Esmé Maria Ng and Xiaoyue Zhang To Join The Tank Producers Cohort

The Tank has revealed two additional fellows who will join the inaugural year of The Tank Producers Cohort.

 Esmé Maria Ng and Xiaoyue Zhang will join the previously announced 2023-24 Fellows Spencer Armstrong and Alejandra Venancio. George Strus is the Producers Cohort Facilitator.

 

Esmé Maria Ng

(they/she/he) is a queer, non-binary, Chinese American arts administrator/ dramaturg/ producer that has worked with several notable theater companies including Manhattan Theatre Club, Ma-Yi Theater Company, Breaking the Binary Theatre, The Playwrights Realm, Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, and Classic Stage Company. As a playwright, Esmé has been honored as a 2023 Lambda Literary Playwriting Fellow, Eugene O'Neill Semi-Finalist, and Van Lier New Voices Semi-Finalist. Their critical and creative non-fiction work has been published in American Theatre Magazine and presented at The Connecticut Ethnic Studies Symposium at Yale University. Currently, Esmé is a teaching artist with Girl Be Heard and a freelance writer/producer based in New York City. @esmemariang esmemariang.com.

 

Xiaoyue Zhang

(she/her) is a multi-skilled performance, video, and image maker from China. She has produced and production managed performances in spaces and venues including Redcat, Afropunk Festival 2023, The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, The Getty Villa, and CalArts Center for New Performance. Her performance, movement, and video works have been shown at Theater Mitu(Hybrid Arts Lab), Center for Performance Research, LA Performance Practice, Redcat New Original Works Festival, Hollywood Fringe Festival, Guangdong Museum of Art (China), and Short Film Corner of the 2018 Cannes International Film Festival. She is currently the Director of Performance Lab at the Orchard Project.

The Tank has organically supported emerging producers and independent self-Producing Artists and companies throughout its 20-year history. The support of the Mellon Foundation, with the largest single grant in The Tank’s history, allows the company to formalize this work through the newly-minted Producers Cohort program. 

 The Tank Producers Cohort is an innovative program designed to support the unique needs of emerging creative producers and to invest in pathways to increase and expand representation for those who have been traditionally excluded from producing opportunities. This program engages 3-5 early-career producers for renewable one-year fellowships, with annual awards of $15,000 and opportunities for additional funding for creative work and professional development.

Fellows will participate in regular meetings, led by the facilitator and including both practicum discussions and guest artist sessions with mentor practitioners in the field. With Tank staff and facilitator mentorship, Fellows will also take on hands-on learning opportunities by producing at The Tank, including Tank Core Productions and Presented Works. With The Tank’s volume and variety of programming, Fellows will be matched with projects that engage their artistic interests and introduce them to potential long-term collaborators, while meeting their level of experience and current practical learning goals.  

As a capstone to their fellowship, each Fellow will have the opportunity to produce a presented show at The Tank as the instigating artist, whether as the generative artist, a curatorial force, or another model that centers creative producing as artistic practice.

To support their in-depth integration into the Tank’s programming, during their residency Fellows will be provided with workspace in The Tank’s office, Tank meeting and rehearsal space, and The Tank’s institutional resources such as the Employee Assistance Program, memberships, software, and fiscal sponsorship, as well as staff support and mentorship – offering The Tank as an artistic and professional home.

 

ABOUT THE TANK

Founded in 2003, The Tank is an Obie Award-winning, multi-disciplinary non-profit arts presenter and producer, which provides a home to emerging artists working across all disciplines, including theater, comedy, dance, film, music, puppetry, and storytelling. Led by Artistic Director Meghan Finn, Managing Producer Molly FitzMaurice, and Director of Artistic Development Johnny G. Lloyd, The Tank champions emerging artists engaged in the pursuit of new ideas and forms of expression. In doing so the company removes the economic barriers from the creation of new work for artists launching their careers and experimenting within their art form. From the company’s home with two theaters on 36th Street, The Tank serves over 2,500 artists every year, presents over 1,000 performances, and welcomes 36,000 audience members annually. The company fully produces a curated season of 8-12 theatrical World or New York premieres each season.

Recent Tank-produced work includes The New York Times Critics' Picks Simon and His Shoes by Laurel Haines and Steph Singer (2022), Taxilandia by Flako Jimenez (2021), OPEN by Crystal Skillman, directed by Jessi D. Hill (2019); Red Emma & The Mad Monk by Alexis Roblan, directed by Katie Lindsay (2018); andThe Offending Gesture by Mac Wellman, directed by Meghan Finn (2016), as well as Drama Desk Award-nominated productions The Hunger Artist (2018), The Paper Hat Game (2017), the ephemera trilogy (2017), Ada/Ava (2016) and youarenowhere (2016).

 

ABOUT THE Andrew W. Mellon FOUNDATION

 The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and we believe that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom to be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive.

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