Pegasus Theatre Chicago To Receive NEA Grant for Young Playwrights Festival

Pegasus Theatre Chicago, currently presenting the 38th Annual Young Playwrights Festival through January 26 at Chicago Dramatists, has been approved by the National Endowment for the Arts for a Grants for Arts Projects award of $25,000 supporting the Young Playwrights Festival. The NEA will award 1,127 Grants for Arts Projects awards nationwide totaling more than $31.8 million as part of the recent announcement of fiscal year 2025 grants.
 
“The NEA is proud to continue our nearly 60 years of supporting the efforts of organizations and artists that help to shape our country’s vibrant arts sector and communities of all types across our nation,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “It is inspiring to see the wide range of creative projects taking place, including Pegasus’ Young Playwrights Festival.”
 
“Pegasus acknowledges and is grateful to the NEA for its continued support of the Young Playwrights Festival,” added Executive & Producing Artistic Director Ilesa Duncan. “Because of grants like this, we are able to share the voices and ideas of these new playwrights, Chicago’s middle and high school students, with the community and into the future.”
 
For nearly four decades, the Young Playwrights Festival, the oldest such festival in the United States, has engaged and inspired high school students across Chicago by teaching them to craft one-act plays. More than 300 submissions are received annually with the winning teen playwrights’ productions being work-shopped, staged by industry professionals and receive a premiere under the auspices of Pegasus Theatre Chicago’s Young Playwrights Festival.