Past
Grantees

The NEW YORK CITY PLAYERS, New York City, under the artistic direction of Richard Maxwell, brings innovation and exploration of theater to the public through text and music. Maxwell seeks to create out of something seemingly insignificant and irrelevant, that which proves to be profound and universal; to show the acting process devoid of style to achieve a new kind of realism; to redefine the musical; and to prove that humor and sadness can cohabitate without apologya play can be simultaneously tragic and comic. A grant of $10,000 was approved to support the development of Good Samaritans, a play about love involving a social worker in a Salvation Army shelter and an alcoholic man who comes to the shelter for help. Good Samaritans will create an environment in which everyday situations take on deeper meaning by rendering the most banal exchanges in a painstakingly heightened manner. By taking apart clichs, Maxwell hopes to discover deep emotional currents beneath deceptively simple surfaces.

Jerome Foundation Directors authorized a two-year grant of $70,000 to DANCE THEATER WORKSHOP (DTW), New York City, in support of the First Light commissioning program. First Light was initiated with support from Jerome Foundation in 1983. By 1999, all artists presented at DTW received commissions to create their work from a commissioning pool to which several grantmakers contributed. Dance Theater Workshop, is one of the countrys most important service, producing and presenting organizations. Its mission is to identify and nurture talented emerging and mid-career artists working in diverse cultural contexts; to stimulate a broader audience and public context for these artists and their work; and to offer opportunities to these artists via an interactive community laboratory for the imagination and its essential, practical application to the world around us. Jerome dollars support commissions for emerging choreographers, which will result in works produced at DTW in the 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons. These commissions supplement guaranteed performance fees, production and promotional support, which Dance Theater Workshop provides to artists as part of its basic program. The 2003-04 season will mark the beginning of the organizations first full year of operation in its splendid new performance center.

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS, New York City, received $10,000 in support of the publication of a book of photographs by Brooklyn-based photographer Vincent Cianni. We Skate Hardcore documents the Latino culture and lives of in-line skaters in Brooklyn, New York. Combining black and white, color photos and video stills, with text provided by the subjects, this book addresses the lives of a young Latino community, and presents the determination and dreams of urban youth, coming of age as the larger Latino population in the United States continues to grow. Vincent Cianni has been photographing the Southside Latino Neighborhood in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, where he lives, since 1994. NYU Press plans to publish this book in the fall of 2004, with an initial print run of 3,000 copies, including CD ROMs containing video streams of the in-line skaters. The book will be co-published with the Center for Documentary Studies, Durham, North Carolina, an interdisciplinary educational organization dedicated to advancing documentary work that combines experience and creativity with education and community life.

The seven musician members of MARIACHI FLOR Y CANTO will travel to San Antonio, Texas, to study new repertoire and stylistic interpretations with nationally known Mariachi Los Caporales. In a previous brief workshop with Mariachi Los Caporales, Mariachi Flor y Canto saw immediate improvement in its sound. As a result, Mariachi Flor y Canto decided that further study with the well-known Mariachi band must be pursued. The St. Paul Mariachi band will work exclusively for several hours a day for eight days with the San Antonio Mariachi band. At the end of their stay, Mariachi Los Caporales and Mariachi Flor y Canto will perform a joint concert at Six Flags Fiesta Texas Theme Park.

SOLVEIG NILSEN, writer and librarian, will spend three weeks in Norway to advance work on her memoir, The Daughter Project. Nilsen came of age in a small Minnesota town where her father was the Lutheran pastor. Her daughter grew up in a San Francisco commune and a back-to-the-land New Hampshire farm. Nilsen will travel to the country of her family's origins and walk the mountainous regions. She expects the trip to provide illumination on the parallels, clashes, and intersections of the geographical and cultural zones that her family has inhabited. This sets a context for the memoir as it moves through the continents and countries she and her daughter have experienced.

THE EUGENE ONEILL THEATER CENTER, New York City and Waterford, Connecticut, received a two-year grant of $44,000 in support of the participation of emerging New York City and Minnesota playwrights in the 2003 and 2004 Playwrights Conference. Founded in 1964 for the purpose of focusing on the development of new playwrights for the stage, the ONeill is home to six distinct programming divisions, of which the Playwrights Conference is a primary one. Through a national review process, playwrights are invited to participate in a month-long residency program. They develop plays in collaboration with directors, dramaturgs and actors of the highest caliber. Each play receives two staged readings open to the public. The ONeill emphasizes the nurturance and empowerment of playwrights. Each script is given space and time in which to grow at its own pace. Fifteen invited playwrights are served each summer in this Conference, immersing themselves in the development of their own works and observing the processes undertaken by their colleagues.

Curator and festival programmer DEAN OTTO will attend the San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, known as Outfest. Otto is programmer of the Minneapolis/St. Paul Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and will use his trips to San Francisco and Los Angeles as crucial opportunities to preview and select work for the Twin Cites Festival. He will also have an opportunity to meet with other queer programmers and curators to learn more about work that he is not familiar with.

PANGEA WORLD THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, is committed to international works, styles and traditions that illuminate the human condition, end divisiveness and celebrate difference. It brings communities together through theater productions, workshops and speakers. Jerome Foundation made a grant commitment of $10,000 to support Bridges, a series of performance events, panels and workshops designed to create passageways across art forms, cultures, aesthetics, class, borders and traditions. The idea is to co-mingle art forms and cultures, foster new collaborations among diverse artists, encourage those artists to take risks in their work, and create bridges of understanding for audiences. Over the next two years, Pangea expects to present two or three collaborative works emanating from Bridges.

PATRICKS CABARET, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant commitment of $40,000 in support of the presentation of new works in development, by emerging creative artists, within the Core Program. The Cabaret serves and supports artists in their growth and development by encouraging them to take risks, try new things and present works-in-progress. It serves a diverse range of Twin Cities-based artists and is particularly known for its diverse programming. On the second and third weekends of each month, the Cabaret presents six artists who receive 15 minutes to test new works before an audience. The evening features a mix of experience levels and arts disciplines.

PILLSBURY HOUSE THEATRE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received two grants from the Jerome Foundation. The first, in the amount of $12,000, is dedicated to the development and production of new plays by emerging playwrights. The 2003 mainstage season of Pillsbury House Theatre includes three works by Melissa James Gibson, Stephen Guirgis and Zell Miller, III. In addition, the Theatre will produce its annual reading series titled Three Mondays, showcasing the works of new and emerging playwrights. A second grant commitment of $32,500 was made to the Theatre in support of the continuation of the series Late Nite: Non-English Speaking Spoken Here. Formerly housed at Penumbra Theatre, this series will be re-visioned and piloted by Pillsbury House Theatre. It will feature new commissioned works developed by emerging performance artists. Late Nite represents a transformation of culture where text, music, spoken word, sounds and images weave together a fearless celebration of new artists, new voices and new art. Late Nite artists explore the cross-currents of social change, community and identity. The theme for the 2003 series is Keeping My Bags PackedMoving to New Neighborhoods.

PILLSBURY HOUSE THEATRE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received two grants from the Jerome Foundation. The first, in the amount of $12,000, is dedicated to the development and production of new plays by emerging playwrights. The 2003 mainstage season of Pillsbury House Theatre includes three works by Melissa James Gibson, Stephen Guirgis and Zell Miller, III. In addition, the Theatre will produce its annual reading series titled Three Mondays, showcasing the works of new and emerging playwrights. A second grant commitment of $32,500 was made to the Theatre in support of the continuation of the series Late Nite: Non-English Speaking Spoken Here. Formerly housed at Penumbra Theatre, this series will be re-visioned and piloted by Pillsbury House Theatre. It will feature new commissioned works developed by emerging performance artists. Late Nite represents a transformation of culture where text, music, spoken word, sounds and images weave together a fearless celebration of new artists, new voices and new art. Late Nite artists explore the cross-currents of social change, community and identity. The theme for the 2003 series is Keeping My Bags PackedMoving to New Neighborhoods.

A two-year grant of $46,000 was authorized for PLAYWRIGHTS HORIZONS, New York City, a theater dedicated to the support and development of contemporary American playwrights, composers and lyricists, and to the production of their new works. Since its founding in 1971, Playwrights Horizons has helped to launch the careers of hundreds of playwrights and has established a nationwide reputation as a leading advocate for new plays and musicals. It conducts up to 20 readings and musical theater workshops each year. Its literary department maintains an open-door script submission policy. Jerome funding supports the substantial services that this theater provides to emerging playwrights.

A similarly long-standing commitment of the Foundation has been the Jerome Playwriting Fellowship Program at THE PLAYWRIGHTS CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Center fuels the theater by providing services that support playwrights and playwriting. It is committed to nurturing artistic excellence and new visions of theater, fostering playwright initiative and leadership, practicing cultural pluralism, discovering emerging artists, advocating for playwrights and their work, connecting playwrights with audiences, and developing a community for new work. Jerome dollars have provided support for a program in which playwrights are selected from a national applicant pool for 12-month residencies in Minnesota. Each of the Jerome Fellows receives a $9,000 stipend and additional support for script development. The Center believes that this is a Fellowship program that truly launches the careers of emerging playwrights on regional and national levels. A two-year grant of $109,000 was awarded to The Playwrights Center in continued support of the Jerome Playwriting Fellowship Program.

THE PLAYWRIGHTS CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $42,000 in support of the 2004 and 2005 Many Voices Program. The Centers mission is to fuel the theater by providing services that support playwrights and playwriting. It is committed to nurturing artistic excellence and new visions of theater, fostering playwright initiative and leadership, practicing cultural pluralism, discovering emerging artists, advocating for playwrights, connecting playwrights with audiences, and developing a community for new work. The Many Voices Program is an annual opportunity for emerging playwrights of color to develop their skills. Eight playwrights are competitively selected to receive stipends, play development support through Center programs, opportunities to take classes at the Center, and participation in Roundtable meetings. The Roundtable creates a home for the year, a safe place to come together to explore ideas, share concerns, and read scripts in progress. Roundtable meetings are facilitated by an experienced playwright or director of color, with expertise in working with emerging writers.

A two-year grant of $40,000 was authorized for REPERTORIO ESPAOL, New York City, in support of the Voces Nuevas program for emerging playwrights. The theater company presents Latin American, Spanish and Hispanic-American theater. It maintains a professional company of actors, singers and directors to perform works in the Spanish language. In Voces Nuevas, Repertorio Espaol presents readings and fully produced stage presentations of new works chronicling the experiences of second and third generation Latinos. Jerome dollars will assist with payments to playwrights, directors and actors for both readings and full productions.

REYNOLD REYNOLDS received support for Soil, an installation and short film resulting in a poetic document of decline, decay, and deterioration a return of all that is mortal to the soil.

Jerome Directors authorized a two-year grant of $20,000 to RHIZOME.ORG, New York City, in support of a commissioning program. rhizome.org is a leading on-line resource for and about new media artists and their work. It connects, educates, and serves the new media art community and the public through e-mail services, a web site and outreach events. It uses the Internet to facilitate a critical dialogue that is accessible, inclusive and ongoing, and to build community across geographic and cultural borders. The commissioning program provides fees to emerging artists working in new media. An annual call for proposals yields applications that are judged by an independent jury. Finished work is placed on-line at http://www.rhizome.org/commissions.

BEN RIESMAN, Minneapolis, MN, received a grant to support FLIGHT, a performance and video installation in which participants take part in a ritual that recalls NASA launches as well as religious practices, drawing linkages between religious and secular ritual experience.

ROULETTE INTERMEDIUM, New York City, received a two-year grant of $40,000 in continued support of the Commissioning Program for Emerging Composers. Roulette offers over 50 musical concerts each year, paying fees to artists, commissioning new works, providing publicity, offering production and recording facilities, and initiating recording and distribution programs. In 1998, Roulette mounted a pilot commissioning program for young experimental composers, with Jerome Foundation assistance. This new grant continues support for that program, whose purpose is to undercover new trends within fringe composers who generally have one form or another of electronics as a component of their compositions. The commissioned works are then performed on Roulettes season. The commissions are made through a nominating process involving people chosen for their knowledge of young experimental composers in New York City. The commission gives the artist the liberty and mandate to make a piece with sustained structural intention, which can withstand scrutiny and the focused listening experience that a Roulette concert provides.

RICHARD ROWLEY & JACQUELINE SOOHEN received a grant for The Fourth World War, an experimental film that weaves together intensely intimate footage from six conflictsin Argentina, Chiapis, Palestine, South Africa, Korea and the war on terror as it moves through New York, Afghanistan and Iraq. Its layered, polyphonic editing style reveals points of connection among communities coming to terms with the violent reorganization of every aspect of their lives and worlds.