NEA Awards $20,000 To Hollywood Fringe

The Hollywood Fringe Festival is proud to announce that it has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Art Works grant of $20,000 to support the Fringe Scholarships program. This grant stems from more than $27 million approved by NEA Acting Chairman Mary Anne Carter to fund local arts projects and partnerships. Art Works is the Arts Endowment's principal grantmaking program. The agency received 1,605 Art Works applications for this round of grantmaking, and will award 972 grants in this category.

"Hollywood Fringe has grown over the past ten years into a festival reaching hundreds of thousands of people," says Festival Director Ben Hill. "This funding allows us to sustain that growth by supporting artists and programming that is diverse, inclusive, and relevant to the local community. We are truly honored to have been selected as a recipient."

Created in 2016, the Fringe Scholarships Program exists to expand and diversify the pool of artists producing work at the Hollywood Fringe Festival. The inaugural program offered free registrations to five Hollywood Fringe productions, and has since expanded to include 10 scholarships with free registration and a stipend. Fringe Scholarships are available to first-time Hollywood Fringe producers who contribute to the ethnic, cultural, racial, mentally or physically disabled, sexual orientation, or gender identity diversity of the Fringe community. See the list of this year's winners here.

"The arts enhance our communities and our lives, and we look forward to seeing these projects take place throughout the country, giving Americans opportunities to learn, to create, to heal, and to celebrate," said Mary Anne Carter, acting chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.

About Hollywood Fringe Festival

The Hollywood Fringe Festival is an annual, open-access, community-derived event celebrating freedom of expression and collaboration in the performing arts community. Each June during the Hollywood Fringe, the arts infiltrate the Hollywood neighborhood: Fully equipped theaters, parks, clubs, churches, restaurants and other unexpected places host hundreds of productions by local, national, and international arts companies and independent performers.

Participation in the Hollywood Fringe is completely open and uncensored. This free-for-all approach underlines the festival's mission to be a platform for artists without the barrier of a curative body. By opening the gates to anyone with a vision, the festival is able to exhibit the most diverse and cutting-edge points-of-view the world has to offer. Additionally, by creating an environment where artists must self-produce their work, the Fringe motivates its participants to cultivate a spirit of entrepreneurialism in the arts. Visit www.HollywoodFringe.org/press for more information.