National Alliance for Musical Theatre Reveals Grant Recipients for 2023/2024

The National Alliance for Musical Theatre has announced the 12 Award Recipients for the 2023/2024 Frank Young Fund for New Musicals Project Development & Production Grants and the 10 Award Recipients for the 2023/2024 Impact & Exploration Fund. The Frank Young Fund for New Musicals (FYFNM) is a major funding program to support NAMT member not-for-profit theatres in their collaborations with writers to create, develop and produce new musicals. The Impact & Exploration Fund (I&EF) is designed to help NAMT member theatres pilot new capacity-building programs to advance their missions and build a library of practices and procedures other members can learn from. During the 2023/2024 season, the Funds are awarding $105,000 in grants to NAMT member organizations.

“We are immensely proud to support the creativity and innovation of artists and administrators through these grants,” says Betsy King Militello. “The projects and organizations recognized this year embody the resilience, ingenuity and passion that drive the field forward. Both the Frank Young Fund and the Impact & Exploration Fund stand as vital instruments in nurturing the future of musical theatre. NAMT is unwavering in its commitment to progress and fostering collaboration among NAMT member organizations, writers and audiences.”

The Frank Young Fund for New Musicals has awarded each of the following member organizations $5,000 to $10,000 to support full productions:

• Ars Nova (New York, NY) for (pray) by nicHi douglas, S T A R R Busby and Tariq Al-Sabir.
• Atlantic Theater Company (New York, NY) for Days of Wine and Roses by Adam Guettel, with funding from the ASCAP Foundation Irving Caesar Fund.
• Constellation Stage + Screen (Bloomington, IN) for The Moon & The Sea by Douglas Lyons and Creighton Irons, with funding from The Hollywood Pantages, a Nederlander Organization.
• La Jolla Playhouse (La Jolla, CA) for Redwood by Tina Landau, Kate Diaz and Idina Menzel.
• Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma (Oklahoma City, OK) for King of Pangaea by Martin Storrow (Fest ’22), with funding from The Hollywood Pantages, a Nederlander Organization.
• The Musical Stage Company Foundation (Ann Arbor, MI) for KELLY v. KELLY by Britta Johnson and Sara Farb.
• Prospect Theater Company (New York, NY) for Lizard Boy by Justin Huertas (Fest ’20), with funding from The Hollywood Pantages, a Nederlander Organization.
• Seattle Rep (Seattle, WA) for Lydia and the Troll by Justin Huertas (Fest ’20).

The Frank Young Fund for New Musicals has awarded each of the following member organizations $2,000 to $5,000 to support a workshop or reading:

• The 5th Avenue Theatre (Seattle, WA) for Yoko’s Husband’s Killer’s Japanese Wife, Gloria by Erika Ji, Clare Fuyuko Bierman and Brandy Hoang Collier.
• Diversionary Theatre (San Diego, CA) for TL;DR: Thelma Louise; Dyke Remix (Fest ’21) by EllaRose Chary & Brandon James Gwinn.
• Philadelphia Theatre Company (Philadelphia, PA) for Macbeth in Stride by Whitney White.
• Theater Latté Da (Minneapolis, MN) for The Legend of La Llorona: A Zarzuela of La Frontera by Celeste Moreno.

The Frank Young Fund for New Musicals is overseen by NAMT New Works Director Frankie Dailey, and the recommended Grant Recipients for the Production and Project Development Grants are selected by a distinguished panel of industry leaders, moderated by Gigi Bolt, the former Director of Theater and Musical Theater at the National Endowment for the Arts. The panelists for the 2023/2024 cycle are Jack Cummings III, Artistic Director of Transport Group; Mark Fleischer, Executive Producer of Pittsburgh CLO; Anna K. Jacobs, NAMT Festival of New Musicals Alumni for Teeth (Fest ’19); Colleen McCormack, Director of Professional Play Licensing of Broadway Licensing Group; Trevor Moppin, Creative Projects Assistant of The Shubert Organization; Alan Muraoka, Actor and Director of Sesame Street and more; and Paige Price, President of Paige Price Productions.

Recipients of Writers Residency Grants, also part of the Frank Young Fund for New Musicals, will be announced later this year.

The Impact & Exploration Fund, with generous funding from the Capdevilla Gillespie Foundation, has awarded each of the following member organizations $1,000 to $5,000 to support their projects:

• Constellation Stage + Screen (Bloomington, IN) for their Rural Community Access Tickets Initiative.
• McCarter Theatre Center (Princeton, NJ) for their Anti-Bullying Workshops.
• Music Theatre Wichita, Inc. (Wichita, KS) for their Child Protection Training.
• Ogunquit Playhouse Foundation (Ogunquit, ME) for their ASL Interpreted Performances.
• Olney Theatre Center (Olney, MD) for their Community Partners Program – Family Nights.
• Playwrights Horizons (New York, NY) for their Playwrights Horizons Access Passport.
• Seattle Rep (Seattle, WA) for their Spanish Open-Captioning for Little Women and Quixote Nuevo.
• Signature Theatre (New York, NY) for their American Sign Language (ASL) Translation Expansion & Outreach.
• The Musical Stage Company Foundation (Ann Arbor, MI) for Exploring Integrated ASL in Developing Musical Theatre: Cowboy Tempest & a Director of Artistic Sign Language.
• Tuacahn Center for the Arts (Ivins, UT) for Replacement of Assistive Listening Devices.

The Impact & Exploration Fund is overseen by NAMT Member Services Director Adam Grosswirth, and the recommended Grant Recipients are selected by a distinguished panel of industry leaders. The panelists for this year’s cycle were Carlos Garcia León, Individual Giving Manager at Chicago Shakespeare Theater; Pablo Hernandez Basulto, Manager of Community Impact for Public Works at The Public Theater; Angela Johnson, Founder of Invest in Access and AJ Inclusion Consulting; Elizabeth Kensek, Associate Producer of WaterTower Theatre; Elliott Masie, Masie Productions; Aaron Thielen, Co-Founder of Broadway Across Borders; and Casey York, Managing Director of Ars Nova.

The Frank Young Fund for New Musicals has provided over $750,000 of funding to new musicals over the last 14 years, including A Strange Loop by Michael R. Jackson (NAMT Fest ’19) at Playwrights Horizons; Oratorio for Living Things by Heather Christian (NAMT Fest ’22) at Ars Nova; Eight-Sixed by Sam Salmond and Jeremy J. King at Diversionary Theatre; Soft Power by David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori at both Center Theatre Group and The Public Theater; Renascence by Dick Scanlan (NAMT Fest ’96) and Carmel Dean at Transport Theatre Group; The Band’s Visit by David Yazbek and Itamar Moses (NAMT Fest ’12) at Atlantic Theater Company; When We’re Gone (fka Mortality Play, NAMT Fest ’16) by Alana Jacoby and Scotty Arnold at Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma; Bella: An American Tall Tale by Kirsten Childs (NAMT Fests ’98 & ’12) at Playwrights Horizons and Dallas Theater Center; Ordinary Days (NAMT Fest ’08) by Adam Gwon (NAMT Fests ’08, ’11 & ’14) at Adirondack Theatre Festival; Far From Heaven by Michael Korie, Scott Frankel and Richard Greenberg at Playwrights Horizons; The Circus in Winter (NAMT Fest ’12) by Ben Clark, Hunter Foster and Beth Turcotte at Goodspeed Musicals; and Southern Comfort (NAMT Fest ’12) by Julianne Wick Davis (NAMT Fests ’12 & ’19) and Dan Collins (NAMT Fest ’12) at all three grant levels, at Playwrights Horizons, CAP21 and Barrington Stage Company; among many others. To learn more, visit namt.org/FYFNMinfo.

The Impact & Exploration Fund (formerly the Innovation & Exploration Fund) has provided over $85,000 of funding since 2017, for projects in areas of technology, accessibility, artistic innovation, and more. Past recipients include: Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma’s integration of a Deaf performer into their production of Fun Home; Ars Nova for the creation of an exploratory childcare fund for artists in production; Theater Latté Da to support “Artists Intersecting with Audiences” and “Dramaturgical Cabarets”; Pittsburgh Musical Theatre for the expansion of inclusive devices and equitable access to artistic programming; TheatreWorks Silicon Valley to expand sensory sensitive performances in their season; Playwrights Horizons to support the Artist Financial Literacy Program; Flint Repertory Theatre, to support the creation of their new works initiatives; Constellation Stage and Screen for the “Cardinal for Schools” webinar series; and more. Grant recipients’ final reports, along with supplemental materials such as video interviews, are shared with NAMT members in a growing online library, The Innovation and Exploration Guide, allowing other theatres to learn from and adapt these programs and advances.  To learn more, and see video highlights of some of these recipients, visit namt.org/impactgrant.

The National Alliance for Musical Theatre, founded in 1985, is a not-for-profit organization serving the musical theatre community. Its mission is to be a catalyst for nurturing musical theatre development, production, innovation and collaboration. Their 220+ members, located throughout 33 states and abroad, are some of the leading producers of musical theatre in the world and include theatres, developmental organizations, higher education groups, presenting companies and independent producers. Among the almost 300 musicals launched by NAMT’s Festival of New Musicals are Benny & Joon, Come From Away, Darling Grenadine, The Drowsy Chaperone, Gun & Powder, HONK!, Interstate, It Shoulda Been You, Lempicka, Ordinary Days, Striking 12 and Thoroughly Modern Millie.

NAMT thanks the following foundations, organizations and government agencies for their ongoing support of our programs: The Alhadeff Family Charitable Fund, The Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York, ASCAP Foundation Irving Caesar Fund, BMI Foundation, Capdevilla Gillespie Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Lucille Lortel Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, The Rodgers and Hammerstein Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, The Ted Snowdon Foundation and Anonymous donors.