ADVOCACY GRANTS

Below are excerpts of grant proposals I have written for education, public service and arts organizations engaged in making a difference in the lives of children, their communities and their constituents.

REAL PEOPLE THEATER AT THE PERFORMING GARAGE

An excerpt from proposals written for the Educational Outreach Company of The Wooster Group:

"Bushwick High School English teacher Stephen Haff, and founding Wooster Group Member, Kate Valk, hope to expand an existing relationship between the school and the theater company by creating Real People Theater at The Performing Garage, a partnership that will allow a fledgling company of theater students to apprentice under the tutelage of The Wooster Group.

Real People Theater Background

The Bushwick section of Brooklyn, New York, is a predominantly Dominican and Puerto Rican neighborhood plagued by poverty, drug abuse, teen pregnancy and violence, much of it gang related. Bushwick High School is a Title I school with the highest drop out rate in Brooklyn and the third highest drop out rate in the metropolitan area.

When Stephen Haff joined the faculty as a Freshman and Senior English teacher, the school had no drama program or theater facility. As an exercise, he asked his students to rewrite scenes from Romeo and Juliet as the characters would speak if they were members of the students’ Latino culture. His aim had been to personally engage a class who felt coerced into studying the play, but the students took the assignment one step further and asked to stage what they had written. Mr. Haff, who earned his Masters in Theater from the Yale School of Drama, mentored the project as they recruited friends and reworked the entire play, changing sections into Spanish and street slang, while leaving other passages as Shakespeare wrote them. The students formed themselves into a theater company named Real People Theater (RPT) for its honest expression of their own experience.

It has been two years since RPT first began rehearsing (as it continues to do) during lunch hours and after school to recreate classic plays in the students’ own vision and voice. Without outside funding, school sponsorship or any theatrical elements such as props, sets, lights or costumes, the company has performed Romeo y Julieta, Hamlet: The Prince of Brooklyn, Bernarda Alba’s Crib #26B (La Casa de Bernarda Alba), and Waiting for Lefty at Fordham University (Lincoln Center), Brooklyn College, Eugene Lang College, New York University and Bennington College in Vermont, in addition to the professional theaters The Flea, New Dramatists and The Wooster Group's Performing Garage. RPT has also performed by invitation for the Chancellor's Conference on Theater and Literacy at the Duke Theater on 42^nd Street, and at the Brooklyn Museum, for the Project Freire Literacy Conference. Real People Theater, which started as a self-motivated, loose assembly of students and their teacher was proving to be a powerful agent of change in the Bushwick students’ lives."

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS GRANT WRITTEN FOR READWORKS, A NON-PROFIT EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE COMPANY

GENERAL OPERATING SUPPORT PROPOSAL FOR THE LEAGUE OF PROFESSIONAL THEATRE WOMEN, AN EDUCATION AND ADVOCACY ORGANIZATION

The League of Professional Theatre Women (LPTW) was established in 1981 and includes over 500 local, national, regional and international members, all of whom are outstanding creators in their theatre communities.

The LPTW is dedicated to creating opportunities and increasing visibility for women in the professional theatre.

Professional Development

The professional development component of the LPTW serves our members by providing them with the tools they need to reach a broader audience base and a wider network of collaborators. Through programming and mentorships, and by facilitating opportunities for discussion, we focus on the prime areas of interest to our demographic as women in the theatre industry.

Advocacy

LPTW serves theatre women who are under-represented at the professional Broadway and Off-Broadway levels, in the independent Off-Off Broadway milieus, and in regional theatres. Despite the fact that women were highly instrumental in establishing the American Regional Theatre Movement, our contributions are not reflected in the number of leadership positions women hold at major non-profit theatres. Although women have been active in commercial theatre for well over a century, our producing and artistic contributions remain mostly invisible. Parity for women theatre artists is still a necessary goal, and for women of color the situation is even more dire.

GENERAL OPERATING SUPPORT GRANT WRITTEN FOR SWEETP BAKERY, A NON-PROFIT BAKERY AND SCHOOL THAT TEACHES AND EMPLOYS DEVELOPMENTALLY CHALLENGED ADULTS

Mission and Purpose

Sweet P Bakery is a professional bakery, retail operation and café that provides a skills building program for adults with physical and/or intellectual challenges. Our courses train this unique population to work as staff within our operation or with bakeries and retailers throughout Fairfield County. As adults with disabilities age out of schools and programs designed for young people, Sweet P Bakery fills the gap with an education in life skills that can lead to meaningful employment, financial independence, and social connectivity. Our café serves as a place of employment for our graduates, an income stream that supports our work as a non-profit, and as a community center that brings together special needs adults with the population around them. Finally, our cafe will serve as a learning center for other retailers wishing to integrate special needs adults with their regular staff, as our professional administrative team will lead monthly workshops on how to work with this population with sensitivity and compassion.