artistic Excellence

[ August 12, 2010 deadline ]

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.

Musical Theater

5th Avenue Theatre Association
Seattle, WA
$60,000
To support a production of Rogers' and Hammerstein's Oklahoma!, with direction by producing director Bill Berry and new choreography by Donald Byrd, artistic director of Spectrum Dance Theater. The project will include teen musical theater workshops; special dance training with members of Spectrum Dance Theater; a free "SpotlightNight" with guest speakers from the show; and a free all-day community event with performances, lectures, classes, and a hoe-down.

Amas Musical Theatre, Inc. (Consortium)
New York, NY
$25,000
To support the premiere of Keep On Walkin', with book by James Armstrong, lyrics by Joshua H. Cohen, music by Lavell Blackwell, and direction by Christopher Scott. Presented in collaboration with Queens Theatre in the Park, the musical depicts the early days of the civil rights movement through the pen-pal relationship of two 12-year-old schoolgirls during the historic Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-56.

Broadway Rose Theatre Company
Tigard, OR
$30,000
To support the world premiere of Duane Nelsen's Ripper with the creative team of Abe Reybold as director, Alan Lytle as musical director, and set and light design by Gene Dent. Based on the story of Jack the Ripper, the regional premiere will feature a cast of 30 and an 11-piece orchestra.

Civic Light Opera (aka Pittsburgh CLO) (Consortium)
Pittsburgh, PA
$30,000
To support Pittsburgh CLO's National High School Musical Theater Awards, in recognition of achievement in high school musical theater. In partnership with Houston's Theater Under the Stars and other regional theaters, the program will invest in young artists nationally and connect high school performers with theater industry professionals.

Collaborative Arts Project 21, Inc. (aka CAP21)
New York, NY
$60,000
To support CAP21's development of emerging artists and new musical theater works in the New Artists/New Work Development Program. Activities will include the Writer's Co-op, the Roundtable Reading Series, the Monday Night Reading Series, and the Showcase.

Cumberland County Playhouse, Inc.
Crossville, TN
$40,000
To support a production of Dreamgirls, with music by Henry Krieger and book and lyrics by Tom Eyer. The piece celebrates the history and growth of the Motown sound and the African American artists who created it.

Hartnell College Foundation (on behalf of Western Stage)
Salinas, CA
$15,000
To support a production of the musical Let The Eagle Fly- The Story of Cesar Chavez, with book by John Reeger, music and lyrics by Julie Shannon, direction by producer, writer, choreographer Lorenzo Aragon, and musical direction by Don Dally. The musical portrays Chavez's life as an influential civil rights leader.

La Compagnia de' Colombari, Inc
New York, NY
$10,000
To support More or Less I Am, a music-theater piece drawn from Walt Whitman's 1855 Song of Myself, conceived and directed by Karin Coonrod with original music by Colin Jacobsen, Kyle Sanna, and Eric Jacobsen. The production will include members of the string ensemble Brooklyn Rider, a Mingus Jazz Orchestra trumpet player, a Trinidadian steel drum player, a mezzo-soprano opera singer, and a gospel singer.

Light Opera Works
Evanston, IL
$20,000
To support Midwest New Musicals, a workshop and development program for lyricists, composers, and book writers led by director John Sparks, associate workshop director Larry Todd Johnson, and producer Joan Mazzonelli. Divided into three levels, workshop members throughout the year will participate in intensive weekend sessions in which writers present their work.

Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma, Inc.
Oklahoma City, OK
$45,000
To support a production of Oliver!, with accompanying educational and outreach programs. The project will feature Camp Oliver, a two-week summer camp experience for 60 children, ages 7-12, who will attend rehearsals, learn choreography, and serve as the children's ensemble for the production.

Mad River Theater Works
West Liberty, OH
$40,000
To support the creation of a new play with music in partnership with immigrant populations and migrant work forces in the industrial and agricultural sectors of rural Ohio. The work will be created through a collaborative process with families, businesses, and advocacy agencies and tour throughout the state with plays from the company's repertoire of original productions.

Marsh, a breeding ground for new performance
San Francisco, CA
$20,000
To support the remounting of Marsh Youth Theater's Jip, His Story with a cast of high school student actors from its theater arts program. Based on the Newbery Award-winning book by Katherine Paterson, the musical explores the pre-Civil War era in the United States.

MCT, Inc. (aka Missoula Children's Theatre)
Missoula, MT
$40,000
To support Missoula Children's Theatre's national performing arts residency tour in underserved communities and on U.S. military bases. During an estimated 1,200 residencies, touring actors and directors will cast 55-65 local youth in original musicals, rehearse, and perform within a week's time.

Music Theatre of Wichita, Inc.
Wichita, KS
$20,000
To support a production of Finian's Rainbow, with book and lyrics by E.Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy and music by Burton Lane. Mixing fantasy with social commentary, the 1947 classic was the first Broadway musical to engage a diverse ensemble to portray a story that explores race, class, and political corruption.

New York City Center, Inc.
New York, NY
$90,000
To support Encores!, a series of staged concert productions of classic and lesser-known Broadway musicals with original orchestrations and books. The series has featured some of the 20th century's greatest composers and lyricists, including George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein, and Jerome Kern.

PCPA Foundation (aka PCPA Theaterfest)
Santa Maria, CA
$15,000
To support PCPA Theaterfest's presentation of My Fairytale, a family-friendly musical featuring music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, with guest direction by his son Scott Schwartz. Originally performed as Mit Eventyr in Denmark to honor the 200th anniversary of Hans Christian Anderson's birth, the subsequently refined and English language version by Schwartz portrays Anderson's choice to write fairytales rather than adult plays for the Danish intelligentsia.

Prospect Theater Company, Inc. (Consortium)
New York, NY
$15,000
To support a developmental workshop for emerging musical theater artists led by Producing Artistic Director Cara Reichel and composer/lyricist Peter Mills with Goodwill Theatre Executive Director Naima Kradjian. In partnership with Goodwill Theatre, a two-week artist residency will enable professional performers, directors, and music directors to work with an ensemble of community talent to workshop and present staged readings of new musicals.

Society of the Educational Arts, Inc. (aka Teatro SEA)
New York, NY
$40,000
To support Teatro SEA's expansion of an ongoing tour of children's theater in Spanish to underserved Latino neighborhoods in New York City and Puerto Rico. Performances in libraries, schools, museums, parks, and community theaters will include the Latinized Children's Classics, Latin American Folktales, Children's Classics from Spain, and a youth and adult series, each featuring original music, sets, costumes, and puppetry.

The Other Side of The Hill Productions Inc. (aka The Road Theatre Co.)
North Hollywood, CA
$20,000
To support The Road Theatre Co.'s development and production of The Baby Project by Lori Ada Jaroslow and collaborators Fonda Feingold, Noriko Olling, and director Shannon MacMillan. Begun as a solo piece by Jaroslow, the musical portrays a single bisexual woman who navigates the world of medically-assisted fertility in her desire to become a mother.

Theater Latte-Da
Minneapolis, MN
$20,000
To support a re-imagining of The Fantasticks directed by Peter Rothstein. The production will feature an intergenerational cast with actors ages 70-80 in the leading roles.

Theatre for Young America Inc.
Kansas City, MO
$20,000
To support the development and production of Fair Ball: Negro Leagues in America. The musical will explore the history of the players who played against racial segregation and "Jim Crow" laws in the Negro Leagues.

Theatre Under The Stars, Inc. (aka TUTS)
Houston, TX
$30,000
To support the expansion of programs offering children with disabilities the opportunity to experience the physical and developmental benefits of musical theater. As TUTS merges its outreach with The River Performing and Visual Arts Center in Houston, expanded programming will include a fine arts summer camp, an off-site program, a Saturday morning program, a musical theatre workshop, and a performance troupe, in which students with disabilities receive professional instruction in musical theater.

Theatreworks/USA Corporation
New York, NY
$50,000
To support a national tour of original theater productions for young audiences. The tour will include The Color of Justice, the story of a battle for equal rights in 1950s America; Skippyjon Jones, a musical adaptation of the popular children's book series by Judy Schachner; and a bilingual version of The Wizard of Oz.

University of Maryland at College Park
College Park, MD
$20,000
To support Musical Theatre Online (1860-1923), a project that will provide online access to the libretti and music of early musicals. Electronic transcriptions of piano-vocal scores for selected musicals will be made available for download in a variety of formats, and a web interface will be designed to link text from a libretto to the audio score.

Weston Playhouse Theatre
Weston, VT
$45,000
To support the world premiere production of Saint-Ex, a new musical by composer Jenny Giering and author Sean Barry, to be directed by Kent Nicholson. Inspired by the life of authorand aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (The Little Prince), the project will feature daytime student performances, an online performance guide, pre- and post-show discussions, and a day-long teachers' workshop.

National Endowment for the Arts · an independent federal agency
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20506

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