National New Play Network Grants Over $100,000 for New Commissions, Residencies

The NATIONAL NEW PLAY NETWORK (NNPN), the country's alliance of non-profit theaters that champions the development, production, and continued life of new plays, will award grants of over $100,000 for Commissions and Residencies in 2013-14. The Awards were announced at the organization's Annual Conference on June 4 in Dallas, TX, hosted by Core Member Theater Kitchen Dog Theater.

PLAYWRIGHTS IN RESIDENCE

NNPN's Playwright Residencies were established in 2007 to support playwrights graduating from qualified MFA programs for season-long residencies at NNPN member theaters. Playwrights selected for the program receive stipends of $11,500 plus almost $4,000 in travel funds to learn from and engage with each other, and with NNPN members throughout the year. 2013-14 recipient theaters and playwrights are:

Borderlands Theater (Tucson, AZ) / Milta Ortiz (Northwestern University '12)
Phoenix Theatre (Indianapolis, IN) / Tom Horan (UT Austin '12)
Southern Rep (New Orleans, LA) / Gabrielle Reisman (UT Austin '13)

PRODUCER IN RESIDENCE

The Producer in Residence program was launched in 2011 to provide early-career producers with hands-on experience in mid-sized new-play theaters across the country. Like their playwright counterparts, Producers in Residence receive stipends of $11,500 plus nearly $3,000 in travel funds to learn from and engage with NNPN members through the year. The Network has added a $10,000 second-year grant for producers and their mentors to continue their relationship. 2013-14 recipient theaters and producers are:

InterAct Theatre Company (Philadelphia, PA) / Maura Krause
San Deigo REPertory Theatre (San Diego, CA) / Jessica Bird
Actor's Express (Atlanta, GA) / Keven Becerra (second year grant)

COMMISSIONS AWARDED TO REHANA LEW MIRZA AND KATHLEEN CAHILL

NNPN's oldest initiative is its Commissioning Program, which has awarded twenty-one commissions since the Network's founding in 1998. Two Commission have been awarded in 2013: the $10,000 Commission has been awarded to InterAct Theatre Company in Philadelphia forRehana Lew Mirza's Neighborhood Watch, a social satire about a suburban family man who becomes so obsessed with proving that the next-door neighbor is a terrorist that he starts terrorizing his own family; it is a play that cracks open the inner battle between our sense of humanity and our sense of fear; and a $5,000 Commission, generously supported by Stanford University's National Center for New Plays, has been awarded to Salt Lake Acting Company in Salt Lake City for Kathleen Cahill's Veteran in a New Field, which is about a returning combat veteran who doesn't look like a traditional soldier - because she's a woman - who discovers that no one cares much about the war she fought, or understands the inner war she continues to fight. Commission proposals are nominated by Core Member theaters and voted annually by the Network's artistic directors and literary managers.

The National New Play Network (NNPN) is the country's alliance of non-profit professional theaters that champions the development, production, and continued life of new plays. Since its founding in 1998, NNPN has commissioned almost two dozen playwrights, provided nineteen MFA graduates with paid residencies, and supported nearly 150 productions nationwide through its innovative Continued Life of New Plays Fund, which creates "Rolling World Premieres" of new plays. Hundreds of thousands of audience members have seen the results of these efforts in the dozens of regions of the country where NNPN member theaters are located. NNPN receives substantial support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, the Shubert Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. The Network is comprised of Core Members, who pioneer and implement collaborative new play strategies, and a growing group of Associate Members, who disseminate the Network's programs and plays nationwide.

NNPN's Core Member theaters are: Actor's Express Theatre (Atlanta), Actor's Theatre of Charlotte (Charlotte, NC), Borderlands Theater (Tucson), Curious Theatre Company (Denver), Florida Studio Theatre (Sarasota), Fountain Theatre (LA), Horizon Theatre Company (Atlanta), InterAct Theatre Company (Philadelphia), Kitchen Dog Theater (Dallas), Magic Theatre (San Francisco), Marin Theatre Company (Mill Valley, CA), Mixed Blood Theatre Company (Minneapolis), New Jersey Repertory Company (Long Branch), New Repertory Theatre (Watertown, MA), New Theatre (Coral Gables, FL), Orlando Shakespeare Theater (Orlando), Performance Network Theatre (Ann Arbor, MI), Phoenix Theatre (Indianapolis), Playwright's Theatre of New Jersey (Madison), Prop Thtr Group (Chicago), Riverside Theatre (Iowa City, IA), Salt Lake Acting Company (Salt Lake City), San Diego REPertory Theatre (San Diego), Southern Rep (New Orleans), Unicorn Theatre (Kansas City, MO), and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (Washington, DC).