CPT Announces 2018/2019 Fellows, Including National New Play Network Producer In Residence Award

Cleveland Public Theatre (CPT)'s Executive Artistic Director Raymond Bobgan is proud to announce the selection of four Northeast Ohio-based artists for 2018/2019 Season artistic fellowships, including a 2018/2019 National New Play Network (NNPN) Producer in Residence grant for emerging theatre-maker India Nicole Burton. CPT's 2018/2019 Fellowships include the Joan Yellen Horvitz Director Fellowship, the Kulas Foundation Theatre Composer Initiative, and the Nord Family Foundation Catapult Fellowship.

Inside CPT's commitment to cultivating new voices and providing new work development platforms for both experienced and emerging local artists, CPT's series of programs focus on the individual artist. Fellowships include mentorship by CPT's Executive Artistic Director, a financial award, and full underwriting of learning and artistic activities during the fellowship.

The National New Play Network (NNPN) Producer in Residence Program supports season-long residencies at NNPN Core Member Theatres for those who wish to dedicate their careers (or the next phase of their careers) to the creation and production of new work. Selected producers are given a home within a professional theatre in which they can supplement their skills, increase their knowledge of the day to day operations of a company focused on new work, and be introduced as theatre-makers to a community. The 2018/2019 National New Play Network Producer in Residence at Cleveland Public Theatre is India Nicole Burton.

The Joan Yellen Horvitz Director Fellowship is a season-long residency that provides mentoring, formal classwork, and practical work. Fellows assistant direct, create new work, and direct at least one project in CPT's season. This initiative intends to address Cleveland's limited pool of directors with experience creating new theatrical work. The 2018/2019 Joan Yellen Horvitz Director Fellow is Lauren Joy Fraley.

The Kulas Foundation Theatre Composer Initiative supports the artistic growth and development of composers with extraordinary potential. Fellows compose music and sound design for CPT season productions. The Kulas Foundation Theatre Composer Initiative is a nine-month fellowship that engages composers in a collaborative process under the guidance of the show producer and director to compose and produce original music for at least one full production in CPT's professional season. The 2018/2019 Kulas Foundation Theatre Composer Fellow is Buck McDaniel.

The Nord Family Foundation Catapult Fellowship, a 12-18 month program for playwrights and creators from Northeast Ohio, offers opportunities to develop work through readings, staged readings, and workshop productions. Catapult, one of CPT's New Play Development Programs, is funded by a multi-year grant from the Nord Family Foundation, and is about striving to advance a project up to the point of being production-ready. Catapult is intended to engage with projects that are at different stages of creation, from early concept to completed script. The 2018/2019 Nord Family Foundation Playwright Fellow is Lisa Langford.

ABOUT THE 2018/2019 SEASON FELLOWS

India Nicole Burton (NNPN PRODUCER IN RESIDENCE) is an actress, director, playwright, and producer. She is a native of Akron, OH and graduated from The University of Akron in 2011 with a BA in Theatre Arts with an emphasis on performance. Upon graduating, India founded Ma'Sue Productions, an African American theatre company located in Akron. She has directed, produced, and performed in several of Ma'Sue's plays and acted as artistic director until 2015. India has worked with many prominent Akron, Cleveland, New York, Atlanta, and L.A. actors, directors, and playwrights. Some of India's acting credits include Julius Caesar (Portia), Bootycandy (Actor 1), and An Octoroon (Dido). India's directing credits include for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf (Heads Up Productions), The Laramie Project (Heads Up Productions), Daybreak's Children (Ma'Sue Productions), A Happening on Imperial (Ma'Sue Productions), O Patria Mia (Ma'Sue Productions), Little Women (Hathaway Brown Theatre Institute), and two short plays produced at Cleveland Public Theatre's Station Hope: What we could have been and Maya: The Poet. India's assistant directing credits include the 2014 production of The Color Purple at Karamu House, brownsville song (b-side for tray) at Dobama Theatre, and Cleveland Public Theatre's Barbecue. She is the director of drama at Dike School of the Arts where she trains students in acting and performance, grades pre-K through 8th. India is currently working on developing and devising an original play about women in the Black Panther Party.

LAUREN JOY FRALEY (JOAN YELLEN HORVITZ DIRECTOR FELLOW) has trained in performance labs, workshops, and ensembles at CPT since 2011, and has pursued additional physical theatre and movement training at La Mama Umbria, NACL Theatre, and Earthdance that will inform her work in the fellowship. Lauren co-created and composed original music for Noonday as part of CPT's Test Flight series, and has contributed to creation of artistic projects at Maelstrom Collaborative Arts (formerly Theater Ninjas), including Who We Used to Be (for which she was Assistant Director), Don't Wander Off, The Last Day, and the 2016 multimedia showcase Broken Codes. This showcase featured Auxiliary, her original short solo work inspired by experiences teaching Maelstrom's all-girls STEAM club at Orchard STEM School. Lauren spent nearly 6 years as Outreach Program Coordinator with Playhouse Square, where she led school and family arts programming, including the "Classroom Connections" teaching artist ensemble. She has also performed in various world-premiere performances at CPT including: Ancestra, a Big Box workshop production of Free Radical and the Late Night Sketchbook, and The Secret Social, in collaboration with Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant.

Lisa Langford (NORD FAMILY FOUNDATION CATAPULT FELLOW) received her BA in History from Harvard University and her MFA in Creative Writing from Cleveland State University. Her play The Art of Longing was produced at Cleveland Public Theatre and was a finalist for the Leslie Scalapino Award for Innovative Women Performance Writers and a semi-finalist for the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's 2017 National Playwrights Conference. Her play Rastus & Hattie, a finalist for The Playwrights Realm's Scratchpad Fellowship, had a reading at Kitchen Dog Theater in Dallas, TX, as part of the National New Play Network's Cross-Pollination program. She has also had productions and readings at convergence-continuum and Dobama Theatre, both in Cleveland, OH.

BUCK MCDANIEL (KULAS FOUNDATION THEATRE COMPOSER FELLOW) is originally from Columbia, Mississippi. Commissions include an arrangement of Nico Muhly's Bright Mass with Canons for the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Festival Chorus; a new work for organist Todd Wilson which premiered at the 2014 Pipeworks Festival in Belfast, Ireland; and the double concerto On Seeing Two Brown Boys in a Catholic Church for tenor Matthew Jones, horn player Van Parker, and DC Strings Workshop. Commissioned by the Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art, his works PUT IT ALL IN and LABYRINTH have been broadcast on the classical music radio station WCLV, and his work Three Movements was performed by the Cleveland Chamber Symphony as part of their 2015 NEOSonic Festival. Both the Cleveland Public Library and Cleveland Public Theatre have hosted performances of his cycle Southern Songbook. Most recently, his work Muhly Variations was released on a disc issued by the Centaur Label. His works have been heard in Lincoln Cathedral (UK), Hereford Cathedral (UK), the Gem Theatre (Detroit), Heinz Chapel (Pittsburgh), St. Peter's Cathedral (Jackson, MS), Cleveland Institute of Music, the College-Conservatory of Music (Cincinnati), and New York University.