Victory Gardens to Receive $25,000 NEA Grant

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Chairman Rocco Landesman today announced that the agency will award 863 grants to organizations and individual writers across the country. Victory Gardens is one of the grantees and will receive $25,000 to support the development of Jackie Sibblies Drury's new play, We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as South-West Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915. The 863 grant awards total $22.543 million, encompass 15 artistic disciplines and fields, and support projects in 47 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

We Are Proud to Present... by Jackie Sibblies Drury and directed by Eric Ting was selected by and developed through Victory Gardens' 2010 IGNITION. The production runs March 30 - April 29, 2012 at Victory Gardens, 2433 N. Lincoln in Chicago.

"Art Works is the guiding principle at the NEA," said agency Chairman Rocco Landesman. "And I'm pleased to see that principle represented through the 823 Art Works-funded projects included in this announcement. These projects demonstrate the imaginative and innovative capacities of artists and arts organizations to enhance the quality of life in their communities."

"The NEA has been a long-time funder of work at Victory Gardens, with underwriting in recent years for The Boys Room, The Lost Boys of Sudan, and I Sailed With Magellan," says Artistic Director Chay Yew. "Victory Gardens was awarded this grant to support Jackie Sibblies Drury's new play, which was developed through the VG's new play festival, IGNITION. This work represents the core of the VG mission and we are honored to be recognized by the NEA for the development and production of new work, specifically work by a talented young artist of color."

Direct from IGNITION, the festival that developed and produced Pulitzer finalist The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, comes this brave new work that sent chills and laughter through this summer's festival audiences.

When a group of actors gather together to give a presentation on a distant genocide, they realize that summaries based on history books aren't nearly enough to capture the complexity of human extermination-or human interaction. In an honest attempt to delve deeper, they crash into their own simmering fears and unconscious bigotry and come face to face with the potential for brutality in all of us.

IGNITION, Victory Gardens daring and hugely successful new play development initiative, was conceived to support the theater's mission of new play development and diversity. In the spring of 2010, 120 writers of color under 40 years of age from around the United States submitted new scripts for the first phase of IGNITION.
The top six plays were then selected, workshopped, and presented as staged readings in a weeklong festival later that same summer. From the top six, Jackie Sibblies Drury's We Are Proud to Present a Presentation... was selected to be part of Victory Gardens mainstage season.

In March 2011, the NEA received 1,686 eligible applications for Art Works requesting more than $84 million in funding. The resulting funding rate of 49 percent of eligible applications reflects both the significant demand for support and the ongoing vitality of the not-for-profit arts community despite current financial challenges. Art Works grants are awarded based on the applications received by the NEA and how those applications are assessed by the review panels.

For a complete listing of projects recommended for Art Works grant support, please visit the NEA web site at arts.gov.

About Victory Gardens Theater
Under the leadership of Artistic Director Chay Yew and Executive Director Jan Kallish, Victory Gardens Theater is home to the bold voices of world premiere theater. The company features the work of its own 14-member Playwrights Ensemble, as well as that of exciting playwrights who are changing theater in the U.S. and abroad. Since its founding in 1974, the company has produced more world premieres than any other Chicago theater, a commitment recognized nationally when Victory Gardens received the 2001 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre. The company's dedication to developing, supporting and producing new work makes Victory Gardens an American Center for New Plays.

In 2006, Victory Gardens successfully completed an $11.8 million renovation of Chicago's famed Biograph Theater, and moved two blocks north from its longtime venue at 2257 N. Lincoln Avenue, to its beautiful new home in one of Chicago's most celebrated historic landmarks. Renamed Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, the new venue is a state-of-the-art 299-seat mainstage which has greatly expanded the company's artistic flexibility, while enhancing Victory Gardens' ability to welcome patrons old and new.

In 2009, Victory Gardens completed the second phase of renovation at the Biograph, building an intimate, new, 109-seat studio theater on the second floor. On March 1, 2010, at a special launch event for Victory Gardens $1 million Campaign for Growth, the theater's new studio was officially named the Richard Christiansen Theater, in honor of the Chicago Tribune chief critic emeritus and longtime champion of Chicago's live theater scene. Visit www.victorygardens.org/campaignforgrowth for more details.

Victory Gardens Theater receives major funding from Alphawood Foundation, Chicago Community Trust, Shubert Foundation, Joyce Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Allstate Insurance Company, Polk Bros. Foundation, The Boeing Company, and National Endowment for the Arts. Additional funding is provided by: Leo S. Guthman Fund, Motorola Foundation, REAM Foundation, Illinois Arts Council (a state agency), Crown Family Philanthropies, Sara Lee Foundation, Edgerton Foundation, James S. Kemper Foundation, Charles & M.R. Shapiro Foundation, and by Wrightwood Neighbors Conservation Association, McVay Foundation, Charles H. and Bertha L. Boothroyd Foundation, John R. Halligan Charitable Fund, Illinois Tool Works, PNC Foundation, Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation, a CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, The Saints, and Irving Harris Foundation.

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