Applications Now Open for the 2024 Prince Fellowship

Applications are now open for the 2024 Prince Fellowship program. The Prince Fellowship, formerly known as The T. Fellowship, was renamed in 2021 to honor the extraordinary work of producer, director and T. Fellowship founder Harold Prince. Prince created the program to usher in the next generation of creative producers. Selected fellows receive a stipend of $10,000, a $20,000 budget for the development of a new theatrical production, access to courses in Columbia’s MFA Theatre Management & Producing Program, and mentorship from prominent producers and industry specialists.
 
Applications are now open through July 1. Prospective applicants are encouraged to join for an informational Webinar at 6PM EST on Thursday, June 13th.
 
Fellows also have access to an advisory group of industry specialists who share their expertise and perspective and complement the mentorship and academic curriculum.  The Advisors group includes Victoria Bailey, Christopher Burney, Lisa Dawn Cave, Nina Essman, Kamilah Forbes, Robert Fried, Colleen Jennings-Roggensack, Brian Moreland, Julio Peterson, Natasha Sinha, Donna Walker-Kuhne, Schele Williams, and Kumiko Yoshii.
 
The Fellowship was founded in 2005. Shortly thereafter, Orin Wolf and John Pinckard were awarded the first two T. Fellowships in 2006, followed by Aaron Glick (2013), Jen Hoguet (2015), Christopher Maring (2016), Allison Bressi (2017), Rachel Sussman (2018), Ben Holtzman (2019), Osh Ghanimah (2021), Lawryn Lacroix (2021), Jamila Ponton Bragg (2022), Cynthia Dorsey (2022), Amy Marie Haven (2023) and Maxwell Beer (2023).
 
Past Fellows are currently producing theater at the highest level, and have gone on to win numerous accolades, including Tony and Olivier Awards. In the 2023-2024 season, Prince Fellowship alumni have been represented on Broadway by How to Dance in Ohio (Ben Holtzman) and the Tony Award-nominated musicals Suffs (Rachel Sussman) and Illinoise (Orin Wolf); Off-Broadway by The Lonely Few (Jen Hoguet) at MCC Theater; and regionally by Gun & Powder (Ben Holtzman) at Paper Mill Playhouse. The development of both How to Dance in Ohio and Suffs was directly supported by the Prince Fellowship.
 
The 2024 Prince Fellowship year will run from September 2024 through August 2025. Prospective applicants can visit https://princefellowship.com/apply/ for more information about the program and the upcoming Webinar.
 
The Prince Fellowship is managed by Co-Directors Orin Wolf (President of NETworks Presentations, Former T. Fellow), Steven Chaikelson (Head of the MFA Theatre Management & Producing Program at the Columbia University School of the Arts), Aaron Glick (Producer, Former T. Fellow), and Rachel Sussman (Producer, Former T. Fellow).

ABOUT THE PRINCE FELLOWSHIP

The goal of the Fellowship is to support the development of gifted emerging creative theatrical producers. The Prince Fellowship is committed to sustaining the finest traditions of producing by exposing new talent to the producing process in a manner that supports creative involvement. Although the environment in which theatre is produced continues to change, many of the underlying challenges and principles remain and must be understood and adapted if the art form is to thrive.

The Fellowship is a project-based program that supports the development of the chosen fellow and their project over the course of one year.  Each fellow is given access to a selection of courses in the MFA Theatre Management & Producing Program at Columbia University School of the Arts. The specific courses are chosen to best support the fellow’s growth.  In addition, each fellow receives structured mentorship from a handful of industry leaders who specialize in creative producing and related fields.  The goal is to provide consistent mentorship tailored to the needs of the individual fellow. Through these academic and professional support systems, the program aims to empower the fellows as they begin exercising their new skills in all the creative and business areas of development.

The philosophy is that which is good for the art form is good for business. The Fellowship emphasizes that the creative producer’s role is to be the instigator, the collaborator, and the leader who gets art on the stage and to the public. The program neither wishes to turn back the clock to 1950 nor settle for the status quo. The Prince Fellowship is looking to empower new producers to reinvent the wheel themselves, on their own terms.