SOCIETY Theatre Company Announces An Additional $50,000 In Grants

New York City-based theater collective SOCIETY announced today the Hawthorne Arts Community Grant will distribute an additional $50,000 to theater artists in the coming months, bringing the total grant amount to $100,000 since September 2020.

Like the previous round of distribution, nine artists will receive monthly $1,000 grants. An additional $5,000 will be divided and distributed to several artists for smaller emergency needs. The only requirement to receive the funds is a current lack of ability to support oneself or access to a financial safety net during this time. Recipients were selected through a nomination process by SOCIETY company members.

The additional grant is made possible thanks to further support from an anonymous donor who approached SOCIETY after seeing the company's inaugural work, Beginning Days of True Jubilation by Mona Mansour, as a part of The New Ohio Theatre's digital Ice Factory 2020 last summer. Co-founder Tim Nicolai said, "This past fall, the Hawthorne Grant provided crucial assistance to struggling artists in one of the most difficult times the theatre community has ever encountered. That lifeline proved essential, and SOCIETY is immensely grateful that our grant donor has given us the opportunity to extend it further."

The grant has already provided much needed financial relief to artists during these unprecedented times. One of the anonymous grant recipients said, "As someone inside of the company I've had an opportunity to both receive the grant and have two friends receive support as well. All three of us are Black women and this is greatly important to me. I have found that too often we are disqualified from the support that we need because we are not doing 'bad enough,' whilst as artists, citizens, friends and family members we are trying to support our communities. With the pandemics of racism and Covid-19 raging on, our theatre collective has had the luck of a generous donor, and the gumption to find new ways to support people in a time of unprecedented need."

SOCIETY Theatre Collective, Inc. is a not-for-profit organization founded by playwright Mona Mansour, director Scott Illingworth, and actor/producer Tim Nicolai to produce new works of theater through the Joint Stock Method. The collective includes over 20 theater makers of different disciplines. More information about the company and their work is available at societytheatre.com