T. Fellowship to Receive Funds from John Gore Organization

T. Fellowship, in association with Columbia University School of the Arts, has announced a five-year $100,000.00 funding commitment from The John Gore Organization beginning in 2018.

The T. Fellowship is a one year program designed to educate and empower new creative producers. The fellowship provides a stipend of $10,000 with a $20,000 budget for the development of a new theatrical production, and the fellowship recipient will have access to courses in Columbia's MFA Theatre Management & Producing Program.

"We are honored to partner with the T. Fellowship and Columbia University School of the Arts to support and empower the artists and producers of tomorrow," said John Gore, Owner and CEO of The John Gore Organization, the leading developer, producer, distributor and marketer of Broadway theatre worldwide. "Through our family of companies including Broadway Across America and Broadway.com, we are committed to supporting theater education programs, providing access to Broadway for underserved communities, and keeping performing arts centers throughout North America thriving."

The application deadline for the seventh annual T. Fellowship is October 15, 2018. The application will be available online in early September. Final candidates will go through an interview process with the T. Fellowship committee. The Fellow will be announced and the program will begin in January of 2019.

For more information, visit www.TFellowship.com.

The fellowship was established to honor the legacy of Broadway producer T. Edward Hambleton by supporting and developing a new generation of gifted, emerging creative theatrical producers, who initiate work from the ground up, following a path all their own. When Geraldine Stutz first met T. Edward Hambleton, her instinct told her that a collaboration with him would be an exciting adventure in the world of theater. A few years later, the adventure became a reality when the Fellowship for Creative Producing was hatched in Geraldine's living room with T. himself, Hal Prince and Ed Wilson.

The T. Fellowship mentors are Harold Prince (Mentor and Founder), Margo Lion, Gregory Mosher, Tom Schumacher, Jeffrey Seller and David Stone. The program is managed by Columbia University School of the Arts.

Orin Wolf and John Pinkard were awarded the first two T. Fellowships in 2006.
Aaron Glick (2013), Jen Hoguet (2015), Christopher Maring (2016) and Allison Bressi (2017) are past recipients of the T. Fellowship.

Other advisors and staff for the T. Fellowship program include Director Orin Wolf (President of NETworks), Co?director Steven Chaikelson (Head of the MFA Theatre Management & Producing Concentration at the School of the Arts), and program advisors Victoria Bailey (Executive Director, Theatre Development Fund), Ed Wilson (Co-Founder) and Allen Greenberg (Director of The Geraldine Stutz Trust).

The goal of the Fellowship is to support the development of gifted emerging theatrical producers. The T. Fellowship is committed to sustaining the finest traditions of creative producing. Although the environment in which theatre is produced continues to change, the underlying principles that have historically shepherded great works of American theater continue to have validity today and must be understood and adapted if the art form is to thrive.

The T Fellowship is a project-based program that supports the development of the chosen fellow's project over the course of one year. Each fellow is given access to a selection of courses in the MFA Theatre Management & Producing Program at Columbia University School of the Arts. The specific courses are chosen in order to best support the fellow's growth. In addition, each fellow receives structured mentorship from the mentors and advisers who retain an "advise and consent" role in the process. Through these two support systems, the program aims to empower the fellows as they exercise freedom in all the creative and financial areas of development.

The T. Fellowship exposes the Fellows to the widest possible range of contemporary theatrical producing practices while providing opportunities to discuss the shifting role of the creative producer. The T. Fellowship will provide financial, legal, and production support for development of a project and a presentation. The philosophy is that which is good for the art form is good for business. The Fellowship emphasizes that the creative producer's role is to be the instigator, the collaborator, and the leader who gets art on the stage and to the public. The T. Fellowship neither wishes to turn back the clock to 1950 nor settle for the status quo. The T. Fellowship is looking to empower new producers to reinvent the wheel themselves, on their own terms, following their own tastes, in their own style.

Limiting selection to one or two candidates a year is fundamental to the program. The limitation on the number of Fellows allows for maximum attention to the individual goals and needs of the Fellows. In addition it insures that the Fellowship can maintain a high degree of selectivity. Selection is based on an application, essays, and interviews.

The T. Fellowship will be accepting new applications through October 15, 2018. Final candidates will go through an interview process with the T. Fellowship committee. The Fellow will be announced and the program will begin in January of 2019.

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