Playwright Paola Lazaro-Munoz Tapped for The Public Theater's Emerging Writer Fellowship

The Public Theater has chosen a talented playwright for its Emerging Writer Fellowship, thanks to a new $50,000 grant from The New York Community Trust.

Paola Lázaro-Muñoz, a playwright from Puerto Rico and the current Tow Playwright in Residence at the Atlantic Theater, will receive two years of financial support, mentoring and rehearsal space as she writes a new play. She received her MFA in fine arts from Columbia University.

This new fellowship follows a successful residency at The Public, during which she wrote her play Tell Hector I Miss Him. The play, about post-colonial San Juan, went on to a successful run at The Atlantic Theater last year.

This fellowship is a result of the new Robert A. Levinson and Patricia S. Levinson Arts Achievement Award, administered by The New York Community Trust; it is given to promising young visual or performing artists. It works in coordination with The Trust's highly successful Van Lier Fellowship Program, which has been helping talented artists for 25 years.

The Public, with its long history of fostering up-and-coming artists and projects, is a perfect match for the Levinson Arts Achievement Award. The Trust is committed to helping solve some of New York's toughest problems.

Through the generosity of New Yorkers who have set up charitable funds with us, we are able to make grants for a huge range of charitable activity so important to the well-being of our city. We are New York City's community foundation, and one of the largest funders of City nonprofits. Since 1924, The Trust has helped make donors' charitable dreams come true by funding the nonprofits that make our city a vital and secure place. See nycommunitytrust.org for more information.