LIBERATION THEATRE COMPANY SEEKS APPLICATIONS FOR
YEAR TWO OF THEIR WRITING RESIDENCY PROGRAM
Early-Career Playwrights Will Receive Dramaturgical and
Career Support Towards the Creation of New Original Plays
Liberation Theatre Company (LTC), a Harlem-based independent theatrical producer and playwright development company established in 2009, is inviting applications from early-career playwrights to participate in the second year of their Writing Residency Program for 2018-2019.
Successfully launched in 2017, with funding provided by a grant from the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, the Writing Residency Program will select four early-career Black playwrights and provide them with dramaturgical and professional support over a ten-month period, during which time they will each be required to complete an original full-length play. Additional funding has also been provided this year by a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts.
“We are excited to be able to continue the Writing Residency Program and build upon the success of our inaugural year,” said Sandra A. Daley-Sharif, Producing Artistic Director of Liberation Theatre Company. “Last year, we selected four playwrights who are all at various stages in their careers. We provided a structure and environment to allow them to find their own voice as writers, while engaging in a process that guided them towards completion of their full-length plays. As they move on, we believe we’ve given them both the skills and access to a writing community to support them as they pursue their individual goals.”
“The Writing Residency Program is in keeping with our core mission to expand the number of Black playwrights working in theatre so that more voices and more viewpoints, reflecting the diversity of our world, can be expressed,” Daley-Sharif added.
The residency will begin in May and include regular monthly group meetings where writers will share their work and receive constructive criticism. They will also have access to theatre events and artistic mentoring, and work with a director and professional actors during readings of their work at the culmination of the program in February 2019. Each playwright will receive a $500 honorarium upon successful completion of the program.
Applications for the Writing Residency Program are being accepted now until April 1 online on the organization’s Submittable page.
APPLY HERE
Liberation Theatre Company was established in 2009 with the mission to create a home for emerging Black playwrights to develop their work and express themselves artistically in a supportive and focused environment. LTC offers dramaturgical services, professional readings, and for the past seven years has run a widely successful Black Playwrights Group (BPG). Past BPG members include James Scruggs (3/Fifths), James Anthony Tyler (Dolphins and Sharks) and Dennis A. Allen II (The Mud is Thicker in Mississippi ).
In 2010, LTC initiated Harlem9, a successful collaboration of Black theatre producers in Harlem, which began producing the annual 48Hours in…™ Harlem 10-minute play festival in August 2011. 48Hours in…™ Harlem received an Obie Award in 2014, and two anthologies of plays written for the festival have been published and made available to drama schools, libraries and the general public.
LTC is managed by Sandra A. Daley-Sharif, co-founder and Producing Artistic Director, Spencer Scott Barros, co-founder and Associate Artistic Director, and Bernard J. Tarver, Associate Producing Director.
