LOS ANGELES NEW PLAY PROJECT ANNOUNCES 2024 RECIPIENTS

OF THE 4th ANNUAL GRANT 

Los Angeles, CA (October 22, 2024) – Celebrating outstanding talent in the Los Angeles theater community, the Los Angeles New Play Project (LANPP) is thrilled to announce this year’s grant recipients whose work pushes boundaries and engages audiences in profound conversations. This will be the fourth annual grant ceremony, which to date has supported thirteen new plays.

This year’s recipients are Shualee Cook for CERCLE HERMAPHRODITOS, to be produced by After Hours Theatre Company (Graham Wetterhahn, Artistic Director); Roger Q. Mason for HIDE AND HIDE to be produced by Skylight Theatre Company (Producers Gary Grossman and Armando Huipe); Ankita Raturi for नेहा & NEEL to be produced by Artists at Play (Marie-Reine Velez – Producer); Amy Tofte for RIGHTEOUS AMONG US to be produced by Little Fish Theatre (Suzanne Dean and Stephanie Coltrin, Co-Artistic Directors).

CERCLE HERMAPHRODITOS by Shualee Cook: Set in 1895, a trans man enters an famed underground social club for trans femmes, with the goal to find a wife in order to play the roles expected in public while pursuing the life they want in private. A wry and compelling love letter to the trans community based on true historical events (Scheduled for production in Spring 2025 at LGBT Center in Hollywood).

Shualee Cook has a wide range of work including full-length plays, musicals, plays with music, and opera.. Shualee is the recipient of 2023 Nancy Dean Lesbian Playwriting Award, the 2021 Chesly/Bumbalo Award, The 2020 RAC Artist Fellowship, and the 2019 Parity Commission. She has been a resident playwright in the Confluence Regional Writers Project, Stage Left Theatre, and Tesseract Theatre,  a finalist for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Her work has been developed by About Face Theatre, Breaking the Binary Festival, The New Coordinates, Slightly Askew Theatre Ensemble, Mustard Seed Theatre, The Road Theatre, The Idle Muse Athena Festival, Campfire Theatre Festival, National Queer Theatre, and the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, among others.

HIDE AND HIDE written by Roger Q. Mason: Along the Coast of California, two lost souls collide while chasing freedom and the right to be an American… a queer rent-boy on the run from Texas police meets Constanza, a Filipina immigrant with a visa about to expire. Hide and Hide is a Homeric Odyssey that disrupts and rebuilds the American Fantasy, an Ironic, funny and dystopian odyssey. (Scheduled for production in Spring, 2025).

Roger Q. Mason (they/them) is a writer who satirizes and revises history to disrupt the biases that separate rather than unite us. Their playwriting has appeared on Broadway; Off/Off-Off-Broadway; and regionally, garnered five Barrymore Award nominations in Philadelphia, a Jeff Award Recommendation in Chicago and the San Francisco Chronicle’s prestigious Datebook Pick. Mason’s Lavender Men, first produced by Playwrights’ Arena & Skylight Theatre Company, was lauded by the Los Angeles Times as “evoking the mingled visions of Suzan-Lori Parks, Jeremy O. Harris and Michael R. Jackson.” They received 2024’s Playwrights’ Center McKnight National Playwright Commission, the inaugural Dramatists Guild Foundation Catalyst Grant Award, a Hermitage Residency, a Lucille Lortel commission, a Kilroys List nod, and the Chuck Rowland Pioneer Award.

नेहा & NEEL written by Ankita Raturi: Neha (नेहा) is a single woman raising a son, now 17, in America, who seldom speaks their native Hindi or caring about India’s famed past.  On a cross country college tour, both confront the differences between them and who they want each other to be. B, नेहा and Neel asks what is lost with every generation in America and is it ever too late to connect to one’s roots (Scheduled for production at Latino Theatre Co. in downtown Los Angeles).

Ankita Raturi (she/her) writes hyper-theatrical works in Hindi/Urdu, English, and Bahasa Indonesia, about living between cultural identities and contending with the ongoing legacies of colonization. She grew up in capital cities, pediatric gastroenterology offices, and the bisexual closet. New play development: Theater Mu, New York Theatre Workshop, Roundabout, Ma-Yi Theater Company, South Coast Repertory, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Playwrights Realm, Berkshire Theatre Group, Cygnet Theatre, Artists at Play, The COOP, Atlantic Pacific Theatre, Theater Masters, Fresh Ground Pepper, Hypokrit Theatre Company, New York Shakespeare Exchange, Pete’s Candy Store. She is 2022 Ollie Award Winner.

RIGHTEOUS AMONG US written by Amy Tofte: An African American researcher working at a civil rights museum collecting oral histories from ancestors who saved Jewish children during the Holocaust has to set straight a hero legend,coming to terms with the urgent need to follow the truth and her own need to find heroes among regular people. (Scheduled for production in Spring 2025 at Shakespeare by the Sea, in Redondo Beach).

Amy Tofte received a Nicholl Fellowship in screenwriting from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her play Righteous Among Us (2020 Todd McNerney Award) had a staged reading at Urban Stages (off-Broadway) in 2023. She was recently a playwright with the Evolving Playwrights Group at Circle X Theatre (Los Angeles) where she completed a new play, Rain Dog War, about the climate crisis. Amy is currently developing her new play, BloodSuckingLeech, at Nashville Repertory Theatre as part of their Ingram New Works Project.  Residences at the Autry Museum of the American West, Brush Creek, Monson Arts, The Kennedy Center, Headlands Center for the Arts, and Yaddo with work produced and developed throughout the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and twice at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Los Angeles New Play Project supports new and original works presented on small stages within Los Angeles County. Each playwright receives a grant of $20,000. Each of the submitting producers will receive an additional $20,000 to help offset the cost of producing. But there are many steps in between that rely on the facilities and input of the various theatres within the LA theatre community. Clearly, it takes a village!

By helping to support new and original work with the financial grants, LANPP is hoping to help usher in quality new writing for the vibrant and evolving Los Angeles small and midsize theatre community, and to encourage the production of exciting, untried plays.

LANPP was founded in 2021 by director Paula Holt. For information regarding the Los Angeles New Play Project please consult the website: http://lanpp.org/

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Chance Theater is proud to participate in the

impACT Anaheim  Giving Day

driving creativity and community for an inspiring future!

ANAHEIM, CA: Anaheim’s official resident theater company is thrilled to announce its participation in the impACT Anaheim Giving Day, a community-wide event dedicated to supporting local nonprofits and their impactful initiatives. As one of Anaheim’s premier cultural institutions, we are committed to enriching the community through the transformative power of live theater.

Taking place on June 5th, impACT Anaheim Giving Day provides an opportunity for individuals and businesses to unite in support of causes that resonate with them. Known for its commitment to artistic excellence, education, and community engagement, our theater invites supporters to join in this collective effort to make a positive difference in Anaheim and beyond.

By contributing on impACT Anaheim Giving Day, donors play a vital role in sustaining our mission-driven programs and initiatives. These contributions will help us continue to:

Provide Accessible Youth Theater Programs: Our Speak Up programs are a significant part of our educational outreach, designed to give voice to various community members.

Veterans Speak Up offers veterans a platform to share their stories, promoting social healing and deeper community understanding. Participants can record meaningful conversations, and collaborate with theater artists.

Spectrum Speak Up is a free summer theater camp for teens on the Autism Spectrum, focusing on acting, writing, directing, and team-building. This program helps participants find their unique voice and talent, culminating in an original show.

Engage with the Community: Through post-show talkbacks, outreach initiatives, and partnerships with local organizations, we foster meaningful connections and dialogue both on and off the stage.

Support Emerging Artists: By offering mentorship opportunities, collaborative projects, and professional development initiatives, we nurture a vibrant and diverse artistic ecosystem.

Produce Innovative Theatrical Productions: Our upcoming summer musical production is “Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” directed by James Michael McHale. This thrilling musical masterpiece will captivate audiences with its gripping narrative, intense score, and stellar performances, running from July 20 to August 11, 2024.

“Alma”: This powerful play explores the bond between a mother and daughter as they navigate the complexities of the American Dream. With a litany of amazing reviews and recommendations, this sold out extended production touched the hearts of our community and has stirred numerous patrons to reflect on the society that want to contribute to.

OTR Series: Our On The Radar series showcases new and groundbreaking works, providing a platform for emerging voices in the theater community, including Dustin H. Chinn, the Chance’s 2024 Resident Playwright. Past Resident Playwrights include Keiko Green, Exal Iraheta, B.J. Tindal, Krista Knight, Jessica Huang, Joanna Garner, Ted Malawer, Jenny Connell Davis, Lauren Yee, Nick Jones, Marshall Pailet, Zayd Dohrn, and Adam Szymkowicz.

How to Participate:

To learn more about our participation in impACT Anaheim Giving Day and how to make a donation, visit the Chance Theater Giving Day page. As we navigate the challenges posed by the ongoing pandemic, community support becomes more crucial than ever. By participating in impACT Anaheim Giving Day and contributing to our theater, individuals can directly impact the cultural landscape of Anaheim and contribute to the resilience and vitality of the arts.

NEWS RELEASE

 Arts advocates launch campaign urging Governor Newsom to reverse arts funding cuts proposed in May revise

Newsom’s draconian 58% cuts to critical arts programming to have catastrophic consequences on creative industry that supports 847,688 jobs

Rural communities and communities of color to be most impacted

CALIFORNIA (May 15, 2024) — On Friday, May 10, 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom presented his May Revision proposal for the 2024-25 State Budget. With a remaining $27.6 billion dollar deficit in the current year, the arts were among the hardest hit in Newsom’s proposed spending cuts. The May Revise proposes fully cutting the state’s innovative Performing Arts Equitable Payroll Fund ($12.5 million), plus a reduction of 38% in state grant funding for small arts nonprofits through the California Arts Council (CAC).

“In total, we’re looking at budget cuts upwards of 58% that will decimate California’s small nonprofit arts organizations and industry workers reliant on this funding,” said Julie Baker, CEO, CA Arts Advocates. “While we understand that every agency and sector must play their part to balance the budget, the cuts to arts and culture are massively disproportionate. We had hoped we were long past the days when the arts were the first to be cut and undervalued. The state’s recent investments recognized the creative industry’s essential service for bolstering the economic and social health of local communities, especially as an industry still very much in post-pandemic recovery.”

Since 2020, a broad coalition of arts and culture workers, entertainment unions, producers, nonprofits, live entertainment venues, music  film, tv, and movie theater representatives have worked together on public policies and resources to ensure the recovery and sustainability of the creative industries. However, while some parts of the arts and culture ecosystem have recovered from the impact of COVID, many have not, most notably the nonprofit performing arts. The sweep of the $12.5 million intended for the Performing Arts Equitable Payroll Fund, a groundbreaking program that supports live arts workers at smaller, nonprofit companies, was approved just a few years ago with a strong, bipartisan vote from the Legislature. This policy innovation remains critical to stabilizing the performing arts workforce. The Governor’s cut erases five years of building a legislative solution to address the deleterious impacts of both rising labor and operational costs and the pandemic on California’s small performing arts organizations.

“Over the past four years, our small performing arts nonprofits have suffered severe losses. During this time, our coalition urged the Legislature to act or risk decimating the live arts sector. The stakes today remain high: artists make up one of the most vulnerable populations in California and their jobs are crucial to preserve the State’s creative workforce. Last September, pilot funding for the Performing Arts Equitable Payroll Fund (EPF) was welcomed as a strategy to restore sustainability. Though $12.5M won’t balance the state budget, it will save the EPF and many arts workers’ livelihoods,” says Martha Demson, Board President of Theatre Producers of Southern California.

Currently, Arts & Culture production drives 8% of California’s economy, producing over $290 billion in direct impact and supporting 847,688 jobs; it also drives 7.3% of state tax revenues.  Meanwhile, the California Arts Council is already functioning at a cut-level and the performing arts community is facing unprecedented challenges.

“The state’s commitment to the arts through modest investments deliver outsized impacts for California and must be protected to ensure a future that integrates arts and culture into solving civic issues, fostering social cohesion, revitalizing neighborhoods and ensuring access to the tools of creative expression and innovation for all,” says Al Vincent Jr., Executive Director, Actors’ Equity Association. “When people go to see live arts events, they generate economic activity – everything from spending on dinner and drinks to parking and childcare. When there is less arts funding, there is less economic activity in small cities and towns across the state. California has a chance to be a leader that prioritizes the arts and artists, not just when times are easy, but when times are hard. As the budget process proceeds, we look forward to engaging the Newsom Administration and the Legislature to restore this critical funding for the arts.”

In total, the Governor’s proposed $10 million cut to the California Arts Council’s budget for Local Assistance Funding represents a greater than 38% reduction to the $26 million allocation level at which it has been stalled for the past seven years. The highpoint of support for the California Arts Council’s programming was at $30.7 million in the 2000-2001 budget, which in today’s dollars counting for inflation would be $54.7 million. Since 2018-19, general fund support has plateaued at $26 million – just .67 cents per California resident.  At this level, California ranks 36th in the nation in per capita arts spending. In contrast, Florida spends almost $2.00 per resident. The $10 million cut to this program would position California at 45th in the nation in local arts assistance funding, just above Kentucky, Kansas and Georgia.

“It is unthinkable that California would fall to 45^th in the nation when it comes to funding for the arts, trailing behind Alabama and Florida. The California Arts Council’s budget is already too small to meet the needs of this state with close to 850,000 workers employed in the arts and culture industry alone. In the 2023 grant cycle, roughly 54% of applicants were denied due to a lack of available funding. If this program is cut further, this will have a devastating impact on the field, especially in rural communities and communities of color,” says Jennifer Laine, Board President, CA Arts Advocates and Executive Director of the San Benito County Arts Council.