Lloyd Richards with his Tony Award for Best Direction for Fences, 1987 PHOTO c/o the Lloyd Richards Estate (Lloyd Richards Papers, Yale University).
The Lloyd Richards New Futures Residency is a yearlong residency for mid-career BIPOC directors and choreographers interested in artistic leadership. Named for a legendary leader of the American Theatre, the goal is to forge new alliances between artists pursuing institutional leadership and forward-thinking Artistic Directors that are working to increase diversity and cultural access within the American Theatre. Host theaters are chosen based on the AD’s commitment to providing and/or increasing access and opportunities to BIPOC communities within their theater as well as a vision to impact both the local community and the overall industry. The Resident Artist and AD will collaborate on discovering new solutions to address our rapidly changing field. As the resident artist is exposed to the full spectrum of the job of an AD, they become a valued member of the organization’s artistic staff in this mutually beneficial relationship.
Each Resident Artist in the program, now in its third year, receives a $40,000 grant along with additional assistance with housing, travel, and health insurance. The Resident Artist is also guaranteed the opportunity to direct or choreograph a production at the host theatre within three years of the residency.
The Lloyd Richards New Futures Residency was started in 2020 and in the inaugural year, which was specifically open to Black artists, Shá Cage and Elizabeth Carter were named the Lloyd Richards New Futures Resident Artists in 2021. Shá Cage spent the year-long residency with the Cornerstone Theater Company under the Artistic Director, Michael John Garcés in Los Angeles, while Elizabeth Carter was mentored by Oregon Shakespeare Festival Artistic Director Nataki Garrett. To learn more about these two artists, please click here.
In its second year, which expanded the residency to BIPOC directors and choreographers, Kendra Ware was named the Lloyd Richards Resident Artist. She is spending the yearlong residency Actors Theatre of Louisville with Mentor Executive Artistic Director Robert Barry Fleming. To learn more about Kendra, click here
Jon Royal has been selected as the 2023 Lloyd Richard New Futures Resident Artist. To learn more about him and the host theatre, please click here.
9/23/24 update – Updates are being made to this program. Information about the next round of the Lloyd Richards New Futures Residency should be announced by October 2024.
About Lloyd Richards:
The 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.
Support for the Residency:
SDCF has received a $150K Grant from The Charles and Lucille King Family Foundation. Please click here to read about the announcement.
The 2023 Lloyd Richards New Futures Residency is made possible with support from The Diana King Memorial Fund presented by The Charles and Lucille King Family Foundation, the Miranda Family Fund, Jujamcyn Theaters, Concord Theatricals, and support through the SDCF fellowship funds named for Shepard and Mildred Traube and Sir John Gielgud, and many generous individuals.
