NYTW Now Accepting Applications for 2016-17 2050 Fellowship Program

New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) is currently accepting applications for the 2016/17 season of its 2050 Fellowship program for emerging playwrights and directors. Applications are due October 19, 2015 at 5pm EST.

The 2050 Fellowship is named in celebration of the U.S. Census Bureau's projection that by the year 2050, there will be no single racial or ethnic majority in the United States. This projection provokes thoughts at New York Theatre Workshop about the transformations that will take place in the American landscape - demographically, technologically, environmentally, and artistically. They are a catalyst for broader questions about our moral and artistic future. How do we define diversity? Whose stories aren't being told? What lies ahead for our world? In response to these questions, NYTW has expanded and renamed our longstanding Fellowship program to support the diversity of voices and aesthetics that will make up this new minority majority.

Past Fellows include Jade King Carroll, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Kareem Fahmy, Ed Sylvanus Iskandar, Pirronne Yousefzadeh, Catherine Yu, Simón Adinia Hanukai, Julián J. Mesri, Janine Nabers, Matthew Paul Olmos, Tamilla Woodard, Zhu Yi, Hilary Bettis, Lileana Blain-Cruz, Will Davis, Mashuq Deen, Reginald L. Douglas, Michel Hausmann, Tara Ahmadinejad, Elena Araoz, Jeff Augustin, Sanaz Ghajarrahimi, Martyna Majok and Brian Otaño.

Past 2050 Fellows have had their work produced and have directed throughout New York and the country. Recent credits of past Fellows include War at Yale Rep (written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz), An Octoroon at Soho Rep/TFANA and Gloria at The Vineyard (both written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins), The Mysteries at The Flea (directed by Ed Sylvanus Iskandar), Men on Boats at Clubbed Thumb (directed by Will Davis), Colossal at both Mixed Blood and Olney (directed by Will Davis, Helen Hayes Award), Little Children Dream of God at the Roundabout Underground (written by Jeff Augustin), Reverberation at Hartford Stage (written by Matthew Lopez), The Legend of Georgia McBride at MCC (written by Matthew Lopez), Hand Foot Fizzle Face at JACK and Old Paper Houses at the Irondale (both directed by Tara Ahmadinejad), Ironbound at Steppenwolf (written by Martyna Majok).

Past Fellow Lileana Blain-Cruz can also be seen directing RED SPEEDO this spring at New York Theatre Workshop.

The 2050 Fellows are emerging artists who, with their unique voices, give us perspective on the world in which we live; and who challenge us all to contend with this changing world. With the 2050 Fellowship, NYTW is re-affirming its responsibility to nurture artists who reflect this multiplicity of perspectives, challenge the dominant paradigm and give voice to those whose experiences are not often heard.

The 2050 Fellowship involves monthly fellowship meetings where fellows meet with each other and artists from the New York Theatre Workshop community to discuss craft, aesthetics and artistic development, as well as access to rehearsal space and two opportunities to share works-in-progress with the NYTW staff and entire fellowship cohort. Fellows receive mentorship from the NYTW staff and contemporary theatre artists and an invitation to participate in the artistic life of the theatre by attending staff meetings, developmental readings, dress rehearsals and other NYTW functions, including a 3-day weekend retreat in June 2016 and 2017. 2050 Fellows are awarded a modest stipend and an artistic development fund to support Fellowship projects, see work, research and travel.

NYTW encourage applicants with a unique cultural perspective inclusive of race, ethnicity, gender, class, disability and sexual orientation, and will accept up to six 2050 Fellows for the 2016/17 season, which begins in June 2016 and runs through June 2017. Candidates must live and be able to meet regularly in the New York City metro area for the duration of the Fellowship. Playwrights and directors are eligible to apply.

Interested applicants can apply online.

The 2015/16 Fellows are Nathan Alan Davis, Noelle Ghoussaini, Hansol Jung, Patricia Ione Lloyd, Alexandru Mihail, and Danya Taymor.

The 2015/16 season at New York Theatre Workshop kicks off this month with the world premiere of FONDLY, COLLETTE RICHLAND, a new play by NYTW's Obie and Lortel award-winning company-in-residence Elevator Repair Service, written by Sibyl Kempson and directed by ERS Artistic Director John Collins; the world premiere of LAZARUS, by David Bowie and Enda Walsh (ONCE, Tony Award) inspired by the novel The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis, and directed by Ivo van Hove (Hedda Gabler, More Stately Mansions, Obie Awards); the New York premiere of RED SPEEDO written by Lucas Hnath (The Christians) and directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz (Hollow Roots); and HADESTOWN by celebrated singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell and inventive two-time OBIE award-winning director Rachel Chavkin (Three Pianos, Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812).

New York Theatre Workshop, now in its fourth decade of incubating important new works of theatre, continues to honor its mission to explore perspectives on our collective history and respond to the events and institutions that shape all our lives. Each season, from its home in New York's East Village, NYTW presents four new productions, over 80 readings and numerous workshop productions for over 45,000 audience members. NYTW supports artists in all stages of their careers by maintaining a series of workshop programs, including work-in-progress readings, summer residencies and artist fellowships. Since its founding, NYTW has produced over 100 new, fully staged works, including Jonathan Larson's Rent; Tony Kushner's Slavs! and Homebody/Kabul; Doug Wright's Quills; Claudia Shear's Blown Sideways Through Life and Dirty Blonde; Paul Rudnick's The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told and Valhalla; Martha Clarke's Vienna: Lusthaus; Caryl Churchill's Mad Forest, Far Away, A Number and Love and Information; Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen's Aftermath; Rick Elice's Peter and the Starcatcher; Enda Walsh's Once; and seven acclaimed productions directed by Ivo van Hove. NYTW's productions have received a Pulitzer Prize, seventeen Tony Awards and assorted Obie, Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel Awards. www.nytw.org