The Lark Announces Closure

After many long months of responding to pandemic-related crises and seeking paths to sustainability, the Board of Directors of The Lark, an international play development laboratory dedicated to amplifying the voices of playwrights, has come to the unanimous yet painful conclusion that, while its programs can be preserved, there is no viable path forward for the organization. The Lark has commenced an orderly wind-down and initiated discussions with peer institutions to re-home existing Lark programs and fellowships.

In early 2020, The Lark's founder, John Clinton Eisner, began planning his retirement and transition out of his active role in the organization; the team was excited to launch The Lark into a new era. Before this vision could be fully realized, the pandemic hit, and The Lark, along with every other arts organization, was suddenly in an entirely new scenario: Rather than building on 25 years of meaningful artistic development, it was simply struggling to exist. In the wake of this global crisis, The Lark is in a different place than it had hoped to be two years ago. Their staff has worked tirelessly, as always, in support of The Lark's mission, however, the organization in its current functionality is not sustainable.

The Lark Board Member and playwright David Henry Hwang remarks, "At a time when play development in America risked slipping into formulaic dramaturgy, The Lark was founded to re-empower the playwright's vision, a philosophy that has now become a best practice throughout the country and internationally. Its mission included centering dramatists from BIPOC, LGBTQIA, and other marginalized backgrounds, which was once also a radical idea but now sets the pace for the field. Plays developed at The Lark have become the new American canon; of the five most recent winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, three were written by Lark playwrights, and two were developed directly in Lark programs. The Lark has succeeded in transforming the American theatre, and its legacy will live on."

Founder John Clinton Eisner states, "We started The Lark because there were so many people with important stories who needed a place to develop their voices and visions. Since then, we helped launch a new generation of outspoken playwrights through artist-centered processes that exploded the theater's conception of whose stories are important to tell and how to tell them."

May Adrales, who was hired as Artistic Director in early 2021, states, "When I excitedly stepped into this role six months ago, I did not know that this great organization, my first artistic home of 20 years, faced such steep, insurmountable challenges. It is a devastating loss personally but also to the theater field. I am comforted by my belief that The Lark has never been beholden to a physical place. It is a spirit, a transformation. Our methodologies and philosophies, which empower playwrights to write what they choose, have permeated the theater landscape. We all have been transformed by The Lark experience, and we will carry all that The Lark taught us throughout its amazing 27 years. We know that its spirit will live on through every person it has touched."