Program Details:
Please note: There are hyperlinks throughout the program description. Please click on them to learn more detail about the theatre before filling out the application.
The Resident Artist (RA) at Actors Theatre of Louisville will be a key collaborator, a part of the artistic leadership team, and have access to all aspects of the organization. The RA’s specific projects will be matched with their strengths and interests based on the projects that are lined up for the upcoming year and new opportunities that arise in various stages of development. The theatre’s goal is to provide programming that is responsive to the community and in pursuit of the organizational mission and values. Actors Theatre is looking for a director or choreographer who has a multi-disciplinary background and is interested in being at an organization in a moment of transition and transformation. The RA may also have an interest in transmedia, which Actors Theatre of Louisville defines as storytelling across multiple media creating a cohesive experience. Recent projects range from the world premiere of Still Ready to resiliency workshops for healthcare workers in partnership with The Clinic to Ali Summit in virtual reality to the award-winning animated short film, The Breasts of Tiresias.
Actors Theatre of Louisville mission: Actors Theatre unlocks human potential, builds community, and enriches quality of life by engaging people in theatre that reflects the wonder and complexity of our time.
Please visit this link on the website and read Actors Theatre of Louisville’s vision, about us, and land acknowledgement before filling out the application.
Areas of focus: An ongoing commitment to exploring new work, the intersection of arts and wellness, and emergent technology.
In designating this program for mid-career artists, the Resident Artist will very likely have other artistic obligations throughout the year of their residency. To support the RA, the host theatre will be flexible in providing leave and virtual work time for these obligations. Portions of this residency will take place remotely while in Kentucky/Indiana and in-person at the theater, depending on the circumstances of a theater’s given region as it relates to the ongoing pandemic. The theater is committed and asks that the RA be willing to be flexible with the reality of the pandemic to do all activities in the safest way based on the latest health guidance.
An SDCF committee will evaluate the Resident Artist applications along with the host theatre staff. The selection committee includes Justin Emeka, Kent Gash, Anne Kauffman, Chay Yew, and staff from the host theatre. The host theatre will conduct interviews with the Resident Artist finalists in July 2022.
For the Resident Artist’s eligibility requirements, click here.
Applications for the 2022 Richards Residency are now closed.
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 2022 Lloyd Richards New Futures Residency is made possible with support from Miranda Family Fund, Judi & Douglas Krupp, Concord Theatricals, Allison Thomas, as well as support through the SDCF fellowship funds named for Shepard and Mildred Traube and Sir John Gielgud, and 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.