TCG Reveals More Recipients for Third Round of Global Connections Grant Program

Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for theatre, has announced the Cycle B recipients for the third round of Global Connections. Supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, this grant program encourages reciprocity and cultural exchange throughout the world through ON the ROAD grants to foster new relationships with international colleagues and IN the LAB grants to further pre-existing international collaborations. Now in its third year, the Global Connections program awarded a total of $26,076 to six projects through ON the ROAD and a total of $40,000 to four projects through IN the LAB.

"From hip hop to circus, from Johannesburg to Kyoto, these Global Connections recipients are crossing both aesthetic and national borders to expand what's possible in theatre," said Teresa Eyring, executive director of TCG. "Through advancing cultural exchange and collaboration, we not only enhance our art form, but deepen peace and mutual understanding."

ON the ROAD:

The following six recipients were each awarded up to $5,000 for unrestricted travel support to foster new relationships with international colleagues that will inspire future collaborations:

Park Cofield (Los Angeles, CA) will work toward the development of a community-based theatre project in Finland and the U.S. inspired by ancestral histories, Finnish pauper statues and conversations with Finnish painter, Antti Ojala and puppetry scholar, Katriina Andrianov.

Carlos Alexis Cruz (Charlotte, NC) will travel to Mexico City to engage in an artistic collaboration with Laboratorio de la Máscara to explore the theme of immigration utilizing traditional physical theatre techniques, folklore masks and contemporary circus disciplines.

Forklift Danceworks' (Austin, TX) artistic director, Allison Orr, and composer, Graham Reynolds, will travel to Kyoto, Japan in August 2014 to collaborate with Hyslom Theater Group and the Kyoto Art Center, supporting the creation of a new work entitled Play Ball Kyoto, featuring baseball players from Japan Women's Baseball League.

Marc Bamuthi Joseph (Oakland, CA) will travel to South Africa to meet practitioners in theatre, dance, hip hop and performance art as a critical part of his research for a new play "/peh-lo-tah/" which will premiere in 2016.

Ricardo Khan (Hoboken, NJ) will establish a new global theatre community for writers and directors of color and will develop links with a new generation of arts leaders between London, Johannesburg and Harlem.

Theater Grottesco's (Santa Fe, NM) artistic director, John Flax, will deepen a relationship with Gonzalo Carreño by embarking on studio time performing and teaching in rural Colombia. The experience will serve as a stepping stone towards a collaborative piece about translators and translation.

IN the LAB:

The following four recipients were each awarded $10,000 to further pre-existing international collaborations by supporting residencies that advance the development of a piece and/or explore elements leading up to a full production:

7 Stages (Atlanta, GA) and Belgrade's DAH Teatar will complete their third collaboration together-a new theatre production, Blue Planet, exploring the mystery of resilience and beauty after disaster.

Terry Galloway (Tallahassee, FL) will spend three weeks in residence at Liverpool's DaDaFest working with an international cast of disabled actresses to finish her musical, The Ugly Girl: A Tragedy in Burlesque, which tells the story of a queer disabled female adrift in a comically hostile universe.

Emily Mendelsohn (Brooklyn, NY) and an ensemble of three Ugandan performers--Tonny Muwangala, Esther Tebandeke and Allen Kagusuru -- will collaborate with ArtSpot Productions in New Orleans to advance their cross-cultural vocabulary as they finish development of Erik Ehn's Maria Kizito.

Sandglass Center for Puppetry and Theater Research (Putney, VT) and Teatro Luis Poma of San Salvador are collaborating on G.E.Lessing's 18th Century play, Nathan the Wise, deconstructed to become a vehicle for puppets and actors in order to give focus to the issues of religious and cultural tolerance.

The Global Connections selection panel included Megan Campisi, co-artistic director, Gold No Trade (New York, NY); Michelle Coe, director of booking, MAPP International Productions (New York, NY); Karen Malpede, playwright, co-founder, Theater Three Collaborative (Brooklyn, NY); Jorge Merced, associate artistic director, Pregones Theater (New York, NY); and Pennie Ojeda, consultant, International Cultural Exchange, Washington, DC.

The next application deadline for the Global Connections program is October 1, 2014. To learn more about the program, visit www.tcg.org/globalconnections.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is a private philanthropic institution that makes grants on a selective basis in four core program areas: higher education and scholarship; scholarly communications and information technology; museums and art conservation; and performing arts. The Foundation's Performing Arts program focuses on achieving long-term results by providing multi-year grants to leading organizations in the disciplines of music, theater, and dance. Annual giving in the area of the performing arts has averaged approximately $30 million per year since 2005. In 2004 The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation was awarded a National Medal of Arts, the highest award given to artists and arts patrons by the United States government. www.mellon.org

For over 50 years, Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the American theatre, has existed to strengthen, nurture and promote the professional not-for-profit American theatre. TCG's constituency has grown from a handful of groundbreaking theatres to nearly 700 member theatres and affiliate organizations and more than 12,000 individuals nationwide. TCG offers its members networking and knowledge-building opportunities through conferences, events, research and communications; awards grants, approximately $2 million per year, to theatre companies and individual artists; advocates on the federal level; and serves as the U.S. Center of the International Theatre Institute, connecting its constituents to the global theatre community. TCG is North America's largest independent publisher of dramatic literature, with 13 Pulitzer Prizes for Best Play on the TCG booklist. It also publishes the award-winning AMERICAN THEATRE magazine and ARTSEARCH, the essential source for a career in the arts. In all of its endeavors, TCG seeks to increase the organizational efficiency of its member theatres, cultivate and celebrate the artistic talent and achievements of the field and promote a larger public understanding of, and appreciation for, the theatre. www.tcg.org