59E59 Theaters Announces COVID Relief Grant Recipients

59E59 Theaters has announced that five NYC non-profit theater companies are the recipients of Covid Relief Grants. The grant amounts range from $10,000 - $25,000 and will go towards supporting new work from BIPOC and/or LGBTQ+ artists.

"Our Off Broadway theater community is being decimated by Covid with no relief in sight," says 59E59 Theaters Artistic Director Val Day. "The true devastation will be felt for years to come. We wanted to give substantial financial support to theater companies, allowing them to continue their impactful work with perpetually underfunded artists."

In a normal season, 59E59 Theaters, through funding from the Elysabeth Kleinhans Theatrical Foundation, spends in excess of $1.7 million to support the work of non-profit theater companies that produce in the building's three theater spaces.
"Our mission has always been to support non-profit theater companies' Off Broadway premieres. The Covid Relief grants are an extension of what 59E59 Theaters was designed to do," says Elysabeth Kleinhans, founder of the Elysabeth Kleinhans Theatrical Foundation and Founding Artistic Director of 59E59 Theaters. "We believe we should find new ways to further our mission when we cannot provide the venues to do so."
The Covid Relief Grant recipients are:

Hypokrit Theatre Company

For the development of a theatrical project Finding Paradise with book, music, and lyrics by Aya Aziz, directed by Arpita Mukherjee.

Finding Paradise is a memoir musical that follows an Egyptian-American family across continents and generations as they search for home and belonging in the post 9/11 world. Through the musical, which is an expansion of the sold-out musical Eh Dah: Questions for my Father at Next Door at New York Theatre Workshop, Aya explores deeper the traumas that shape the Middle East through a transnational, inter-generational story of her own family.

Less Than Rent

To support an abridged virtual production of Nora Brigid Monahan's (they/them/their) play marchons marchons.

About marchons marchons
marchons marchons chronicles the glory days of the Jacobins -- the most radical wing of the French Revolutionaries -- as they topple the monarchy, the aristocracy, the church, and all the bootlicking class traitors who supported the old regime. But personal dynamics, petty arguments, and even an ill-timed love triangle or two threaten to undermine the movement. marchons marchons explores the messiness of revolution, from the intimate to the ideological, and the challenges of letting go of your individual ego to fight for a future you may never live to see, for the freedom of someone you don't know.

New Light Theater Project

To support an abridged virtual production of the winner of their 2020/21 New Light/ New Voices Awarded play Ink'd Well by E.E. Adams, directed by NJ Agunwa.

About Ink'd Well
When Kendra finds out that her brother, Issac, has died in a terrible accident, she returns to her childhood summer home on Martha's Vineyard. As the mystery behind his death is unraveled, she discovers that he was drowning in much more than water. Meanwhile, a childhood ghost story about a "sea witch" haunts Kendra. The story, paired with her grief, begins to impact her relationship with her family and her relationship with the ocean itself.

Noor Theater Company

To support Noor Theatre's Commissioning Initiative.

About Noor Theatre's Commissioning Initiative
Noor Theatre's Commissioning Initiative was created to help build the canon of work by artists of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) descent. Their commissioned pieces illustrate the breadth and richness of MENA's many diasporic communities, challenge the harmful stereotypes of Middle Easterners rampant in popular media, and advance important conversations within our communities. The MENA diaspora is not monolithic, and Noor's pieces reflect the unique voices and perspectives of their artists. The Commissioning Initiative furthers representation for artists of MENA descent through two programs: New Play Commissions and Cross-Medium Commissions. New Play Commissions are awarded to playwrights, who embark on a full-length play development process with Noor. With the support of Pop Culture Collaborative, Cross-Medium Commissions are awarded annually to three writers, who, over the course of a year, develop a script in a medium of their choice (such as film, television, VR, etc.) designed to reach a mass audience.

PlayCo

To continue and complete their virtual work on Django in Pain - Act One, created by Antonio Vega and Ana Graham from Por Piedad Teatro, with music by Cristóbal MarYan.

About Django in Pain - Act One
Antonio Vega and Ana Graham are two isolated theatre artists creating this piece inside an apartment in NY, plus a musician (Cristobal MarYán) composing the music in Mexico City, also while in isolation. They explore the possibilities of using a glass-top drawing desk as a stage for Django in Pain. Transforming the desk into a wooden cabin, and using shadows and light, tabletop puppets, marionettes, and everyday objects, they tell the story of a depressed playwright who wants to write a happy, uplifting story about a sad man who wants to kill himself but can't because now he has to take care of a three-legged dog.

Ana and Antonio don't know if the playwright will write the uplifting play; they don't know if he will keep on writing at all. They don't know if Django is going to kill himself but they certainly hope he won't.

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