CHICAGO: The Walder Basis has introduced that it’s going to award $2.4 million to Chicago-area performing artists via the inaugural Platform Awards. Twelve music, theatre, dance, and interdisciplinary arts professionals will obtain unrestricted grants of $200,000 every.

The 2024 Platform Award winners for theatre embody Lili-Anne Brown, a director, actor, and educator who was previously the creative director of Bailiwick Chicago; author, performer, and Joyce Award winner Sandra Delgado; and puppeteer, director, and multimedia artist Myra Su.

“The Platform Awards uplift the work of excellent mid-career performing artists, enabling them to proceed to develop and advance their careers in order that Chicago stays a thriving vacation spot for the humanities for generations to return,” Walder Basis president and govt director Elizabeth Walder stated in an announcement.

Platform Award recipients will obtain monetary help via 2026, together with skilled improvement and workshop alternatives.

NEW YORK CITY: The Lucille Lortel Theatre has introduced the inaugural recipients of the 121 Challenge, a commissioning program. Awardees will obtain as much as $10,000 for the creation of a brand new musical.

The profitable tasks embody Barnstormer, with e-book and lyrics by Cheryl L. Davis and music by Douglas J. Cohen; The Break, with e-book and lyrics by Christopher Dimond and music by Michael Kooman; Coal by Nicholas Connors; Hart Island, with e-book and lyrics by Michelle Elliott and music and lyrics by Danny Haengil Larsen; and Little Duende, with e-book and lyrics by Georgina Escobar and music and lyrics by Robi Hager.

“121 Challenge is a bespoke improvement program designed to fulfill the person wants of a selected second,” Michael Heitzman, the Lortel’s creative director of latest musical improvement, stated in an announcement. “We’re thrilled to be serving to these 5 tasks advance to their subsequent stage of improvement and hope that the help of the Lucille Lortel Theatre might be transformational.”

Moreover, the Alcove on the Lortel program has named a 3rd spherical of commissioned playwrights: Hassan Abdulrazzak, Lucas Baisch, Sunny Drake, Georgina Escobar, Zachary Kline, Alex Lin, Tatiana Pandiani & Danny Tejera, Savannah Reich, Arturo Luís Soria, Marissa Joyce Stamps, and Andrea Stolowitz. 

The Alcove can even welcome Annabel Nightingale as its second visible artist in residence, in addition to a bunch of playwrights working in analysis and dramaturgical improvement within the fall: S.T. Brant, Allyson Dwyer, Christine Toy Johnson, Gloria Oladipo, and Drew Woodson.

The Alcove on the Lortel program is led and curated by Caridad Svich, the Lortel’s creative director of latest play improvement.

Rattlestick Theater has named Alex Lin and kanishk pandey to be their 2024-25 Van Lier New Voices Fellows. The fellowship for rising playwrights of coloration offers a $35,000 residing stipend and a $5,000 creative fund, together with mentorship and workshop and studying alternatives.

“Alex and kanishk are outstanding writers whose work is each playful and fearless, searing and adventurous,” Rattlestick creative director Will Davis stated in an announcement. “I’m honored and grateful to help the invaluable artwork they may create this 12 months and eagerly anticipate sharing their work with our group.”

LONG BEACH, CALIF.: Musical Theatre West has introduced the recipients of the 2024 Footlighters Scholarships for highschool college students in Orange and Los Angeles Counties. Scholarships are awarded to college students within the areas of music, dance, theatre, and stage administration.

Orange County scholarship recipients embody Makayla Palos Rodriguez, Conrad Mai, Francisco Ochoa, Avani Arhin, Anna Mut, Gigi Coo, Mollie Holbrook, Daniel Sidoni, Macaila Dorney, and Miranda Younger. Los Angeles County scholarship recipients embody Ava Carolina Jimenez, Ava Isabella Miranda, Jaclyn Goshert, Kai Maldonado, Evan Garcia, Case Fulton, Giovanna Bearman, and Kayla Epstein.

Musical Theatre West is the most important arts producer within the Lengthy Seaside space.

NATIONWIDE: The 5 theatres of the Era Now partnership (Latino Theater Firm, Ma-Yi Theater Firm, Native Voices, Penumbra, and Youngsters’s Theatre Firm) have introduced a number of commissions of latest works by BIPOC artists.

Present commissions embody Michi Barall’s Drawing Classes; Dustin Tahmahkera’s Comanche Woman on the Moon; Ifa Bayeza’s One Small Alice; Gabriel Rivas Gómez’s Degree Up; Kalani Queypo and Chadwick Johnson’s The Mainlanders; Lloyd Suh and Diana Oh’s The Science Honest Challenge; an untitled venture by Nambi E. Kelley; and Latino Theater Firm’s Folklórico.

Every fee is a co-commission, and the intention of the Era Now program is that every theatre will produce every new venture. Era Now works to broaden the canon of labor produced for multigenerational audiences. The associate theatres are dedicated to co-commissioning and co-developing 16 new works in a five-year interval, which started in 2021.

NEW YORK CITY: The Museum of Up to date African Diasporan Arts and Asian American Arts Alliance have introduced the cohort for the third annual Bandung Residency. The cohort contains theatre artist Phillip Gregory Burke, who will obtain an honorarium and mentorship via this system.

Burke is a playwright, actor, and humanities activist who will use the Bandung Residency to develop a play about two opposing empires searching for management of a seaport in medieval India. He’s a 2024 Nationwide Affiliation of Latino Arts and Cultures Arts Fund grantee together with his group DIEZ and is a member of the Dramatists Guild and the Latinx Playwrights Circle. Burke holds an MA in performing from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

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