Generation Now Theatre Champions Inclusion

Generation Now Theatre Partnership Embodies Inclusion

The progress of 2024 announces a partnership with Latino Theater Company, Ma-Yi Theater Company, Native Voices, Penumbra, and Children’s Theatre Company

The five theatres of the landmark Generation Now partnership are pleased to announce the progress made in the development of multiple commissions by BIPOC artists, of new works for multigeneration audiences. The current commissions include Michi Barall’s Drawing Lessons, Dustin Tahmahkera’s Comanche Girl on the Moon, Ifa Bayeza’s One Small Alice, Gabriel Rivas Gómez’s Level Up, Kalani Queypo and Chadwick Johnson’s The Mainlanders, Lloyd Suh and Diana Oh’s The Science Fair Project, Nambi E. Kelley’s Untitled Commission, and Folklórico, a work exploring the world of folklórico dance created by Latino Theater Company.

We are thrilled to be working in partnership with the extraordinary leaders of Generation Now,” said Children’s Theatre Company Artistic Director Peter C. Brosius.

“These are all remarkable individuals who lead critically important theatre companies. Creating these new plays together offers a way for the American theatre to develop important new audiences, find equitable and respectful ways to partner and give voice to artists whose stories need to be told. It is an honor and a joy to bring this work to life and to have the expertise and insights of these artists remaking our field.”

Each of these eight commissions are co-commissions in which both theatres were involved in the selection of the artists and the subject matter, and have worked together on the play’s development through readings, workshops, and dramaturgical conversations. It is anticipated that each of the projects will go through multiple drafts and revisions before its premiere.

The aim of Generation Now is that each play or musical will be produced by each of the commissioning theatres. These may be co-productions or completely independent productions. The co-productions may involve sharing actors, creative teams, and designs, or simply sharing the physical production or some other way of collaborating. The co-commissioning theatres will determine how each of their projects will be produced.

About Generation Now

The goal of the Generation Now partnership is to expand the canon of work produced for multigenerational audiences and create a model of transformative partnership for the theatre field. With funding received from the Mellon Foundation in 2021, the consortium is committed to co-commission and co-develop 16 new plays by both established and emerging BIPOC artists for multigenerational audiences over five years. The partners strongly believe that if we are to have an extraordinary theatre culture in this country, we must start young, and it must be intergenerational, inclusive, inspiring, transformative, and lifelong. All commissions will receive at least two developmental workshops at the co-commissioning theatres.

Additional Information

An intersectional partnership such as Generation Now is unprecedented in the American theatre.
All of the artistic directors of the partner theatres are leaders in their field.
There are monthly, open-ended convenings of the round table of all the leaders involved with Generation Now.
Generation Now also provides an opportunity for the partner theatres to exchange best practices.
Six of the eight currently commissioned BIPOC playwrights are writing for multigenerational audiences for the first time.
Before any conversation happens with a playwright, both organizations meet together to discuss and synthesize their notes and then meet jointly with the playwright.

General Updates

June 14-16, 2022: First Generation Now Convening in Minneapolis.
April 5-7, 2023: Generation Now’s Annual Convening took place in New York City.
February 20, 2024: Playwright Convening took place, virtually.
May 3-5, 2024: Generation Now’s Annual Convening took place Los Angeles, CA.
June 20-22, 2024: Generation Now will present at Theater Communications Group’s Conference in Chicago, IL.
Upcoming: There will be an additional eight commissions made over the next two years.

Updates on Commissions

Drawing Lessons by Michi Barall, co-commissioned by Ma-Yi Theater Company (New York, New York) and Children’s Theatre Company (Minneapolis, Minnesota):

January 2023: Drawing Lessons received a workshop in Minneapolis at Children’s Theatre Company.
April 2023: Drawing Lessons received a workshop in New York City at Ma-Yi Theater Company (during Generation Now’s Annual Convening).
June 2023:Drawing Lessons received a reading in New York at Ma-Yi Theater Company.
July 2023: Drawing Lessons received a reading in New York at Ma-Yi Theater Company.
October 25-29, 2023: Drawing Lessons received a workshop in Minneapolis at Children’s Theatre Company.
October 8-November 10, 2024: The world premiere of Drawing Lessons will take place in Minneapolis at Children’s Theatre Company, under the direction of Jack Tamburri.

“Ma-Yi Theater has a long history working with Michi Barall, both as performer and writer, so we are thrilled to have her as the first commissioned playwright of Generation Now,” stated Ma-Yi Theater Artistic Director Ralph Peña.

Peter and I are very excited by Michi’s script Drawing Lessons, which uses a mix of offbeat characters, great humor, and graphic illustrations to bring us into the fertile mind of a young girl.

In Drawing Lessons, experience the energy of a graphic novelist’s imagination at work! Dynamic, jump-off-the-page animation shows Kate’s manhwa storyboards coming together, even as she deals with school, friends, and how her Korean heritage fits into her American lifestyle. Will her contentious friendship with Paul help or hinder her progress? Will either of them ever find their true artistic voice? Get drawn into this innovative story that magically takes place both on stage and on screen!

I am so excited to share this celebration of the world of comic art and the unique artistic voice of Kate, the play’s 12-year-old Korean American protagonist,” said playwright Michi Barall. “A love letter to Minneapolis and its diversity, I’m especially happy that the first run of Drawing Lessons will take place at CTC.

Michi Barall is a New York City-based actor, playwright, and academic. As an actor Michi has worked extensively in theatres in New York and across the country. Michi’s dance-theatre piece, Rescue Me, was produced at the Ohio Theatre by Ma-Yi in 2010. Her music-theatre adaptation of Peer Gynt, Peer Gynt and The Norwegian Hapa Band, premiered in 2107 at the ART/NY Theatre. Michi holds degrees from Stanford University, NYU (M.F.A., Grad Acting) and Columbia (PhD, Theatre/English & Comparative Literature). She has taught at Columbia, NYU, and MIT and is currently on the faculty at Purchase College.

Drawing Lessons will be available for licensing with Plays for New Audiences post-production. Comanche Girl on the Moon by Dustin Tahmahkera, co-commissioned by Native Voices (Los Angeles, California) and Children’s Theatre Company (Minneapolis, Minnesota):

June 2023: Comanche Girl on the Moon received a workshop in Los Angeles at Native Voices.
November 14-18, 2023: Comanche Girl on the Moon received a in Minneapolis at Children’s Theatre Company.

“Dustin Tahmahkera’s Commanche Girl of the Moon is a beautiful and exciting coming-of-age story of an Indigenous girl finding strength and pride through the stories of her grandmother,” stated DeLanna Studi, artistic director of Native Voices.

What we love about Dustin’s proposal is that he has created an entire world that is wholly real and ethereal, weaving the struggle of identity and bullying in a Comanche girl’s day-to-day life with the connection to her grandmother who has passed on. What begins as a journey to escape the trials of not being enough becomes a quest for greater connection and a sense of pride.

Comanche Girl on the Moon stars an imaginative but insecure Comanche girl named Petu who discovers her late grandmother Kaku’s secret rocket ship on her family’s allotment in Oklahoma. Tired of being bullied at school and missing Kaku and her stories about the Comanche moon, talking animals, and astronaut aspirations, Petu works with her humorous twin rabbits and other animal relatives, along with eccentric interplanetary creatures, to fly to the moon in search of a new start, but at what cultural cost to herself and her tribal community in Oklahoma? Honoring the creative work of the playwright’s late auntie Juanita Pahdopony and other Comanche artists and storytellers, Comanche Girl on the Moon explores themes of home, identity, and futurity by asking, “How can one realize and actualize an individual and collective future through the past?”

“The generous and tireless support and enthusiasm expressed by the play commissioners—a dream team partnership between Native Voices in Los Angeles and Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis—has been amazing and humbling,” said Dustin Tahmahkera.

Their collaborative care and constructive feedback continue to inspire and enrich the current development of my, and our, full-length multigenerational script Comanche Girl on the Moon.

Dustin Tahmahkera (Comanche) is a parent of four beautiful children, playwright of Comanche-centric theatre, and professor of Native media and sound studies at the University of Oklahoma. Tahmahkera’s recent short play 9-1-1 Comanchería, received both the best play and audience favorite awards at Native Voices’ play festival in Los Angeles. 9-1-1 Comanchería is part of a series of original short plays in Tahmahkera’s book project “Comanche vs. the World.” His previous books include Tribal Television: Viewing Native Peoples in Sitcoms (University of North Carolina Press) and Cinematic Comanches: The Lone Ranger in the Media Borderlands (University of Nebraska Press). Comanche Girl on the Moon will be available for licensing with Plays for New Audiences post-production.

One Small Alice by Ifa Bayeza, co-commissioned by Penumbra (St. Paul, Minnesota) and Children’s Theatre Company (Minneapolis, Minnesota):

August 8-12, 2023: One Small Alice received a workshop at Penumbra in St. Paul.
March 8-12, 2024: A writer’s retreat for One Small Alice took place in St. Paul.
June 2024: A workshop of One Small Alice is scheduled to take place in St. Paul/Minneapolis.

“At Penumbra, we have heard over and over again that representation matters” said Penumbra President Sarah Bellamy.

When young people see themselves reflected in the art we create, they feel empowered, valued, loved. It counters dangerous stereotypes that limit potential and diminish self-esteem. Our partnership with Children’s Theatre Company allows us to reach more youth at critical stages of their identity development, helping them understand that their racial identity, cultural practices, and family histories are not just valuable, but worthy of beautiful productions that celebrate who they are.

One Small Alice transposes Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass into an Underground Railroad journey of a 9-year-old girl. Separated from her group, the child named Small Alice has to make her way through the wilderness alone. Through her voice and eyes, the world outside of bondage seems a wonderland, a world of great beauty and terror, at once quixotic and curious. One Small Alice is a metaphorical story, exploring the discovery of freedom, identity, independence, community.

“One Small Alice imagines the journey of 9-year-old fugitive slave Small Alice in mid-19^th century America,” said playwright Ifa Bayeza. “I love the title of this project: Generation Now. My goal with this play is for generation now, and henceforth, to understand the trauma of American enslavement and the strength that it took to triumph over it; that, through the eyes of this child, Small Alice, children and families will begin to perceive the complexity of our history and their own agency in defining where our nation is going.”

Ifa Bayeza is an award-winning playwright, director, novelist and educator. Plays include The Till Trilogy (The Ballad of Emmett Till, That Summer in Sumner, and Benevolence); String Theory; Welcome to Wandaland, and Infants of the Spring; musicals, Charleston Olio, Bunk Johnson, a Blues Poem, and KID ZERO; and the novel, Some Sing, Some Cry, co-authored with Ntozake Shange. A finalist for the 2020 Herb Alpert Award in Theatre and for the 2020 Francesca Primus Prize, Bayeza in 2018 was the inaugural Humanist-in-Residence at the National Endowment for the Humanities and is the recipient of two concurrent commissions from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. A 2022 MacDowell fellow, Bayeza is a graduate of Harvard University with an M.F.A. in Theater from University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Level Up by Gabriel Rivas Gómez, co-commissioned by Latino Theater Company (Los Angeles, California) and Children’s Theatre Company (Minneapolis, Minnesota).

July 2023: Level Up received a reading in Los Angeles at Latino Theater Company.
February 17-22, 2024 – Level Up received a workshop in Minneapolis at Children’s Theatre Company.

“It is such a pleasure to be working with Gabe Rivas Gómez as he develops Level Up about a Latinx family facing today’s complexities of single parenting, gender identity and virtual alternatives through universal themes of loss, love and family” said Latino Theater Company Artistic Director José Luis Valenzuela.

In real life, Desi—in an oversized hoodie—is seen as a boy. But in her virtual world, where she is a magical female warrior with enormous butterfly wings, she feels like she is truly in her own skin. When she learns that her dog is dying, she goes on a quest to save him in her virtual world, since she is convinced she will spend more and more of her life there. But on this adventure, she comes to realize that her journey does not end in the virtual world and it will take all her courage to finally be who she’s always been IRL.

This process has been wonderful for me,” said playwright Gabriel Rivas Gómez. “I’ve been able to work with some amazing artists, directors and people like Jose Luis, Peter and Michael whose dramaturgical feedback has really helped me push the script with each revision. I’m excited to continue this process.

Gabriel Rivas Gómez received his M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from USC in 2007, where he was mentored by Oliver Mayer, Velina Hasu Houston and Luis Alfaro. His plays, including Chasing Monsters, Circus Ugly, Swarm Cell, and Scar Tissue have been produced in various LA theaters. Scar Tissue was subsequently published in The Best American Short Plays of 2010-2011. He developed his play, Carnivores, as an inaugural member of the Latino Theatre Alliance Writer’s Circle. His work focuses on justice issues and giving words to the voiceless. His plays have been taught, read, and performed at numerous universities across the country. His work has been called everything from surreal to abstract to unstageable. He is tenured faculty at Glendale Community College and when he is not busy writing or teaching, he can often be found lego-ing and softballing with his children who, along with his wife, Elsie, are the source of his drive and strength.

The Mainlanders by Kalani Queypo and Chadwick Johnson, co-commissioned by Native Voices (Los Angeles, California) and Children’s Theatre Company (Minneapolis, Minnesota).

May 19-23, 2024: The Mainlanders will receive a workshop in Minneapolis at Children’s Theatre Company.

Native Voices cannot wait to share this new work by Kalani Queypo and Chadwick Johnson with audiences of all ages. Kalani Queypo has a long history with Native Voices, dating over 15 years,” stated Native Voices Artistic Director DeLanna Studi.

“He is a prime example of what Native Voices hopes to do with all our theatre artists. Kalani began as an actor learning the process of New Play Development and dramaturgy, eventually becoming a director, playwright, and teaching artist. As Kalani shares about the Native Voices’ process, ‘Even though we are building a play from scratch, we are not building relationships from scratch.’ Native Voices nurtures and develops Native talent through all stages of their careers, and we are honored to celebrate successes such as these.”

The Mainlanders is a heartfelt intergenerational musical that explores “Home” and what it means to return home and find one’s place in community. Set in Hawai’i, The Mainlanders centers around the return of 11-year-old Kimo, who finds himself the “new kid” at his old school. But with the help of his mysterious uncle, who has also recently returned from the mainland, Kimo discovers the power of music as he navigates a new understanding of the true meaning of ohana.

Generation Now really wanted to make sure they found the right fit, motivation, inspirations, and desires to create something special,” said playwright Kalani Queypo. “They see the value in stories like ours, which is different than what you typically see on the American stage. We are developing a project that has rarely been entertained on this level.

“What’s so cool about this whole thing is that, personally, this is my first musical I’ve ever written so I don’t have a lot to compare it to, but Kalani and I have worked together for over a decade,” said playwright Chadwick Johnson. “We’ve worked on both music and theatrical pieces but never them together until now. This has given us such an opportunity to build a relationship with Children’s Theatre Company and expand our relationship with Native Voices and that’s been so fruitful.”

Kalani Queypo is a multi-disciplinary artist who grew up in Hawaii, studied in New York City, and is currently based in Los Angeles. Kalani is an award winning screenwriter for “Ancestor Eyes,” his self-directed short film that played at nearly 40 festivals, winning 14 awards. For his musical, Missing Peace, Kalani is the recipient of the 2019 Native Voices Playwrights Retreat, 2020 Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, 2021 and 2022 Johnny Mercer Writers Grove at Goodspeed Musicals, 2021 NAMT Festival of New Plays, and the 2022 Rhinebeck Writers Retreat Triple R. Kalani has independently written, directed, and produced the short films, Whispered Fall and Power Point. He is currently developing an episodic comedy, “When You Miss Aloha,” a feature length drama, Stored and Safe, and a brand-new musical, The Mainlander, all showcasing his birthplace and culture as the backdrop in his character driven projects. As an actor, Kalani can be seen in the Oscar-nominated, Terrence Malick film, The New World, Steven Spielberg’s Emmy winning Into the West and Slow West (Sundance GRAND JURY PRIZE). Television credits include “Jamestown,” “Fear the Walking Dead,” “Mad Men,” “Hawaii Five-0,” “Nurse Jackie,” and “Bones.” Kalani is currently starring in the new CW series, “Trickster”, for which his performance was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award.

Chadwick Johnson is a singer/songwriter who approaches the craft as a storyteller and revels in the complexities of the human experience. Chadwick’s sound echoes the soulful stylings of Chris Stapleton and soaring vocals of Ben Platt. In November 2022 the USA Songwriting Competition honored Chadwick and co-writer Kalani Queypo for their original composition “Unbreakable”. Chadwick’s new holiday single “It’s Almost Christmas” released November 29, 2022. Written by Chadwick Johnson and Kalani Queypo the track is a throwback to all things Christmas. Chadwick’s 2019 album, “Stormy Love”, topped Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz chart and featured special guest, saxophone megastar Grace Kelly. Performing both nationally and internationally, Chadwick’s acclaimed concerts have been enjoyed by audiences at venues including Birdland’s Jazz Club in NYC, Feinstein’s at Vitello’s, The Purple Room, Catalina Jazz Club, and the prestigious Smith Center for the Performing Arts where he recorded his live album, “Live In Las Vegas.” Chadwick was recognized with the Hollywood Music in Media Award for Song Of The Year, and experienced a dream come true when he collaborated with legendary producer David Foster.

The Science Fair Project by Lloyd Suh and Diana Oh, co-commissioned by Ma-Yi Theater (New York, New York) and Children’s Theatre Company (Minneapolis, Minnesota).

“I can’t think of a more exciting and explosive combo than Diana Oh and Lloyd Suh,” said Ralph Peña, artistic director of Ma-Yi Theater Company. “Bringing these two together is like cold fusion.”

The Science Fair Project (working title) is a musical comedy for young audiences that takes place at an International Science Fair set in a distant, almost-cataclysmic future, as three middle school scientists simultaneously pursue the title of Best in Fair, while also attempting to save humanity from itself.

What a thrill it is to be collaborating with Diana Oh ‘Zaza D’, who is one of the smartest, funniest, most theatrically innovative and effervescent artists working today,” said playwright Lloyd Suh. “I’m so excited to return to Children’s Theatre Company in collaboration with Ma-Yi on this piece about trying to save the most beautiful parts of our world with joy and hope and flair, and am so grateful to the entire Generation Now team for making it possible.

“I said yes to making music for this musical,” added Diana Oh “Zaza D,” “because Lloyd texted me and said I can be as weird as I want to.”

Diana Oh “Zaza D” (they/them): Creator of {my lingerie play} (The Concert & Installation Series, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, TOW Fellow, Venturous Capital Fellow, NY Times Critics Pick), Infinite Love Party (An Intentional Barefoot Potluck, Dance Party, and Sleepover for QTBiPOC & Their Allies, Bushwick Starr, NY Times Critics Pick), CLAIRVOYANCE (A Yearlong Concert, Installation & Tree Planting Series celebrating Queer Magic, A.R.T.), OH FAMILY CONCERT (A Documentary Film available on PBS, All Arts TV), The Gift Project (A Film & Concert celebrating Elders of Marginalized Experience, Symphony Space, All-For-One), My H8 Letter to the Gr8 American Theatre (The Public Theater), The Dope North Star Workshop, A Rare Bird (2025, Ping Chong and Company). Oh also throws and DJ’s Art Chxrch (An underground binaural beat brain massage & dance party for creatives), Oh is the Recipient of the Helen Merrill Playwright Award, Susan Steinberg Playwright Award, United States Artists Fellowship for Theatre, Sundance Institute Fellowship, Van Lier Fellowship in Acting, and is a previous Williamstown Theatre Festival Playwright-in-Residence and a Refinery29 Top LGBTQ+ Influencer.

Lloyd Suh is the author of plays including The Heart Sellers (Milwaukee Rep, Huntington, forthcoming at the Guthrie, Aurora, North Coast Rep, Northlight and Theatreworks Silicon Valley), The Far Country (Pulitzer Prize finalist), The Chinese Lady, American Hwangap, and others, including plays for young audiences Bina’s Six Apples (Children’s Theatre Company and Alliance Theater), and The Wong Kids in the Secret of the Space Chupacabra Go! (Children’s Theatre Company, ArtsEmerson, and others). His plays have been produced across the country, including at Atlantic Theater Company, The Public Theater, Berkeley Rep, Denver Center, Long Wharf Theatre, Magic Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Ma-Yi Theatre Company, and others, as well as internationally at the Cultural Center of the Philippines and with PCPA at the Guerilla Theatre in Seoul, Korea. A recipient of the Steinberg Playwright Award, the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, the Horton Foote Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, Suh served from 2005 to 2010 as the Artistic Director of Second Generation, and co-director of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, and from 2011 to 2020 as Director of Artistic Programs at The Lark. He was elected in 2016 to the Dramatists Guild Council.

Untitled Commission by Nambi E. Kelley, co-commissioned by Penumbra (St. Paul, Minnesota) and Children’s Theatre Company (Minneapolis, Minnesota):

This piece is still under development contractually.

I am excited for the opportunity to tell a story about adult mental illness through the eyes of a child witnessing the illness,” said playwright Nambi E. Kelley. “I’m super charged about how to have this conversation in a way that is empowering and authentic, while still providing space for healing.

Nambi E. Kelley’s play is about a little girl who has a mentally ill parent and how mental illness helps to shape her identity about who she is and what she is capable of in the world. It’s a healing balm for her, and for her parent to be able to recognize the illness and understand that the parent is not the illness.

Nambi E. Kelley is an award-winning, published, and produced playwright who is developing multiple projects regionally and for Broadway. She received The Prince Prize and an NNPN commission, where her play Re-Memori was presented at WP’s Pipeline Festival in New York City and recently celebrated a world premiere at Penumbra in St. Paul. A former playwright-in-residence at the National Black Theatre, Dramatists Guild, and the Goodman Theatre, Nambi was chosen by Toni Morrison to adapt her novel Jazz. Her adaptation of Richard Wright’s Native Son (Sam French, Concord Theatricals) has been produced across the country and premiered in New York at The Duke on 42nd Street (The Acting Company, producer), receiving a Drama League nomination (Best Revival) and an AUDELCO Award (Best Production). Most recently, Nambi served as a writer/co-producer on Peacock’s “Bel Air.” Previous television credits include: “Lady In The Lake” (Apple), “Our Kind of People” (Fox), and “The Chi” (Showtime). Also an award-winning actress, Kelley’s been seen on television and has graced stages all across the world. www.nambikelley.com

Folklórico, created by Latino Theatre Company and co-commissioned by Latino Theater Company (Los Angeles, California) and Children’s Theatre Company (Minneapolis, Minnesota):

The first draft is in development.

“With this play, the Latino Theater Company gets the exciting opportunity to journey into the minds of young people and investigate why, in this particular socio-historical context, it is important for them to be a part of the specific cultural expression that is folklórico, and to discover what that means to them, their families, and their communities,” stated Latino Theater Company Artistic Director José Luis Valenzuela.

Folklórico is a journey into the world of Mexican Folklórico dance through the lens of young people in the U.S. who while exploring this tradition are confronted by their roots, their identity, and their truth.

About the Partners

Native Voices

Founded in 1993 and in residence at the Autry Museum in Los Angeles since 1999, Native Voices provides an artistic home for Native American theatre artists, supporting the development and production of new works for the stage written by American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and First Nations playwrights. Native Voices is the only professional theatre company—deemed such for its affiliation with the Actors’ Equity Association, the union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers—dedicated exclusively to Native storytelling.

From the beginning, Native Voices has put Native narratives at the center of the American story in order to facilitate a more inclusive dialogue on what it means to be American. The company fills a tremendous need for more diverse representation among playwrights, actors, and theatre professionals and for the exploration of a broader range of themes and issues on the American stage. In the long-term, Native Voices remains committed to developing Native playwrights and theatre artists, to telling Native stories by and about Native people, and to providing the public access to these plays and playwrights—all with the goals of fostering greater understanding and respect and of showcasing artistic voices that might otherwise not be heard. With this project, Native Voices looks forward to having their playwrights seen by audiences in theatres that have historically produced little to no Native work. TheAutry.org/NativeVoices

Latino Theater Company’s mission is to provide a world-class arts center for those pursuing artistic excellence; a laboratory where both tradition and innovation are honored and honed; and a place where the convergence of people, cultures, and ideas contribute to a more vibrant future. LTC was founded in 1985 with the goal to establish a theater company dedicated to contributing new stories and novel methods of expression for the American theater repertoire and to increase artistic opportunities for underserved communities. As the company has evolved, its role as the lease-holder of the Los Angeles Theatre Center (LATC) has become critical to their mission. With a continuing exploration of the U.S. Latina/o/x experience in bold and contemporary terms, LTC programs its seasons with work by local playwrights that speaks to important issues and highlights new voices within the Latina/o/x, First Nation, Black, Asian American, Jewish American, and LGBTQ+ communities. This project will allow writers to create Latina/o/x stories specifically for multigenerational audiences, solidifying LTC’s outreach efforts and strengthening their relationship with the thousands of students they serve every year.

Ma-Yi Theater Company is an award-winning professional theater based in New York City, renowned as the premier incubator for new works by Asian American playwrights. They encourage their artists to engage communities in vigorous dialogues that challenge popular prescriptions for culturally specific theater, and that reexamine the immigrant histories that shaped our country. Ma-Yi Theater Company is one of the very few BIPOC-led theaters in the country whose original works have transferred to major regional theaters around the country. Ma-Yi’s Writers Lab has 34 professional writers, including Michael Lew and Rehana Lew Mirza who are on their fifth year of residency at Ma-Yi Theater, through the Mellon’s NPRP initiative. Many of the most produced Asian American playwrights today are members of the Lab, including Lauren Yee, Kimber Lee, Jiehae Park, Lloyd Suh, Qui Nguyen, Sam Chanse, and Madhuri Shakar to name a few. These playwrights are changing the landscape of American Theater to redraw the boundaries for what it considers part of the American canon. While there has been progress in creating a body of new plays by Asian American writers, many of them cater to mature audiences; very few are for multigenerational consumption. This opportunity to co-develop new works for multigenerational audiences will allow Ma-Yi to offer communities a new genre of theater that is more inclusive.

Penumbra is recognized nationally and internationally for its artistically excellent and socially responsible art that illuminates the human condition through prisms of the Black experience. Founded in 1976 by celebrated scholar Lou Bellamy in Saint Paul, Minnesota, this legacy institution has earned national accolades, producing nearly 200 plays, over 30 premieres, and cultivated generations of artists of color now working across the nation.

Since 2011, President Sarah Bellamy has been testing multigenerational programs that spark empathy and drive engagement with public conversations, screenings, and community meals that engage patrons across Minnesota. Through her leadership, Penumbra brings vibrant communities together to shift the ground under some of the most deeply entrenched issues of equity and justice. Today, Penumbra is embarking upon its next life cycle: a performing arts campus and center for racial healing that nurtures black artists, advances equity, and facilitates wellness for individuals and community.

Children’s Theatre Company (CTC) is the nation’s largest and most acclaimed theatre for young people and serves a multigenerational audience. It creates theatre experiences that educate, challenge, and inspire nearly 250,000 people annually. CTC is the only theatre focused on young audiences to win the Special Tony® Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre and is the only theatre in Minnesota to receive three Tony® nominations (for its production of A Year with Frog and Toad). CTC is committed to creating world-class productions at the highest level and to developing new works, more than 200 to date, dramatically changing the canon of work for young audiences.

CTC is the most significant provider of theatre education opportunities in the region. Every year, thousands of children experience theatre for the first time at CTC. Our student matinees and education programs demonstrably benefit the community, from the intergenerational conversations sparked by our world premieres, to the sequential skill-building that happens in our Theatre Arts Training, to the pre-K focus of our Early Childhood Initiative. ACT One is CTC’s comprehensive platform for access, diversity, and inclusion in our audiences, programs, staff, and board that strives to ensure the theatre is a home for all people, all families, reflective of our community. childrenstheatre.org

Plays for New Audiences (PNA), CTC’s script licensing division, licenses quality scripts for multigenerational audiences and actors. Written by some of the world’s most extraordinary playwrights including 4 of the top 10 most-produced Theatre for Young Audiences playwrights, PNA’s 300+ show catalog features plays and musicals for any programming need. A division of Children’s Theatre Company, PNA offers contemporary stories and reimagined classics that are topical, relevant, and even fantastical. As a non-profit licensing company, all profits are invested back into supporting artists and creating new work.