The Tank Reveals 2024-2025 Producers Cohort Fellows

The Tank have announced the 2024-2025 fellows for The Tank Producers Cohort, funded generously by a grant from the Mellon Foundation.

The Tank has announced that the 2024-25 class of Fellows will include Carlton V Bell II, Kathleen Capdesuñer, Jessie Char, and Kyra Davis.

The Tank has organically supported emerging producers and independent self-Producing Artists and companies throughout its 21-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 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 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, including both practicum discussions and guest artist sessions with mentor practitioners in the field. With Tank staff mentorship, Fellows will also take on hands-on learning opportunities by producing at The Tank, including Tank Core Productions and Festivals. 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 3,000 artists every year, presents 800 to 1,000 performances, and welcomes an average of 36,000 audience members annually. The company fully produces a curated season of 8-12 theatrical World or New York premieres each season.

In addition to a 2020 OBIE Award for Institutional Recognition celebrating our Extraordinary Support of Emerging Artists, The Tank has been honored with 6 Drama Desk nominations for our co-produced work, and an official New York City Council proclamation. Recent work includes hit productions of Midnight Coleslaw Tales from Beyond the Closet!!! by Joey Merlo (2024), Invasive Species by Maia Novi (2023), Joan of Arc in a Supermarket in California by Chloe Xtina (2023), Mahinerator by Jerry Lieblich (2023), New York Times Critics' Picks Simon and His Shoes (2022), Taxilandia (2021, 2023 OBIE Award), OPEN by Crystal Skillman (2019), Red Emma & The Mad Monk by Alexis Roblan (2018), and The Offending Gesture by Mac Wellman (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. www.mellon.org

MEET THE FELLOWS

CARLTON V BELL II “CJ” (they/them) is a Black, queer, southerner creating space + time at the intersections of theatre, film, and cultural organizing to facilitate liberation strategies in marginalized ecosystems. 

Carlton's practices are rooted in an Afro-Queer paradigm with an emphasis on oral tradition and curating spaces that Investigate, Fabulate, and Document the Black queer experience & aesthetic. As a Lucumí Aborisa and Hoodoo practitioner, spirituality is deeply rooted at the core of Carlton's lifestyle and creative practice.

Carlton spends their day to day primarily operating as the Program Associate for the Sex Worker Giving Circle at Third Wave Fund of which they are a former fellow & advisor to its annual grant-making cohort. 

They are also the co-founder of the award-winning Birmingham Black Repertory Theatre Collective, a Black queer led non-profit organization building power and capacity for marginalized artists while catalyzing a culture of Black theatre in the South. 

Carlton also serves as the Development Lead for Write It Out! Founded by award-winning Poz playwright and advocate Donja R. Love in 2019, Write It Out! (WIO!) uses art, advocacy, and accessibility to provide a space for people living with HIV and AIDS to tell their stories. As a New-New Yorker, they are elated to begin collaborating with The Tank NYC. carltonvbell.com for more info.

KATHLEEN CAPDESUÑER is an immigrant raised and Florida grown, Cuban-American director and producer working in English, Spanish y Spanglish. Kathleen is deeply committed to democratizing modes of creation, increasing accessibility and representation in the industry, and championing the work of living writers. 

Select Credits Include: Sunset Blvd. (SDCF Observer/Broadway), Los Empeños de una Casa (Director/Repertorio Español), The Detour Plays (Director/Playwrights Horizons & The Parsnip Ship), Red Bike (Director/The New School), Into the Woods (Community Producer/New York City Center), True West (Assistant Director/Broadway), and SHAME (Director/Orlando & Edinburgh International Fringe Festivals).

Honors/Affiliations: NYFA Grant, The Civilians R&D Group, Repertorio Español Directing Fellow, MTC Directing Fellow, Roundabout Directing Fellow, McCarter Directing Apprentice, and BroadwayWorld Best World Premiere Regional Award.

Kathleen is currently in residence at Colt Coeur and at NYU Tisch School of the Arts.  www.kcapdesuner.com 

Jessie Char A classically trained cellist, Jessie cut her teeth in the classical music world before accidentally landing a job in tech. She then became a career career-shifter, moving rapidly between various disciplines in tech before founding the Layers design conference which ran in tandem with Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference from 2015-2020. When her practice came to a screeching halt in 2020, she survived the only way she knew how: by developing as many hobbies as she could and seeing what stuck. For reasons she barely understands she stumbled into theatrical design, working on productions like Invasive Species (The Tank, The Vineyard) and JOB (SoHo Playhouse, The Connelly). Her sound design and creative direction have been acclaimed by The New York Times and New York Magazine, and now she's not entirely sure how to describe what she does for a living. 

KYRA DAVIS is a dedicated artist from the south. She traded in southern hospitality to take on the city that never sleeps to further her career in acting, writing, and creating. She was a part of the Inaugural class in the Uptown Collective's Renaissance Playwright Residency. Her play, SugarHill, will be produced by Dramatic Question Theatre in 2025. Sugarhill has been workshopped at The Flea Theater and further developed with Dramatic Question Theatre. She is currently excited about her web series “Front of House Faux Pas” she wrote, produced, and starred in.

Her passion is to create art for underrepresented voices and advancing their opportunities in the industry. Her inspirations are the Black women who came before her and the young Black women who have been forgotten, counted out, and under-estimated. She desires to create works that empower them, fill them with laughter, and encourage them to live their lives unapologetically. Select credits include: “Law and Order: Organized Crime: Jitney” (Rena), Intimate Apparel (Esther), and The Christians (Elizabeth).

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