Leah Nanako Winkler Named 2017-19 Jerome New York Fellow At The Lark

The Lark announces that Leah Nanako Winkler, author of Kentucky, Two Mile Hollow, and Death for Sydney Black, will be the 2017-19 recipient of the Jerome New York Fellowship. The fellowship, designed to support an early career writer of extraordinary ability, promise, and vision, provides stipends of $25,000 in the first year and $15,000 in the second, in addition to an Opportunity Fund of $5,000 to be used for purposes of additional creative expenses such as travel, research, and workshops. The fellowship is designed to be a life-sustaining platform of support, allowing the fellow to focus on their craft, and to generate and develop a significant body of work.

"I've always prioritized art over everything and it's never really felt like a difficult choice. That's because theater saved my life. Or rather, theater gave me a life," says Leah on why she chose to apply for a fellowship that would allow her to put her art first. "To this day, I view theater not as a ridiculous life choice, but the passion that allowed me...the defining sense of home that has motivated me to keep writing for the past decade in this great city."

During her residency at The Lark, Leah will be part of a community of artists at various career levels from across the country and around the world. Her individual voice will be an invaluable addition to this community. The Lark will support Leah along a self-determined creative path. She will have access to Lark's extensive toolbox of programs which includes participation in onsite and offsite workshops and residencies. Additionally, Leah will receive regular career and project planning meetings with Lark's Artistic Director John Clinton Eisner and other key artistic staff.

Leah is an alumni of Youngblood, a 2016-2018 Time Warner Fellow at WP Theater, a member of the Ma-Yi lab, the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writer's Group at Primary Stages, and Ensemble Studio Theatre. Selected from a pool of 286 applicants, she succeeds Mary Hamilton as the third Jerome Fellow in New York City, supported by the Minnesota-based Jerome Foundation.

"The financial and artistic support of this fellowship, and the various Lark programs - workshops, readings, play labs, and retreats - have allowed me to write six new plays," said Mary of her own time as the Fellow. "But the artistic and emotional support of The Lark community has been the real blessing. They have changed my view of what it means to be an artist in this city. I've gone from seeing it as a personal struggle to overcome, to seeing it as a really fun, often messy, sometimes disastrous but always meaningful collaboration."

The Jerome Foundation has also supported several well-known fellowships at The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis. The Jerome New York Fellowship for emerging writers was inspired by the success of the groundbreaking Playwrights of New York (PoNY) Fellowship, a partnership between The Lark and PoNY, founded by Sandi Goff Farkas. The PoNY Fellowship, now on hiatus, previously helped advance the careers of Jen Silverman, Carson Kreitzer, Samuel D. Hunter, Katori Hall, Dominique Morisseau, and A. Rey Pamatmat, among others. The Jerome New York Fellowship is part of The Lark's acclaimed portfolio of fellowships, which also includes The Van Lier New Voices Fellowship and The Apothetae and Lark Playwriting Fellowship, among others, and aims to engage a diverse community of extraordinary playwrights-at various places in their careers-who represent a contemporary national vision. The Lark believes targeted support to early-career playwrights is essential to a culture of equity, access and inclusion, and a national theater that represents the vibrancy of our collective cultural voices.

Leah Nanako Winkler is a Japanese-American playwright from Kamakura, Japan and Lexington Kentucky. Her plays include Kentucky (2015 Kilroys List, World Premiere: Ensemble Studio Theatre in coproduction with Page 73 and the Radio Drama Network. West Coast Premiere: East West Players), Two Mile Hollow (2017 Kilroys List, 2017-2018 Simultaneous World Premiere at Artists At Play in LA, Mixed Blood/Theater Mu in Minneapolis, First Floor Theater in Chicago, and Ferocious Lotus in San Francisco), Linus and Murray (EST/Marathon 2017) and more. Her play God Said This will premiere at the 2018 Humana Festival. She is an alumni of Youngblood, a 2016-2018 Time Warner Fellow at WP Theater, a member of the Ma Yi lab, the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writer's Group at Primary Stages, and EST. She was awarded the first-ever Mark O'Donnell Prize from The Actors Fund and Playwrights Horizons in 2017 and is currently one of the inaugural playwrights to receive a commission from Audible's emerging playwrights fund.

The Lark is an international theater laboratory, based in New York City, dedicated to amplifying the voices of playwrights. Founded in 1994, The Lark provides writers with funding, space, collaborators, audiences, professional connections, and the freedom to design their own processes of exploration. The guiding principal of The Lark's work is the belief that playwrights are society's truth tellers, and their work strengthens our collective capacity to understand our world and imagine its future.

Last year, The Lark served 813 artists, including 95 playwrights, partnered with more than a dozen theaters and universities, and welcomed 2,016 audience members to 31 public presentations. In the past three years 139 Lark developed plays moved on to 274 productions, reaching over 621,130 audience members around the world. In order to provide economic flexibility to writers at different stages of their careers, The Lark has created a portfolio of major playwriting fellowships. The Lark continues to offer a free and open submission process that allows any and all writers to submit to our Playwrights' Week program and maintains free admission to the public for all readings and workshops. Plays substantially developed at The Lark include Guards at the Taj by Rajiv Joseph, brownsville song (b-side for tray) by Kimber Lee, Skeleton Crew by Dominique Morisseau, and Sweat by Lynn Nottage.

For more information about the artists, initiatives, and plays of The Lark, please visit: www.larktheatre.org.

The Jerome Foundation was established by artist and philanthropist Jerome Hill (1905-1972). Through supporting the creation, development, and production of new works by emerging artists, the Jerome Foundation is dedicated to contributing to the growth and vibrancy of the arts. The Foundation makes grants to not-for-profit arts organizations as well as artists in Minnesota and New York City. For more information about the Jerome Foundation please visit: www.jeromefdn.org.