The Welders Have Started The Search For Their Next Generation

The Welders-Washington's only playwrights' collective devoted exclusively to developing and producing new work-are starting the search for a third generation of generative artists to take the helm of the organization on January 1, 2020. Applications are now available on TheWelders.org.

The current iteration of the Welders playwrights - Brett Abelman, Annalisa Dias, Hannah Hessel Ratner, Rachel Hynes, Alexandra Petri, Deb Sivigny, and Stephen Spotswood - will conclude their final production in 2019 and then hand the keys of the organization: the board, the bank account, the website, to a New Group. "'Pass it on,' is the key to the Welders model," Acting Creative Producer Annalisa Dias said, "and we are excited as we start the process of doing just that. We can't wait to see what the next generation of the Welders creators are going to do."

Over the next five months The Welders will be having a series of Welders Meet-Ups all over the city to answer questions about the application and play matchmaker to interested artists. As in the past, the Welders ask that artists apply as a group. Individual artists who don't yet have a group are welcome to contact the Welders at connect@thewelders.org to be connected with forming groups.

Applications will be due on September 1, 2018. Please contact us at connect@thewelders.org with any questions.

The current Welders are the second generation of the company. The whole organization was passed on to them in 2015 from the founding Welders Gwydion Suilebhan, Renee Calarco, Ally Currin, Caleen Sinnette Jennings, Bob Bartlett, and creative producer Jojo Ruf. Since the organization's inception in 2013, the Welders have debuted eight new works by two generations of writers and received numerous awards and nominations, including a John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theater Company and Helen Hayes Award for Girl in the Red Corner. The Welders is also the proud recipient of grants both for development and production from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the Logan Foundation, Share Fund, a Bly Fellowship (for Hannah Hessel Ratner's In This Hope) from the LMDA and a Global Connections grant from TCG (for playwright Annalisa Dias's the earth, that is sufficient), among others. Next up for The Welders is their annual fundraiser The Joint on Saturday, April 21.

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