Chomet, Sullivan, Greenspan and More Among TCG & Fox Foundation's Actor Fellowship Recipients

The William & Eva Fox Foundation and Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for theatre, have announced the eighth round of Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowship recipients. The program is designed to support actors' professional and artistic development, to enrich relationships between actors and nonprofit theatres and to ensure continued professional commitment to live theatre. Funded by the Fox Foundation and administered by TCG, the fellowship is one of only a few programs of its kind for actors in the country.

"The Fox Foundation expresses our continued appreciation of the long-term collaborative relationship between Fox and TCG," said Robert P. Warren, president of the Fox Foundation. "This program has provided extraordinary opportunities for Fox Fellows to further their artisticdevelopment and enhance their craft. The proposals from this year's recipients hold great promise, not only for them personally and professionally, but also for their sponsoring theatres and the communities they so richly serve."

The Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowship awarded grants totaling $217,500 through two categories:

Extraordinary Potential recipients are early- to mid-career actors, who have demonstrated a strong interest and commitment to continued training. Each fellow receives $15,000 each, with up to an additional $10,000 available to relieve student loans. The host theatre companies will receive grants of $7,500 in support of these residencies.

Distinguished Achievement recipients have demonstrated considerable experience in professional theatre with a substantial body of work. Each fellow receives $25,000 awards. The host theatre companies will receive grants of $7,500 in support of these residencies.

"Since its inception, our partnership with Fox Foundation has created opportunities for actors to deepen their craft and advance their professional development through relationships with theatres around the country," said Teresa Eyring, executive director of TCG. "Our field thrives when artists are empowered to take time for creative risks and exploration, and this program creates the rare space in which they can do just that."

The Fox Foundation fellows and host theatres are:

Extraordinary Potential

Sun Mee Chomet, Mu Performing Arts, (St. Paul, MN), will hone her love and grasp of movement, dance and physical theatre by observing Marcela Lorca, Head of Movement at the Guthrie Theater, studying with Master Iyengar Yoga Teacher Nancy Boler; Pig Iron Theatre Company; and Dr. Young-Lan Lee at Kyunghee University in Korea. She will create a workshop production of a new movement theatre piece with company members of Mu Performing Arts to culminate her studies. Chomet has acted at Ten Thousand Things Theater Company, Mixed Blood Theatre Company, Guthrie Theater, Hartford Stage, Lincoln Center Theater, as well as others. She received funding from the Jerome Foundation towards the development of her solo play How to Be a Korean Woman and the Minneapolis Star Tribune awarded her Outstanding New Script of 2008 for Asiamnesia. Chomet is a recipient of the Playwrights' Center 2013-14 McKnight Theater Artist Fellowship. She received her MFA from the Graduate Acting Program at NYU.

Cindy Im, TheatreWorks, (Palo Alto, CA), will use her fellowship to advance her training in movement, voice and text, priming herself for roles in the classics. She will study Shakespeare, voice and text at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and Le Jeu and Clown at Ecole Philippe Gaulier in Paris. She will also be mentored by Stephen Buescher, Head of Movement and Physical Theater at A.C.T. During her time in residency at TheatreWorks, Im will visit high schools and colleges to host meetings and master classes with Asian American performers in order to help students and performers overcome obstacles connected to considering and maintaining careers in theatre. Im has acted in productions at American Conservatory Theater, Crowded Fire Theater, Goodman Theatre and Theatre Dijon Bourgogne; and has worked under the direction of Chay Yew, Mark Rucker, Rob Melrose, Desdemona Chiang, among others. She received her M.F.A in Acting from California Institute of the Arts.

Jennifer Kidwell, Pig Iron Theatre Company, (Philadelphia, PA), will continue her study of voice and clown, as well as develop fundraising, budgeting, marketing and publicity skills necessary for her professional development. She will further develop her vocal production and movement through Alexander, Primitive Voice, Clown, and Bouffon training. In addition to this work, she will attend interNational Theatre festivals to expand her connections to theatre abroad. She appeared in the world premiere of Zinnias directed by Robert Wilson, The Bacchae and 365 Plays/365 Days at The Public Theater, and is currently in the process of developing two devised pieces exploring pedagogy, race and schizophrenia.

Orlando Pabotoy, Ma-Yi Theater Company, (New York, NY), will research, develop and adapt Shakespeare's Julius Caesar into a one-man show. He will incorporate Visayan language and songs with Shakespeare's text, and collaborate with Richard Feldman to utilize elements of classical theatrical conventions, commedia dell'arte, and masks in the development of the work. He has appeared in roles at The Public Theater, Kirk Douglas Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre and The Old Globe, among others. He received an Obie Award for his work in The Romance of Magno Rubio and is a faculty member at New York University and a graduate of The Juilliard School.

Daniel Robert Sullivan, Roundabout Theatre Company, (New York, NY), will use the resources of Roundabout's Education Department to collaborate with teenage actors to create a new play about the urban high school experience. He will lead workshops in improvisation and interview with the students and transform devised work into a text. He has toured nationally and internationally as Tommy DeVito in the Jersey Boys and acted in roles at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Utah Shakespeare Festival and Gloucester Stage Company, among others. Sullivan is a Master Teaching Artist with Roundabout, directing the theatre's first two annual Student Theatre Arts Festivals. His first book, Places Please! Becoming a Jersey Boy, was published by Iguana Books in 2012.

Distinguished Achievement

Evelina Fernandez, The Latino Theater Company at Los Angeles Theatre Center (Los Angeles, CA), will document the company's history from their first professional production in 1985, La Victima, through their most recent production, A Mexican Trilogy, with photographs, videos, reviews and interviews with the ensemble. She will work in collaboration with Jose Luis Valenzuela, Dr. Jorge Huerta, Dr. ChantAl Rodriguez, Sal Lopez, Lucy Rodriguez and Geoffrey Rivas to leave a written and digital record of their ensemble's history for the generations to come. She will disseminate this knowledge through workshops, work groups, classes, and discussions beginning at the National Latino Theater Encuentro (Encounter). She has acted in the theatre for 35 years and has been a founding member of The Latino Theater Company for 28 years. She acted in the first production of Zoot Suit at the Mark Taper Forum and toured nationally and internationally with El Teatro de la Esperanza. As a playwright, her work includes Luminarias, Dementia, Liz Estrada in the City of Angelsand Solitude.

David Greenspan, Transport Group Theatre Company, (New York, NY), will use his fellowship to develop a solo rendition of Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude, exploring the dynamics of family pathologies through the lens of this seldom-produced American classic renowned for its interior monologues. While investigating the play, Greenspan will engage in a study of O'Neill's life and career and the period in which the play was written, collaborating with Transport Group Artistic Director Jack Cummings III and Dramaturge Kristina Corcoran Williams. He has performed in his own plays and premieres of plays by writers including Terrence McNally, Richard Foreman, Sarah Ruhl, Adam Rapp, Mac Wellman and David Adjmi. For his work in New York and regionally he has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Alpert Award in the Arts, five Obie Awards (including one for Sustained Achievement), and a Connecticut Critics Circle Award, as well as Outer Critics Circle, Lucille Lortel and Drama Desk nominations.

The Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowships panel included Malcolm Darrell, New Play Production Associate, Center Theatre Group; Nicky Paraiso, Director of Programming, The Club La MaMa; Blake Robison, Artistic Director, Cincinnati Playhouse; Tara Rubin, Casting Director, Tara Rubin Casting; and Charlayne Woodard, Actress/Playwright.

The William & Eva Fox Foundation was established in 1987 by Belle Fox in honor of her parents, who founded the Fox Film Corporation. The Foundation has awarded more than $2.8 million in fellowships to 329 actors since 1994. The Fox Foundation is the largest US grant maker dedicated to the artistic and professional development of theatre actors, and one of very few that provides direct financial support to individual actors. For more information, visit http://www.tcg.org/grants/fox/fox_index.cfm and www.thefoxfoundation.org.

For over 50 years, Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the American theatre, has existed to strengthen, nurture and promote the professional not-for-profit American theatre. TCG's constituency has grown from a handful of groundbreaking theatres to nearly 700 member theatres and affiliate organizations and more than 12,000 individuals nationwide. TCG offers its members networking and knowledge-building opportunities through conferences, events, research and communications; awards grants, approximately $2 million per year, to theatre companies and individual artists; advocates on the federal level; and serves as the U.S. Center of the InterNational Theatre Institute, connecting its constituents to the global theatre community. TCG is North America's largest independent publisher of dramatic literature, with 12 Pulitzer Prizes for Best Play on the TCG booklist. It also publishes the award-winning AMERICAN THEATRE magazine and ARTSEARCH, the essential source for a career in the arts. In all of its endeavors, TCG seeks to increase the organizational efficiency of its member theatres, cultivate and celebrate the artistic talent and achievements of the field and promote a larger public understanding of, and appreciation for, the theatre. www.tcg.org.

Pictured: Sun Mee Chomet

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