Alley Cat Theater Awarded $15,000 LAB Grant

The Boston Foundation recently awarded Alley Cat Theater a Live Arts Boston grant in support of Alley Cat Theater and the full-length play, Plank, by John Greiner-Ferris and directed by Megan Schy Gleeson, to be produced at the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts from August 26 to September 16, 2017.

Alley Cat Theater is a theater Mr. Greiner-Ferris founded in 2015 in order to produce his own work and the work of other playwrights, with the hope of establishing a home for non-traditional theater in Boston.

"Alley Cat Theater is a direct result of my experience in Boston Public Works Theater Company, a playwright-centric theater I co-founded in 2013," said Mr. Greiner-Ferris. "Boston Public Works is composed of playwrights who, as entrepreneurs, are circumventing the traditional route to production by producing one play each. I took control of my artistic career by learning to produce my own and other people's plays with Boston Public Works. Now I've started an entire theater founded on my own artistic sensibilities that mix non-traditional theater elements such as magical realism, gender bending, and movement with the traditional theater. To better understand this type of theater, think of any sort of fusion movement in food or music. It's combining elements from different traditions to make an exciting, new cultural experience."

Plank tells the story of Potpee, a woman who is happy and content, adrift in the middle of the ocean. Then she's "rescued." Plank uses a mix of traditional theater and under-represented, nontraditional, experimental theatrical forms such as movement, magical realism, and poetry to address some compelling issues of our times.

Alley Cat Theater Founded by playwright John Greiner-Ferris, Alley Cat Theater produces new work that is intelligent, compelling, and thoughtful, telling stories by pushing the boundaries of the theater. (www.alleycattheater.org)

Live Arts Boston (LAB) is designed to respond directly to the needs articulated by Boston's arts community through Boston Creates. LAB provides critically needed, flexible, project-specific grants to Greater Boston's performing artists and small nonprofit performing arts organizations to create, produce or present artistic work for Greater Boston audiences. To learn more about this grant program, go to http://www.tbf.org/lab.

The Boston Foundation, Greater Boston's community foundation, is one of the largest community foundations in the nation, with net assets of some $1 billion. In 2016, the Foundation and its donors paid $100 million in grants to nonprofit organizations and received gifts of more than $107 million. The Foundation is proud to be a partner in philanthropy, with more than 1,000 separate charitable funds established by donors either for the general benefit of the community or for special purposes.In celebration of its Centennial in 2015, the Boston Foundation launched the ongoing Campaign for Boston to strengthen the Permanent Fund for Boston, the only endowment focused on meeting the most pressing needs of Greater Boston. The Boston Foundation also serves as a major civic leader, think tank and advocacy organization, commissioning research into the most critical issues of our time and helping to shape public policy designed to advance opportunity for everyone in Greater Boston. The Philanthropic Initiative (TPI), a distinct operating unit of the Foundation, designs and implements customized philanthropic strategies for families, foundations and corporations both here and around the globe. For more information about the Boston Foundation or TPI, visit tbf.org or call 617-338-1700.

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