The Playwriting Collective Announces Recipient of Ball Grant

The Playwriting Collective is proud to announce the recipient of the first annual $1000 Ball Grant as playwright Antu Yacob. In keeping with the mission statement of The Playwriting Collective, this grant is expressly designed for a writer who identifies as living in or emerging from a lower economic status. Antu is an excellent playwright whose work exemplifies the type of artistic voice that The Playwriting Collective champions. Her work is nuanced, resonant, and worthy of support. Over 100 applicants sent their material and more can be read about the semifinalists and finalists at www.ThePlaywritingCollective.com/The-Ball-Grant.

Antu Yacob was born in Dire Dawa, Ethiopia and raised in San Francisco and Minnesota. She was last seen onstage in the 2017 United Solo Theatre Festival's premiere of her one-woman show In the Gray on Theatre Row in New York. The first Ethiopian American show ever presented in United Solo, Antu's piece shared her experiences of being an Americanized African, artist, mother, daughter navigating her identity between multiple worlds. Her play Mourning Sun, a love story shedding light on the fistula epidemic set in Ethiopia and the US was featured in the 2016 Kampala International Theatre Festival in Uganda. The play received its world premiere as part of Theatre 167's 2015-2016 season at the West End Theater in New York. Antu's two-woman play The Firsts, a historical piece about six women who overcame adversity premiered in Project Y Theatre's 2013 New York New Playwrights Festival. Her work has been featured in readings at the inaugural NowAfrica Playwrights Festival at Tisch-NYU, Crossroads Theatre's CommonGround Festival, CoLAB Arts theOrphanage series and Project Y Theatre's Racey Plays Series. She received her MFA in Acting from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University and her BA in Communication from the University of Minnesota-Duluth. She teaches Acting at Baruch College and Rutgers University. www.antuyacob.com

The Ball Grant is named after Artistic Director Joshua Young's benefactor, Gary Ball, whose mentorship, guidance, and financial support were integral in his own emergence from a lower class environment. The Playwriting Collective is comprised of playwrights Joshua Young, Wi-Moto Nyoka, John Carhart, Elizabeth Ng, Allison Salazar, and Phillip Christian Smith. Donations can be made to The Playwriting Collective, a 501c3 non-profit, by visiting www.ThePlaywritingCollective.com or email: contact@ThePlaywritingCollective.com.