Trinity Rep Announces Grant Awarded From Doris Duke Foundation

The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) announced last week that it has awarded a grant of $67,818 to Trinity Repertory Company. Trinity Rep will partner with director and community facilitator Laurie Woolery to enhance Trinity Rep's bilingual Spanish-English programming and develop theater work based on oral histories of the Latinx people of Rhode Island with director Mark Valdez. Trinity Rep was one of fourteen organizations selected for an award as a part of the foundation's Building Demand for the Arts program.

The DDCF's Building Demand for the Arts program supports organizations and artists in joint efforts to ignite interest and engagement in jazz, theater and/or contemporary dance from their communities. This program is predicated on the beliefs that artists are key connectors to communities, and that artists and organizations can work together in imaginative new ways to attract and engage audiences. These grants also promote deeper partnerships, longer relationships, and new kinds of conversation and cooperation between organizations and artists.

The Building Demand for the Arts program launched in 2013 as part of a larger, ten-year special initiative through which DDCF earmarked $50 million for the performing arts above its existing funding. With this final cohort of grantees, the program will have awarded a combined total of more

than $6.6 million to 90 teams of artists and organizations. Trinity Rep previously received a grant through this program in 2015.

Associate Artistic Director and Director of New Play Development Tyler Dobrowsky said of the project, "We're incredibly proud that the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation is rewarding the mutually beneficial engagement work we've been doing with Rhode Island Latino Arts and Marta Martínez over the past five years. Laurie Woolery is a visionary leader in this field, and her expertise will be invaluable as we continue to build deep, long-lasting relationships between Trinity Rep and the surging Latinx population of Rhode Island in the years to come. We are beyond thrilled to work with Laurie, and we hope this award helps ensure that future generations of Latinx Rhode Islanders feel at home in our theater."

Director and community facilitator Laurie Woolery said, "I am thrilled to deepen my partnership with Trinity Rep and the community of Rhode Island. So much incredible work has happened over the last several years and getting the opportunity to dig deeper into strengthening those partnerships, continuing to build sustainable infrastructures and create more excellent art is such a powerful affirmation of the importance of theater in community and community in theater."

Laurie Woolery is a director, playwright, educator, and producer. She has worked at The Public Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Yale Repertory Theatre and many more. She is currently the director of public works at The Public Theater, an initiative that seeks to engage the people of New York by making them creators. Woolery has also served as the associate artistic director of Cornerstone Theater Company, as well as artist-in-residence at Hollygrove Children's Home in Los Angeles. Woolery teaches at institutions across the United States and serves on the board of Latinx Producers Action Network, Latinx Commons, and is a founding memory of the Sol Project in New York.

For more information on our 2019-20 Season, call the box office at (401) 351-4242 or visit Trinity Rep's website at www.TrinityRep.com.

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