Theatreworks Silicon Valley to Receive $10,000 From The National Endowment for the Arts

TheatreWorks Silicon Valley has been approved by the National Endowment for the Arts for a Grants for Arts Projects award of $10,000, which will support the company’s Susan Fairbrook Core Writers Group. The NEA will award 1,127 Grants for Arts Projects awards nationwide totaling more than $31.8 million as part of the recent announcement of fiscal year 2025 grants.
 
“The NEA is proud to continue our nearly 60 years of supporting the efforts of organizations and artists that help to shape our country’s vibrant arts sector and communities of all types across our nation,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “It is inspiring to see the wide range of creative projects taking place, including TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s Susan Fairbrook Core Writers Group.”
 
“We are grateful to the National Endowment of the Arts for supporting this vital program at TheatreWorks,” said TheatreWorks Artistic Director Giovanna Sardelli. “The Susan Fairbrook Core Writers Group allows for Bay Area theatre artists to develop the theatre hits of tomorrow. Organizations like the NEA enable TheatreWorks to continue fostering theatre makers in their creative journey.”
 
Established in honor of the late TheatreWorks trustee Susan Kay Fairbrook, a lifelong lover of theatre and fierce advocate for new works, Susan Fairbrook Core Writers Group is composed of a cohort of Bay Area-based writers at various stages in their careers. This program offers a year-long residency in which TheatreWorks provides a creative home and institutional support toward the development of new works. Cohorts have included some of the Bay Area’s finest theatre artists including Jonathan Spector (Eureka Day on Broadway), Min Kahng (Happy Pleasant Valley: A Senior Sex Scandal Murder Mystery Musical making its World Premiere at TheatreWorks in March 2025), Geetha Reddy (Mahābhārata, Safe House, and HeLa), Terry Boero, Grace Hoffman, Conrad Panganiban, Betty Shamieh, and Cleavon Smith. Currently in its second season, the current cohort of playwrights includes Patricia Cotter, Margot Melcon, Carlos Aguirre, Matthew Spangler, Lisa Ramirez, and Lisa Marie Rollins.
 
TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, led by Artistic Director Giovanna Sardelli and Interim Executive Director Criss Henderson, presents a wide variety of contemporary plays and musicals and revitalizes great works of the past. Founded in 1970 by Robert Kelley, TheatreWorks has grown from a truly original Silicon Valley start-up to become one of the nation’s leading professional non-profit theatre companies. TheatreWorks was recently honored as the recipient of the 2019 Regional Theatre Tony Award. TheatreWorks also champions new work, offering artists support and a creative home as they develop new stories for the American theatre. Offstage, TheatreWorks’ arts education programs in local schools and arts engagement programs in Silicon Valley neighborhoods uplift its audiences and strengthen community bonds. Onstage and off, TheatreWorks welcomes the mosaic of people that embody the Bay Area and beyond, celebrating the transformative power of theatre to ignite imagination, inspire conversation, and enliven souls.
 

To post a comment, you must register and login.