T. Fellowship Announces New T. Fellow Ben Holtzman

T. Fellowship, in association with Columbia University School of the Arts, announces the next T. Fellow is Ben Holtzman, the eighth fellow in the one?year program designed to educate and empower new creative producers. The fellow will receive a stipend of $10,000 with a $20,000 budget for the development of a new theatrical production, and will have access to courses in Columbia's MFA Theatre Management & Producing Program.

"I have known Ben Holtzman for a number of years. He's quick, inventive, extremely intelligent, disciplined, and ambitious. That's a good combination. I have no doubt that the T. Fellowship will add practical experience to his burgeoning career," said mentor and founder Harold Prince.

The T. Fellowship mentors are Harold Prince (Mentor and Founder), Sue Frost, Margo Lion, Tom Schumacher, Jeffrey Seller and David Stone. The program is managed by Columbia University School of the Arts.

Other advisors and staff for the T. Fellowship program include Co-Director Orin Wolf (President of NETworks Presentations), Co?Director Steven Chaikelson (Head of the MFA Theatre Management & Producing Concentration at the School of the Arts), Co-Director Aaron Glick (Producer, Former T. Fellow), Victoria Bailey (Executive Director, Theatre Development Fund), Gregory Mosher (Director), Assistant Director Hannah Rosenthal, and Co?Founder Ed Wilson.

The T. Fellowship was established to honor the legacy of Broadway producer T. Edward Hambleton by supporting and developing a new generation of gifted, emerging creative theatrical producers, who initiate work from the ground up, following a path all their own. When Geraldine Stutz first met T. Edward Hambleton, her instinct told her that a collaboration with him would be an exciting adventure in the world of theater. A few years later, the adventure became a reality when the Fellowship for Creative Producing was hatched in Geraldine's living room with T. himself, Hal Prince and Ed Wilson.

Orin Wolf and John Pinkard were awarded the first two T. Fellowships in 2006. Aaron Glick (2013), Jen Hoguet (2015), Christopher Maring (2016), Allison Bressi (2017) and Rachel Sussman (2018) are past recipients of the T. Fellowship.

The T. Fellowship is generously supported by The Broadway League, The Geraldine Stutz Trust and The John Gore Organization.

Ben Holtzman is a producer and content creator passionate about telling authentic stories that make us think. He is currently represented as a co-producer on Broadway with Be More Chill. Ben has been working with Hal Prince since 2016. With Hal, he's worked on the 2017 production of Candide at New York City Opera, as well as Prince of Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club. Ben also worked with Hal on writing his memoir, Sense of Occasion, which was released in September of 2017. Ben is also the founder and executive producer of RANGE a cappella. With RANGE, Ben has arranged and produced music videos for Nickelodeon, Sesame Street, Playbill, Billboard, and the E! Network's 2015 Oscars Live from the Red Carpet. RANGE has over 60k subscribers on YouTube and their music videos have been viewed over 30 million times. Ben produced RANGE's first studio album, RANGE volume one, which is available on iTunes and Spotify. Current projects in development include Gun & Powder (Signature Theatre 2020), How to Dance in Ohio, and Bradical. Ben serves on the advisory board for Jennifer Jancuska + The BringAbout. He is a proud graduate of Professional Performing Arts School and the Syracuse University School of Drama. For more, visit ben-holtzman.com.

The goal of the Fellowship is to support the development of gifted emerging theatrical producers. The T. Fellowship is committed to sustaining the finest traditions of creative producing. Although the environment in which theatre is produced continues to change, the underlying principles that have historically shepherded great works of American theater continue to have validity today and must be understood and adapted if the art form is to thrive.

The T. Fellowship is a project-based program that supports the development of the chosen fellow's project over the course of one year. Each fellow is given access to a selection of courses in the MFA Theatre Management & Producing Program at Columbia University School of the Arts. The specific courses are chosen in order to best support the fellow's growth. In addition, each fellow receives structured mentorship from the mentors and advisers who retain an "advise and consent" role in the process. Through these two support systems, the program aims to empower the fellows as they exercise freedom in all the creative and financial areas of development.

The T. Fellowship exposes the Fellows to the widest possible range of contemporary theatrical producing practices while providing opportunities to discuss the shifting role of the creative producer. The T. Fellowship will provide financial, legal, and production support for development of a project and a presentation. The philosophy is that which is good for the art form is good for business. The Fellowship emphasizes that the creative producer's role is to be the instigator, the collaborator, and the leader who gets art on the stage and to the public. The T. Fellowship neither wishes to turn back the clock to 1950 nor settle for the status quo. The T. Fellowship is looking to empower new producers to reinvent the wheel themselves, on their own terms, following their own tastes, in their own style.

Limiting selection to one or two candidates a year is fundamental to the program. The limitation on the number of Fellows allows for maximum attention to the individual goals and needs of the Fellows. In addition it insures that the Fellowship can maintain a high degree of selectivity. Selection is based on an application, essays, and interviews.

The eighth T. Fellow, who has been selected and is set to begin in the Fall 2019, will be announced this spring. The T. Fellowship will be accepting new applications starting January 2020.

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