SDCF Awards May Adrales Denham Fellowship

The Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation is proud to announce the recipient of the inaugural Denham Fellowship. The Denham Committee, comprised of board members Edie Cowan, Tisa Chang, Paul Lazarus, Sharon Ott and Mary Robinson, decided unanimously to name director May Adrales as the first Denham Fellow and award her $3,000 in support of her production of Faith, Hope, and Charity at PURE Theatre in Charleston, South Carolina.

May Adrales holds a MFA from the Yale School of Drama and a BA from the University of Virginia. She was a Directing Fellow for New York Theatre Workshop, the Van Lier Directing Fellow for Second Stage Theatre and a Drama League Directing Fellow. In addition to her work as a freelance director, Adrales is currently an Artistic Associate at The Public Theater in New York City.

The Denham Fellowship was established in October 2006, when the SDCFoundation received a bequest from the estate of Mary Orr Denham. Denham's directive for the funds was that they be used to establish a fellowship in honor of her late husband, Reginald H. F. Denham. Further, she instructed that the Foundation "shall make an annual award to aspiring young directors, and particularly women directors, to further develop their directing skills." Mary Orr Denham wrote the short story, "The Wisdom of Eve", on which the film "All About Eve" is based. Reginald H.F. Denham directed many plays on Broadway and in London and was also a prolific playwright and screenwriter. Denham was one of the founding members of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers and served on the original Executive Committee of the SDCFoundation in 1965.

Since 1965, the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF) has been the only national organization dedicated exclusively to supporting the craft and artistry of stage directors and choreographers.  Among its core initiatives are the Observership Program (for Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Regional Theatre with Mentor Directors or Choreographers including Kathleen Marshall, Walter Bobbie, Rob Ashford, Doug Hughes, Wendy C. Goldberg and Chay Yew), the Mildred and Shepard Traube Fellowship (for Broadway Observerships), the Mike Ockrent Fellowship  (for an aspiring Broadway director), the Gielgud Fellowship (for an Assistant Director of Classical theatre), the Director/Choreographer Network (a monthly series of informational discussions followed by networking opportunities), the Director/Dramatist Exchange, the One-on-One Conversation Series, the "Mr. Abbott" Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Joe A. Callaway Award, and craft publications, The Journal for Stage Directors and Choreographers and Stage Directors Handbook.

For further information about the SDCF and its programs, go to www.sdcfoundation.org

To post a comment, you must register and login.