Hedgerow Theatre Company's GOOD GRIEF Earns Grant From National Endowment For The Arts

Hedgerow Theatre Company has been awarded a Grants for Arts Projects award by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in the amount of $10,000. This grant will support the Philadelphia premiere of Ngozi Anyanwu's Good Grief. This grant is one of 71 Pennsylvania Grantees for competitive Arts Projects awards announced by the NEA as part of its first round of fiscal year 2023 grants.

"It is a tremendous honor to receive NEA support for Good Grief," celebrates Marcie Bramucci, Hedgerow's Executive Artistic Director. "This luminous work bursts with heart and humor, and as the first production in Hedgerow's 100th season, we are thrilled to open this suburban Philly story here at home for its regional premiere with an exceptionally talented team of artists and to forge the meaningful community connections this play inspires."

Hedgerow's legacy of producing bold works dates back to its founding. Bramucci notes, "Ngozi's whole-hearted, cosmic play and uncanny individual voice root us firmly in that continued ambition."

"The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support arts projects in communities nationwide," said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. "Projects such as this one with Hedgerow Theatre strengthen arts and cultural ecosystems, provide equitable opportunities for arts participation and practice, and contribute to the health of our communities and our economy.

A rising star in American Theatre, Ngozi Anyanwu, grew up in Bucks County, where the play takes place. Good Grief, Anyanwu's semi-autobiographical coming-of-self-story set in Bensalem, PA, runs February 8-26, with opening night kicking off on Friday, February 10, at 7:30 p.m. Good Grief is co-directed by Zuhairah McGiil and Phillip Brown, who also star in the show. The cast includes Morgan Charéce Hall as Nkechi; Dell Jackson as MJG; Ronnie Riggles as Bro; Susan Wefel as Neighbor; and James Ofalt as JD.

In this humorous and heartbreaking contemporary work, the young Nkechi explores the loss of her high school love in her childhood home in the Philly suburbs. The play-which The New York Times declares "reaches for the stars within the darkness"-traverses the liminal space between the past and the present while navigating the process of grief and loss with charm and poignancy.

Tickets cost $20-$35 and are available online www.hedgerowtheatre.org. All shows are performed at Hedgerow Theatre located at 64 Rose Valley Rd in Media, PA.

For more information on other projects included in the NEA's grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news.