The Resident Artist at Cornerstone Theater Company will be a member of Cornerstone’s ensemble and senior artistic staff and will have the opportunity to support, develop and helm community-based artistic projects, in accordance with the company’s collective, consensus-based organizational structure.
At Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Resident Artist will curate, produce, and be on the creative team for projects on O!, OSF’s digital platform, and will be part of the OSF’s repertory producing team working towards a more sustainable and equitable relaunch of the company’s in-person season in 2021.
We expect portions of this residency to take place virtually, depending on the circumstances of a theatre’s given region. Also, in designating this program for mid-career artists, the Resident Artist will likely have other artistic and/or personal obligations throughout the year of their residency. To support the Resident, the host theatre will be flexible in providing leave and participating virtually for these obligations.
An SDCF committee will evaluate the Resident Artist applications and will share finalists with the host venues. The selection committee includes Mark Brokaw, Lydia Fort, Kent Gash, Wendy Goldberg, Anne Kauffman, Scott Richards, and Chay Yew. The host venues will conduct interviews with the Resident Artist finalists in early February.
Resident Artist applications are now closed for 2021
Background:
This New Futures Residency is named for Lloyd Richards, whose career blazed a trail through our industry. Starting as an actor in 1940s New York, in 1956, Sidney Poitier arranged an interview for Richards with producers to direct Lorraine Hansberry’s new play A Raisin in the Sun. Richards’ work on the production garnered his first of five Tony nominations for Best Direction of a Play; he later won the award in 1987 for his work on Fences. Richards led the National Playwrights Conference (NPC) at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center for more than 30 years, developing work with hundreds of playwrights. From 1979-91, he was Artistic Director of Yale Repertory Theatre and Dean of the Yale School of Drama.
Richards was the first Black director to be nominated for and then to win the Tony Award for Best Direction. Aside from his first nomination for Raisin in the Sun, the other four honored his work directing August Wilson’s plays on Broadway. Richards’ collaborations with Hansberry and Wilson sustained his deepest beliefs about our industry: “We must each bring the wonder of our particular cultural heritage to the context of the here and the now. That is American Theatre—theatre which reaches into the ethnic memory of each of us and is informed by its wisdom, form, and artistry, and brings that to the context ‘now,’ where we all dwell, and informs the now, which provokes and enriches us all.”
In addition to his artistic accolades, Richards was a staunch advocate for artists’ rights as workers. A founding member of SDC, Richards served as president from 1970 to 1980. He received the National Medal of Arts in 1993; he died in 2006.
For Lloyd Richards’ full biography, click here.
The grant is made possible with support from Rockstar Games, as well as support through the SDCF fellowship funds named for George C. Wolfe, Mike Ockrent, Shepard and Mildred Traube, Sir John Gielgud, and Reginald H.F. Denham; as well as many generous individuals.
About Lloyd Richards:
This New Futures Residency is named for Lloyd Richards, whose career blazed a trail through our industry. Starting as an actor in 1940s New York, in 1956, Sidney Poitier arranged an interview for Richards with producers to direct Lorraine Hansberry’s new play A Raisin in the Sun. Richards’ work on the production garnered his first of five Tony nominations for Best Direction of a Play; he later won the award in 1987 for his work on Fences. Richards led the National Playwrights Conference (NPC) at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center for more than 30 years, developing work with hundreds of playwrights. From 1979-91, he was Artistic Director of Yale Repertory Theatre and Dean of the Yale School of Drama.
Richards was the first Black director to be nominated for and then to win the Tony Award for Best Direction. Aside from his first nomination for Raisin in the Sun, the other four honored his work directing August Wilson’s plays on Broadway. Richards’ collaborations with Hansberry and Wilson sustained his deepest beliefs about our industry: “We must each bring the wonder of our particular cultural heritage to the context of the here and the now. That is American Theatre—theatre which reaches into the ethnic memory of each of us and is informed by its wisdom, form, and artistry, and brings that to the context ‘now,’ where we all dwell, and informs the now, which provokes and enriches us all.”
In addition to his artistic accolades, Richards was a staunch advocate for artists’ rights as workers. A founding member of SDC, Richards served as president from 1970 to 1980. He received the National Medal of Arts in 1993; he died in 2006.
For Lloyd Richards’ full biography, click here.