Pew’s Philadelphia Cultural Leadership Program: 10 Local Cultural Organizations Receive Grants
Even in an economic recession, the show must go on.
10 cultural organizations will share $2.1 million in funds provided by Pew for their 2012 Philadelphia Cultural Leadership Program.
The Opera Company of Philadelphia, who has been receiving funds from Pew since 1997, received $750,000, the largest amount among the recipients.
According to Gregory Rowe, the Director of Culture Initiatives at Pew, these 10 organizations show signs of strong performances during the economic downturn and are still able to provide a large amount of quality performances for audiences.
Part of the fund has been granted to 7 theatre groups who are the recipients of the 2012 Philadelphia Theatre Initiative Grant. They will share the $873,000 grant to create innovative ways to present plays and provide audiences memorable theatrical experiences.
The Wilma Theater will collaborate with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel to create a new, world-class play in the next two years. The play will be centered on American veterans’ experiences of war in Iraq and Afghanistan and how they, alongside with their families, deal with the challenges. The play is scheduled to be presented in March, 2014.
People’s Light & Theatre Company is another major recipient that will transform Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale into a two-month winter festival under a collaboration with Guy Hollands from the Glasgow Citizens Theatre. Their campus, located in Chester County, will be transformed into a festival scene. Workshops will be conducted for local teenagers with a passion toward theater to participate in the festival and earn the chance of presenting their plays.
The Annenberg Center will reproduce Mark Bemuthi Joseph’s interactive theater work red black & GREEN: a blues in September, 2012, with a conversation with the artist to share their ideas on the green movement and their own stories.
Fran Kumin, the Director of the Philadelphia Theatre Initiative, says these diverse projects will bring big name artists to Philadelphia and insert new elements into the theater industry.
For more information about the organizations that are estimated to generate more than $10 million a year, click here.
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