MACDOWELL FELLOWSHIP
MacDowell
DEADLINE: September 10, 2024
INFO: About 300 artists in seven disciplines are awarded Fellowships each year and the sole criterion for acceptance is artistic excellence. There are no residency fees, and need-based stipends and travel reimbursement grants are available to open the residency to the broadest possible community of artists.
MacDowell encourages applications from artists of all backgrounds and all countries in the following disciplines: architecture, film/video arts, interdisciplinary arts, literature, music composition, theatre, and visual arts. Any applicant whose proposed project does not fall clearly within one of these artistic disciplines should contact the admissions department for guidance. We aim to be inclusive, not exclusive in our admissions process.
macdowell.org/apply/apply-for-fellowship
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PRINCETON ARTS FELLOWSHIPS
Lewis Center for the Arts
DEADLINE: September 10, 2024 at 11:59pm ET
INFO: Princeton Arts Fellowships, funded in part by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, David E. Kelley Society of Fellows in the Arts, and the Maurice R. Greenberg Scholarship Fund, will be awarded to artists whose achievements have been recognized as demonstrating extraordinary promise in any area of artistic practice and teaching. Applicants should be early career visual artists, filmmakers, poets, novelists, playwrights, designers, directors and performance artists—this list is not meant to be exhaustive—who would find it beneficial to spend two years teaching and working in an artistically vibrant university community.
Princeton Arts Fellows spend two consecutive academic years (September 1-July 1) at Princeton University and formal teaching is expected. The normal work assignment will be to teach one course each semester subject to approval by the Dean of the Faculty, but fellows may be asked to take on an artistic assignment in lieu of a class, such as directing a play or creating a dance with students. Although the teaching load is light, our expectation is that Fellows will be full and active members of our community, committed to frequent and engaged interactions with students during the academic year.
A $92,000 a year stipend is provided. Fellowships are not intended to fund work leading to an advanced degree. One need not be a U.S. citizen to apply. Holders of Ph.D. degrees from Princeton are not eligible to apply.
Past recipients of the Hodder Fellowship and individuals who have had a sustained and continuous relationship with Princeton University are not eligible to apply. Those who have had an occasional and sporadic relationship with Princeton may apply.
To apply, please submit a curriculum vitae, contact information for three references (should the search committee choose to contact references, please do not request letters or have letters sent in advance of a request from the search committee), and work samples (i.e., a writing sample, images of your work, video links to performances, etc.). Please also submit a 750-word proposal that includes how you would hope to use the two years of the fellowship to develop your work, how you would contribute to Princeton’s arts community through teaching and/or production, and how you have encouraged diversity and inclusion and furthered accessibility in your artistic practice, teaching, and/or research.
Applicants can only apply for the Princeton Arts Fellowship twice in a lifetime.
arts.princeton.edu/fellowships/princeton-arts-fellowship/
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MEET THE PLAYWRIGHT
The Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning
DEADLINE: September 13, 2024 at 5pm ET
INFO: The Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning (JCAL) seeks four new, unpublished, unproduced plays by four grassroots, early-career, and/or emerging playwrights for the Meet the Playwright (MTP) program.
ELIGIBILITY: MTP prioritizes writers identifying BIIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Immigrant, and People of Color) that are based in Queens. However, any NYC-based BIIPOC playwright is eligible.
ABOUT MTP: Once accepted into MTP, each playwright meets monthly with the MTP's Project Manager and schedules two private readings of the play to take place at JCAL. Throughout their participation in MTP, each playwright is expected to engage fully, professionally, and with integrity in the development of their selected work.
Each month, from November 2024 to February 2025, one of the playwrights will present at least 25 minutes and no more than 35 minutes of an excerpt from their play as a professional staged reading for an audience. The staged reading begins with an introduction to the playwright and play and concludes with a brief moderated Q&A in which the playwright discusses their work.
BENEFITS: Each playwright will receive a $2,000 Each playwright selected for MTP will receive a total fee of $2,000. With this fee, each playwright covers the cost of engaging a director, actors, and any other collaborator (e.g., dramaturg, designers) they wish.
APPLICATION + SELECTION PROCESS:
Playwrights may submit 10 pages of one play (only) for consideration by a panel of theatre professionals; a 200-word personal statement; a bio; and a resume (production history, if applicable).
The panel will select a group of semi-finalists who will be asked to send an electronic copy of their complete, full-length scripts. Semi-finalists will be notified by Friday, September 20, 2024.
The panel will choose a group of finalists for interviews with the MTP Project Manager and JCAL Leadership. Interviews will take place during the week of September 30, 2024.
The playwrights selected for MTP will be notified during the week of October 7, 2024.
APPLICATION MATERIALS (PDF or Word Only):
Script Sample - Please upload a 10-page sample of the script from a full-length play. The pages don't have to come from the beginning of the play, but they must be 10 consecutive pages (the title page and character breakdown do not count toward the 10 pages).
Letter of Interest - Please answer the question: "How will MTP further the development of your play and advance your goals as a playwright? in more than 250 words.
Bio - Please upload a bio of no more than 250 words. Use the bio to introduce yourself, your goals, writing, accomplishments, and anything else you'd like JCAL to know about you.
Playwriting Resume (Production History, If Applicable) - Please upload your professional resume or production history of your work, if applicable.
All applications and materials MUST be submitted via the 'Submittable.com' link. Applications received by other methods including dropping off or handing to directly to Jamaica Center personnel will not be considered.
CONTACT: Brenda Jones, Curator, MeetThePlaywright@gmail.com
jcal.submittable.com/submit/303017/meet-the-playwright-2024-2025
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VCCA RESIDENCY
Virginia Center for the Creative Arts
DEADLINE: September 15, 2024
APPLICATION FEE: $30
INFO: Residencies can be transformative to an artist’s process and the effect on an artist’s career profound. A residency at VCCA gives artists the time and space to explore and go deeper into their work. Away from the constraints of “the real world” and in an accepting environment of talented peers, one can dream and create with the feeling that anything is possible.
VCCA’s Mt. San Angelo location in Amherst, Virginia, typically hosts 360 artists each year in residencies of varying lengths (no minimum; up to six weeks) with flexible scheduling. A residency at Mt. San Angelo includes a private bedroom with private en-suite bath, a private individual studio, three prepared meals a day, and access to a community of more than 20 other artists in residence.
Nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, VCCA is surrounded by natural wonders and hiking trails. Many local sites and additional inspiration can be found in short drives to Lynchburg (20 minutes), Charlottesville (1 hour), Roanoke (1.5 hours), or Richmond (2 hours).
SELECTION PROCESS: VCCA Fellows are selected by peer review on the basis of professional achievement or promise of achievement in their respective fields. Separate review panels are created for each category (poetry, fiction, nonfiction, playwriting/screenwriting, children’s literature, performance, film/video, book arts, drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, installation art, music composition, etc.). Panelists undergo periodic review and rotate regularly to ensure VCCA admission decisions are guided by high caliber artists who represent a diversity of styles and tastes.
All VCCA residency and fellowship applications are accepted online via SlideRoom. The standard application fee is $30. If the application fee presents a significant barrier to application, artists should reach out to Artists Services at vcca@vcca.com to request an application fee waiver at least five days before the deadline.
FELLOWSHIPS / FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE: A variety of fully-funded fellowship opportunities are available at each application deadline. In addition, significant financial assistance is available throughout the year.
vcca.com/apply/residencies-at-vcca/
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2025 Guggenheim Fellowships
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
DEADLINE: September 17, 2024 by 11:59pm ET
INFO: Guggenheim Fellowships are intended for mid-career individuals who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts and exhibit great promise for their future endeavors.
Fellowships are awarded through an annual competition open to citizens and permanent residents of the United States and Canada. Candidates must apply to the Guggenheim Foundation in order to be considered.
The Foundation receives approximately 3,000 applications each year. No one who applies is guaranteed success in the competition and there is no prescreening; all applications are reviewed. Approximately 175 Fellowships are awarded each year.
During the rigorous selection process, applicants will first be pooled with others working in the same field, and examined by experts in that field. The work of artists will be reviewed by artists, that of scientists by scientists, that of historians by historians, and so on. The Foundation has a network of several hundred advisers, who either meet at the Foundation offices to look at applicants’ work, or receive application materials to read offsite. These advisers, all of whom are Guggenheim Fellows from previous years, then submit reports critiquing and ranking the applications in their respective fields. Their recommendations are then forwarded to and weighed by a Committee of Selection, which then determines the number of awards to be made in each area. Occasionally, no application in a given area is considered strong enough to merit a Fellowship.
We guarantee our advisers and Committee of Selection members, as well as those who submit letters of reference, absolute confidentiality. Therefore, under no circumstances will the reasons for the rejection of an application be provided.
The Committee of Selection then forwards its recommendations to the Board of Trustees for final approval. The successful candidates in the United States and Canada competition are announced in early April.
FAQs:
What are Guggenheim Fellowships?
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants awarded to around 175 selected individuals every year. The purpose of the Guggenheim Fellowship program is to provide Fellows with blocks of time in which they can work with as much creative freedom as possible. As such, grants are made freely, without any special conditions attached to them; Fellows may spend their grant funds in any manner they deem necessary to their work. The United States Internal Revenue Service, however, does require the Foundation to ask for reports from its Fellows at the end of their Fellowship terms.
How does the Foundation define “advanced professional”?
The Foundation understands advanced professionals to be those who as writers, scholars, or scientists have a significant record of publication, or as artists, playwrights, filmmakers, photographers, composers, or the like, have a significant record of exhibition or performance of their work.
How does the Foundation define “performing arts”?
The Foundation understands the performing arts to be those in which an individual interprets work created by others. Accordingly, the Foundation will provide Fellowships to composers but not conductors, singers, or instrumentalists; choreographers but not dancers; filmmakers, playwrights, and performance artists who create their own work but not actors or theater directors.
What is the amount of a grant?
The amounts of grants vary, and the Foundation does not guarantee it will fully fund any project. Working with a fixed annual budget, the Foundation strives to allocate its funds as equitably as possible, taking into consideration the Fellows’ other resources and the purpose and scope of their plans. Members of the teaching profession receiving sabbatical leave on full or part salary are eligible for appointment, as are those holding other fellowships and appointments at research centers.
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2025–2026 CULLMAN CENTER FELLOWSHIP
The New York Public Library.
DEADLINE: September 27, 2024 at 5 p.m. EDT
INFO: The Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers offers Fellowships to people whose work will benefit directly from access to the research collections at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. Renowned for the extraordinary comprehensiveness of its collections, the Library is one of the world’s preeminent resources for study in anthropology, art, geography, history, languages and literature, philosophy, politics, popular culture, psychology, religion, sociology, sports, and urban studies.
The Cullman Center’s Selection Committee awards fifteen Fellowships a year to outstanding scholars and writers—academics, independent scholars, journalists, creative writers (novelists, playwrights, poets), translators, and visual artists. Foreign nationals conversant in English are welcome to apply. Candidates for the Fellowship will need to work primarily at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building rather than at other divisions of the Library. People seeking funding for research leading directly to a degree are not eligible.
The Cullman Center looks for top-quality writing. It aims to promote dynamic communication about literature and scholarship at the very highest level—within the Center, in public forums throughout the Library, and in the Fellows’ published work.
BENEFITS: A Cullman Center Fellow receives a stipend of $85,000, the use of an office with a computer, and full access to the Library’s physical and electronic resources. Fellows work at the Center for the duration of the Fellowship term, which runs from September through May. Each Fellow gives a talk over lunch on his or her current work-in-progress to the other Fellows and to a wide range of invited guests, and may be asked to take part in other programs at The New York Public Library.