California Arts Council General Operating Support Grant To Desert Ensemble Theatre

The California Arts Council has announced a grant award of $17,499 to Desert Ensemble Theatre (DET) as part of its General Operating Support program during its 2024-25 fiscal year grant cycle. Support awarded will continue to benefit communities throughout the state until the end of the project cycle timeline in September 2025.

CAC funding will support four mainstage productions during the 2024–25 season of “Icons”–groundbreaking works by innovative playwrights from the past half century.

“We are honored to receive a second consecutive year of funding from the CAC,” stated DET Artistic Director Jerome Elliott Moskowitz. “Our productions fill a niche for intellectually curious audiences who are drawn to offbeat plays not widely programmed locally and which deserve broader viewing. The plays also serve as a laboratory for our High School Technical Theatre Internship Program, and CAC funding directly impacts eight students who learn valuable professional skills from our professional design and tech mentors. Since 2013, DET has awarded $32,750 in scholarship support to students completing our program.”

Desert Ensemble Theatre was featured as part of a larger announcement from the California Arts Council of more than 800 grant awards totaling close to $19.5 million in overall projected investments for operational and project support to nonprofit organizations and units of government throughout the state of California.

The California Arts Council is a state agency with a mission of strengthening arts, culture, and creative expression as the tools to cultivate a better California for all. The Arts Council is California's leading public arts grants provider with funding accessible to every county in California.

“Art makes us who we are in California,” said California Arts Council Executive Director Danielle Brazell. “We are defined by our creative workforce, and our everyday lives are informed, enriched, and uplifted by the artists and cultural workers across our state. On behalf of the CAC, I offer my sincere congratulations – and my gratitude – to each of our award recipients for this grant cycle.”

“We pledged fealty to our comprehensive and field-informed Strategic Framework in our decision making for funding for this fiscal year,” said Council Chair Roxanne Messina Captor. “Council made every effort to make each dollar in our budget go its furthest toward our most important aspirations for our agency, our governor, and our Legislature alike: to create a California for all, where the arts are accessible to all.”

Organizations were awarded grants across nine different program areas designed to benefit the whole of California's arts and culture ecosystem, including a second year of funding for two-year programs awarded in the previous fiscal year. Award funds prioritize many of the aspirations articulated in the agency's Strategic Framework, specifically increasing opportunities for general operating and multiyear grants, geographic equity, individual artists, small organizations, and state-local partner funding and capacity building.