Theatre Now Receives $15,000 Award From the National Endowment for the Arts

Theatre Now New York has been approved by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for a Grants for Arts Projects award of $15,000. This grant will support their Musical Writers Lab, a community of 20 writing teams who develop new musicals. 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 Theatre Now's Musical Writers Lab.”

"Theatre Now is honored to partner with the NEA to support our diverse group of musical theatre creators," said Theatre Now Artistic Director Tom Morrissey. "We are very thankful to the NEA for helping us create a vibrant community of musical theatre artists who have the resources they need to thrive."

Formed in 2019, the Theatre Now Musical Writers Lab is a highly skilled, active, and collaborative group that is provided various resources in order to foster the creation and development of new works of musical theatre. The current Lab consists of 35 librettists, lyricists, and composers from the NYC area and around the world from diverse backgrounds ‒ straight and gay, cis and trans, young and old, rural and urban, white, Black, Latinx, and Asian. It includes members of ASCAP, BMI, and the Dramatists Guild; winners of the Richard Rodgers Award, the Alan Menken Award, and the Helen Hayes Award; a Fulbright Scholar; and the first ever Black List Musical Film Fellow as well as early-career writers. In 2024, shows from Lab members were featured in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Eugene O'Neill National Music Theatre Conference (NMTC), and, for the third year in a row, the National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) Festival of New Musicals.