Independent Shakespeare Co.'s Free Festival Receives $15K NEA Grant

National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Jane Chu has approved more than $82 million to fund local arts projects across the country in the NEA's second major funding announcement for fiscal year 2017. Included in this announcement is an Art Works award of $15,000 to Independent Shakespeare Co. to present the Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival. The NEA received 1,728 Art Works applications and will make 1,029 grants ranging from $10,000 to $100,000.

"The arts reflect the vision, energy, and talent of America's artists and arts organizations," said NEA Chairman Jane Chu. "The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support organizations such as Independent Shakespeare Co. in serving their communities by providing excellent and accessible arts experiences."

Eduardo A. Braniff, Chair of the Board of Directors comments, "We are honored to be recipient of the 2017 NEA grant and the support it provides ISC in providing art and theater in Los Angeles. More importantly, it is an honor for us to join the cohort of all 2017 NEA grantees because, together with all of them, ISC is ensuring that the arts remain a vital element of what it is to be American."

Presented in partnership with the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, ISC's free summer festival of outdoor performances invites all Angelenos to experience exceptional performances in a beautiful setting. Each summer the Festival creates a center for Los Angeles through community and theater. The Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival 2017 will present Measure for Measure and The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

Independent Shakespeare Co. creates theater that is dynamic, inclusive and accessible; enriching and strengthening our community and reaching new theater audiences. With our commitment to providing free theater, we redress the inequity of access to the performing arts. The festival audience is a vibrant cross-section of the City of Los Angeles. In counterpoint to national performing arts trends, 61% of the festival audience earns less than $50,000/year, 71% are under the age of 35, and 48% identify as people of color. Under the summer stars, a uniquely Los Angeles audience gathers to share the wonderful stories that have thrilled theater-goers for centuries and a center for the community to connect with one another and to a live arts event.

To join the Twitter conversation about this announcement, use #NEASpring17. For more information on projects included in the NEA grant announcement, go to arts.gov.

INDEPENDENT SHAKESPEARE CO. (ISC) brings Los Angeles together through exuberant, surprising productions of classical plays as well as new works. We are the 2015 recipients of the LA Drama Critics Circle's highest honor, the Margaret Harford Award for sustained excellence in theater, a 2017 recipient of an NEA ArtWorks grant and a grantee recipient of Bloomberg Philanthropies' Arts Innovation and Management Program. We address the inequity of access to the performing arts through free and low-cost programming. Since 2010 we have produced the Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival with the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks at the iconic Old Zoo. The growth in attendance of our free Shakespeare in the park program is extraordinary: at our first season (at Barnsdall Park in 2004), we played to fewer than 1,000 people; by 2015 our audience grew to over 47,000. Through classical theater we have attracted a community that is young (71% age 35 and under), diverse (48% identify as non-Caucasian and 77% are middle and lower income), and from all corners of Los Angeles. In 2012, we expanded our offerings with our indoor performance space, Independent Studio, where we present original work, re-imagined stagings of classics, readings, and classes. Beginning in 2016, ISC implemented a growth plan that will see a dramatic increase in audience served, scope of programming and budget while maintaining our profound focus on our community. The plans include two structures: the Griffith Park Performing Arts Stage (a project of the City of Los Angeles, Department of Recreation & Parks) and a new performing arts space (re-invented to better serve our community of artists and audience). For more information call 818-710-6306 or visit www.iscla.org.

Pictured: MEASURE FOR MEASURE & TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA will perform this Summer in Griffith Park. Photo by Mike Ditz.