National Black Theater Receives Grant From Creatives Rebuild New York's Artist Employment Program

The National Black Theatre announced today that they have received an Artist Employment Program grant from Creatives Rebuild New York. The grant allows NBT to provide playwrights Ngozi Anyawu and Fedna Jacquet the opportunity to nurture and advance their creative aspirations through an expanded professional residency program that builds on NBT's I Am Soul Playwright Residency Program launched in 2012. Each premier Black artist will have dedicated support to develop, produce, and workshop original plays.

These two gifted writers, Ms. Anyawu and Ms. Jacquet, had prior residencies at NBT and are being welcomed back to a familiar home, an incubator for some of the brightest artists in the community that allows them to dream new realities and innovate the way cultural production is done. They will be involved in creating new work, host fellowship opportunities, advance community engagement, train current NBT residents, and participate in all-staff activities.

"This grant is an opportunity to advance the principles of NBT'S founding mission and its legacy of using placemaking as an active vehicle to create thriving spaces for Black artist to live, serve, and work," said National Black Theater's CEO, Sade Lythcott, and Executive Artistic Director Jonathan McCrory in a joint statement. "Ngozi and Fedna are both brilliant, generous, and courageous souls who are focused on restorative acts as a healing force for the trauma we as a nation, and particularly, black folk are reeling from. It is an honor to be a home for them, where we can watch their growth."

Designed to support employment opportunities for artists, the AEP is funding 98 collaborations involving a dynamic group of 300 artists employed by community-based organizations, municipalities, and tribal governments across New York State. CRNY has awarded a total of $49.9M in funding to support artists' salaries and benefits, with an additional $11.7M in funding provided to the organizations holding employment.

"If we are to truly rebuild our amazing state, we must celebrate artists' contributions not only to the economy but to what makes us human," says Creatives Rebuild New York's Executive Director Sarah Calderon. "The incredible work being funded through CRNY's Artist Employment Program underscores the importance of direct support for both individual artists and the organizations that hold their employment."

Artist Employment Program recipients were selected through a two-stage process by a group of twenty external peer reviewers alongside CRNY staff. From an initial pool of over 2,700 written applications, 167 were shortlisted for interviews with reviewers. To view the list of 98 Artist Employment Program participants, visit https://www.creativesrebuildny.org/participants/.

For more information about Creatives Rebuild New York's Artist Employment Program, please visit www.creativesrebuildny.org.

For more on the National Black Theatre, please visit www.nationalblacktheatre.org.

National Black Theatre

National Black Theatre (NBT), the nation's first revenue-generating Black arts complex, was founded in 1968 by the late visionary artist Dr. Barbara Ann Teer. NBT is the longest-running Black theatre in New York City, one of the oldest theaters founded and consistently operated by a woman of color in the nation and most recently included in the permanent collection of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. NBT's core mission is to produce transformational theater that helps to shift the inaccuracy around African Americans' cultural identity by telling authentic stories of Black lifestyle. As an alternative learning environment, NBT uses theater arts as a means to educate, enrich, entertain, empower and inform the national conscience around current social issues impacting our communities. Under the leadership of Sade Lythcott, CEO and Jonathan McCrory, Executive Artistic Director, NBT's three core programs-the Theater Arts Program, Communications Arts Program and Entrepreneurial Arts Program-help reshape a more inclusive American theater field by providing an artistically rigorous and culturally sensitive space for artists of color to experiment, develop and present new work. Working with trailblazing artists from Nona Hendrix to Jeremy O. Harris, and helping to launch the careers, most recently, of artists such as Dominique Morisseau, Radha Blank, Mfoniso Udofia, Saheem Ali, Lee Edward Colston II, and Ebony Noelle Golden, and incubating Obie Award-winning companies like The Movement Theatre Company and Harlem9's 48Hours in Harlem, NBT's cultural production remains unparalleled. Located in the heart of Harlem, NBT has produced 300+ original works; won 56 Audelco Awards; received a CEBA Award of Merit; and has been nominated for multiple Drama Desk awards. NBT is supported by grants from the Ford Foundation, New York Community Trust, Shubert Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Andrew Mellon Foundation, City Council of New York, City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, Columbia Service Society, and private donations. Visit www.nationalblacktheatre.org or follow NBT on Facebook (@NationalBlackTheatre) and Twitter/Instagram (@NatBlackTheatre).