Children's Theatre Company Awarded Joyce Award

Children's Theatre Company (CTC) is pleased to announce it has received a second Joyce Award for $50,000 to support new works by artists of color. CTC is the first organization to be awarded a second time. The award is given in conjunction with Asian American playwright Naomi Iizuka (who is a previous Joyce Award winner, 2004) to support a new children's play called The Last Firefly.

"Naomi is an artist of incredible talent," says Peter Brosius, artistic director for Children's Theatre Company. "We are exceptionally proud to be partnering with her to bring The Last Firefly to stage and are, of course, thrilled our new play development is again being honored by the Joyce Foundation."

Partnering with Iizuka, CTC will develop an original work based on Japanese folktales Iizuka grew up listening to. The Last Firefly will introduce young audiences to the cosmic dilemmas and archetypal situations in traditional Japanese literature and fairytales. Staging will utilize theatrical elements of Kabuki theatre. Designed for children five to eight years old, the piece will be work-shopped in February 2011, in partnership with Carleton College and its Arts Festival "The Art of Sight, Sound, and Heart: Visualizing Japanese Theater." The play is anticipated to premiere during CTC's 2013 season.

Iizuka, who was born in Tokyo and raised in Japan, Indonesia, Holland and Washington D.C., has produced and developed works for theaters across the country including the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, Huntington Theatre, Actors' Theatre of Louisville, Berkeley Repertory Theater, the Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival, the Brooklyn Academy Of Music's "Next Wave Festival" and the Goodman Theatre. She is a member of New Dramatists and has been a recipient of the Alpert Award, a Whiting Writers' Award, a Rockefeller Foundation MAP grant and an NEA/TCG Artist-in-Residence grant.

In 2004, Iizuka received her first Joyce Award in Theater and was commissioned by the Goodman Theatre. Her play Ghostwritten, inspired by the classic children's fable of Rumplestiltskin, premiered in 2009. Iizuka's Anon(ymous) was commissioned by CTC and contemporized Homer's The Odyssey, following the path of a teenage refugee fleeing civil war.

CTC previously won a Joyce Award in 2005. The award supported the commission of hip-hop writer and performer Will Power, whose production Flow opened the Cargill Stage. Power developed one of the theatre's most critically acclaimed and best-selling productions for teen audiences, Five Fingers of Funk, staged in 2008.

Since its inception in 2003, the Joyce Awards have supported multicultural institutions in Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee and Minneapolis/St. Paul. The awards aim to provide commissions that produce vivid, new works of art - strengthening the cultural venues and drawing people of diverse backgrounds to experience the rewards of participating in the arts, while elevating the visibility of creative works by minority artists.

This year's competition drew 41 entries from the Great Lakes region. Entries are reviewed by independent arts advisors from outside the Midwest and reviewed and approved by the Joyce Foundation's Board of Directors. Joyce Awards are awarded in dance, music, theater and visual arts. Each award supports the work of the individual artist as well as significant community engagement efforts.

Children's Theatre Company (CTC) is the first theatre for young people to win the coveted Tony® Award for Outstanding Regional Theater (2003). Founded in 1965, CTC serves more than 300,000 people annually and is one of the 20 largest theater companies in the nation. CTC is noted for defining worldwide standards for youth theatre with an innovative mix of classic tales, celebrated international productions and challenging new work.

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