Announcing the Spring 2012 Dramaturg Driven Grants

The Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) is pleased to announce the recipients of the Spring 2012 round of Dramaturg Driven Grants: Tiffany Antone  and Shawn Rene Graham. This round of grants saw seven applications, and the selection process was overseen by LMDA’s Vice-President of Programs, Stephen Colella, along with committee members Kristin Leahey and Rachel Ditor. 

Tiffany Antone is creating production opportunities for female playwrights through Little Black Dress INK’s Female Playwrights ONSTAGE Project; a traveling short-play festival dedicated to producing peer-selected works by women.  In addition to contributing to the selection of plays, participating playwrights are able to review and revise their work via online-streaming of play readings, and are encouraged to blog about the process along the way. Last year’s inaugural festival took place in Prescott, AZ and featured 9 female playwrights from LA and Prescott.  This year’s festival features 9 female playwrights from AZ, MN, and CA and will open in Prescott with a full production, travel to LA for a staged reading, then get produced again in Minneapolis with Table Salt Productions.  Little Black INK has plans to grow the festival in year three, with additional readings in DC, and NY.  Theater companies, producers, and playwrights interested in participating in next year’s festival are encouraged to visit the website: www.LittleBlackDressINK.org

Shawn Rene Graham is the dramaturg for the American Slavery Project (ASP).  ASP was created as a theatrical response to increasing revisionism in our nation's discourse about slavery, the Civil War and Jim Crow. ASP supports African-American playwrights who write about the era, creates conversation in the community and provides educational workshops for students and adults.  Unheard Voices is The American Slavery Project’s first original piece, a collaborative site-specific performance created for the African Burial Ground in lower Manhattan.  On Friday, May 18th, 2012 a sneak peak of the first round of monologues was performed at The Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz Memorial Educational Center in Upper Manhattan.  The work with contributions from the ASP Writers Collective is intended to be multi-faceted and include performance texts, publications, and detailed writings on the process as it travels to venues around the country. 

For more information about any of these projects or about the Dramaturg Driven Grants, contact LMDA's Vice President of Programs Stephen Colella at  or Administrative Director Danielle Carroll.

Images: 1) Poster from Little Black Dress INK’s Female Playwrights ONSTAGE Project. 2) ASP post-reading discussion with Dramaturg Shawn Rene Graham, writer Cori Thomas, Director Melissa Maxwell, writer Cassandra Medley, and Producing Artistic Director Judy Tate.