Mosaic Theater Receives One Million Dollar Grant From The Reva and David Logan Foundation

Mosaic Theater Company of DC announces a one million dollar grant from The Reva and David Logan Foundation, spread over four years from 2016 through 2020. This gift affirms the resounding success of the company's inaugural season and ensures the sustainability of Mosaic Theater Company's mission to produce plays and complementary programming that speak to the most pressing issues of our time.

"Mosaic has found an extraordinary partner in The Reva and David Logan Foundation," shares Founding Artistic Director Ari Roth. "Their commitment to social justice, trailblazing art, and transformative involvement in the community mirrors our own. And they have been the best kind of encouragers, standing by us when we needed support the most, and now pointing us forward to embrace even bigger challenges while helping to ensure our staying power so that we continue to aim high and dream big."

The first gift from the Logan Foundation, a $250,000 challenge grant announced in April 2015, served as one of the first major tests for the new company, then only four months old. Mosaic Theater met and exceeded the grant more than a month ahead of schedule.

"This extraordinary one million dollar grant from the Logan Foundation, over four years, is confirmation of the powerful impact Mosaic has had on Washington theater," says Deborah Carliner, Board President. "I could not be more proud of what the Board of Directors, staff, and leadership of Mosaic have accomplished in such a short time. The future is oh so bright. I give my heartfelt thanks to the Logan family."

This second gift signifies a transition from the unknowns of a first-year company into the infrastructural expansions of a young establishment in the arts community. Significantly, this gift allows for the endowment of The Reva and David Logan Community Engagement Initiative, consisting of a robust line-up of free community programming (much like this year's 65-and-counting post-show panel discussions featuring a variety of distinguished guests), future Mosaic On-The-Move touring presentations (like the recent tour of Promised Land through area universities), and the development of workshop and reading presentations to invest in new plays, encourage new stories, and discover new voices.

"The Logan Foundation's 2015 matching grant was an inspiration to many who shared Mosaic's desire to make a case for hope in a polarized world," says Managing Director & Producer Serge Seiden. "Today's announcement turns that amazing inspiration into sustainable action. This vote of confidence in Mosaic's vision will build a strong foundation for Washington's only theater committed to social justice."

"The Logan Foundation's 2015 matching grant was an inspiration to many who shared Mosaic's desire to make a case for hope in a polarized world," says Managing Director & Producer Serge Seiden. "Today's announcement turns that amazing inspiration into sustainable action. This vote of confidence in Mosaic's vision will build a strong foundation for Washington's only theater committed to social justice."

Mosaic Theater's Inaugural Season has provided a rich platform for the company's far-ranging ambitions. The season started expansively with the world premiere of Jay O. Sander's sweeping Unexplored Interior, a stirring 14-actor drama about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the global community's collective failing to address the conflict. Mosaic then turned closer to home with Marcus Gardley's powerful chamber play, The Gospel of Lovingkindness, about a mother's fight to overcome gun violence on the South Side of Chicago. The Company then re-launched the long-running Voices From a Changing Middle East Festival, with Aaron Davidman's one man tour-de-force, Wrestling Jerusalem (opening Off-Broadway on March 30), the American premiere of I Shall Not Hate, adapted from the memoir by four-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, and the American premiere of The Promised Land (Eretz Chadasha), a moving documentary-infused portrait of Sudanese and Eritrean refugees attempting to migrate into Israel (which moved onto perform at George Mason and American Universities and Washington Hebrew Congregation). The Voices Festival concludes this spring with After the War, an explosive new family drama from Motti Lerner (The Admission), and Hkeelee (Talk to Me), a poignant solo show written and performed by Leila Buck. Mosaic's Inaugural Season concludes this summer with Cori Thomas' Off-Broadway hit, When January Feels Like Summer, a rousing romantic comedy following a pair of recently-immigrated business owners making their way in a new city.

"We are proud to support this unique theater that honors the truths of disparate voices," says Dan Logan of the Logan Foundation. In addition to Mosaic Theater, the Logan Foundation provides support to seven theaters in DC, including major funding for Capital Fringe, Signature Theater, and Theater J.

Mosaic Theater's "hugely ambitious first season" (Washington Post Chief Theater Critic Peter Marks), is complemented by student and senior matinées, professional apprenticeships with Howard, Gallaudet, and Bowie State Universities, and the Company's expansive calendar of free community events, including the return of the long-running Peace Café, and other probing discussions held with artists, community and, faith leaders, journalists, ambassadors, and audience. This gift from the Logan Foundation solidifies Mosaic's resolve to be a place of independent, intercultural, entertaining, and uncensored artwork; to be a home for all members of our community; and to be a platform for the finest local and international artists of our time, for many years to come.

Mosaic Theater Company of DC is committed to making powerful, transformational, socially-relevant art, producing plays by authors on the front lines of conflict zones and providing audiences with a dynamic new venue for the dramatizing and debating of ideas including an annual intercultural festival, like our acclaimed Voices From a Changing Middle East series.

With an emphasis on the playwright's vibrant voice, muscular structures and a powerful collaborative fusion with directors of vision and story-telling integrity, Mosaic plays marry a love of ideas, character, conflict, immediacy, and personal and public resonance, working with the finest actors in our city to create thrilling performances that matter. Our plays speak truth to power and to the private parts of our soul prompting reflection, discussion and uplift, while creating lasting impression; in short, we make art with a purpose and strive for impact.