Vanguard Arts Fund

NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FOR THE 2025-26 SEASON!
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Vanguard Arts Fund applications are now open for Olney Theatre Center’s 2025-2026 season. The Vanguard Arts Fund provides developmental support to diverse teams of artists interested in creating theatrical works. We commit to these artistic teams in hopes of producing their work at Olney Theatre Center in a future season. 

The Vanguard Arts Fund was launched in 2017 with a $350,000 endowment gift from the Eugene B. Casey Foundation; the Fund’s success in developing shows we’ve gone on to produce prompted the Foundation to add $1 million to the endowment in 2022.
 

What kind of projects are we looking for?

A successful proposal will include more than one generative artist developing innovative new work or reimagining classic stories. We are also interested in musicals, multiple theatrical disciplines, work that includes American Sign Language (ASL), and immersive storytelling. We emphasize process over product and will work to create an environment in which you can do your best work.

We are proud to have supported many projects led by BIPOC generative artists and encourage artists of every background to submit their work to us. 
 

Past projects include:

In Dahomey: Generative Artists Monty Cole & Breon Arzell
This project is a resurrection of the 1903 first musical performed on Broadway that was written by and starring African Americans. It is conceived as a way to honor the legacy of what has been written and bring it into the present. The original piece, featuring music by Will Marion Cook, book by Jesse A. Shipp, and lyrics by poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, was written as a satire on the American Colonization Society's back-to-Africa movement of the earlier nineteenth century.

Carla Hall: Here I Am Generative Artists Carla Hall, Lori Kaye & Leslie Thomas
About the life of Carla Hall. To be scheduled for a future production.

Built for This: Generative Artists Kira Stone (music & lyrics) and Lauren Gunderson (book)
An Athletic feminist pop musical centering five fierce young gymnasts.

The Music Man: Deaf performer Joey Caverly pitched the idea of a Deaf-hearing production of this classic musical back in 2017. OTC gathered a directing team and ten actors to try out the idea, working on only two numbers. This led to a successful full-scale production in the summer of 2022. The production was nominated for nine 2023 Helen Hayes Awards (and won two!).

A.D. 16: a new musical by Bekah Brunstetter and Cinco Paul, about teenaged Mary Magdalene, was developed in 2019 via a Vanguard workshop.  The show got its world premiere at OTC in 2022. Commercial producer TBD Theatricals has obtained the rights and is planning a Broadway production.

The Joy That Carries You: Pitched during the heart of the pandemic as a response to the murder of George Floyd and rising anti-semitism, co-writers Awa Sal Secka and Dani Stoller received two Vanguard Arts Fund workshops to develop this play, which combined traditional narrative and spoken-word poetry to tell its story. OTC committed to producing the show after its first workshop, and produced it in 2022.  The production was nominated for five 2023 Helen Hayes Awards.

Currently in development:

Artificial: Generative Artists: Prince Gomolvilas, Jeff Liu
After a failed career in standup comedy, Simon has taken a soul-sucking job as an AI
engineer at his younger brother Jetsada’s thriving chatbot company. But when the artistic
bug bites again, Simon decides to leverage the company’s AI technology to write jokes, and
he hits open mic nights once again—much to Jetsada’s dismay. The sparring brother sibling
rivalry reaches epic proportions in this timely yet timeless exploration of a fractured Thai-
American family, the uneasy intersection of art and technology, and the question of what it
means to be human in the modern age.

Okuni: Generative Artists: Naomi Iizuka (book and lyrics), Paul Hodge (book, lyrics and music), and Lisa Portes (director) 
A musical based on 16th-century Japanese Kubuki artist Okuni. Her life sets in motion questions that speak to our present day in uncanny ways: what is the role of the artist in a totalitarian regime? What does it mean to be a woman in a man’s world? How do you survive the vicissitudes of politics, war, and economic unrest? And beyond surviving, how do you make sense of and challenge a corrupt status quo?  Okuni’s story explores these questions and more in compelling, thought-provoking ways.

Pepi!: Generative Artists: Lila Rose Kaplan & Adam Ben-David
Pepi was a Yiddish Drag Ding in the early 1900s. She was born in 1874 to a poor family in Russia and became a cross-dressing vaudeville performer, activist, and observant Jew, a mother, a wife, and the leader of a theatre troupe. She was highly successful and performed all over the world. Our musical is about Pepi Litman and her incredible life. Imagine Hedwig meets Yentl.

What does Olney Theatre provide?

• Up to one week of workshop space
• In 24/25, generative artists were paid $1000 per week and the budget is being set for 25/26, all other artists are paid/contracted based on the project’s need
• For out-of-town creatives: Travel and housing are provided, along with shared vehicles and gas paid by the theater for local travel.
• Casting, dramaturgical work, script supervision, music support, and other possibilities as needed on a project-by-project basis
• With rare exceptions, all-local supporting artists (performers, musicians, etc.)

What scale or project will Olney Theatre Center consider?
Most projects are funded between $10,000 and $20,000, which includes payment for creatives, actors, housing, and transportation.

What does Olney Theatre Center require?
Olney Theatre Center will ask for the right to consider and potentially produce the work, with decisions made within 18 months of the workshop. But we’re not asking for an exclusive right, nor are we asking for world premiere rights. If you get a Broadway production, awesome! We only ask that it doesn’t get produced in the DC/Maryland/Virginia area before we get a shot at it.

Will Olney Theatre Center own the work or idea?
No. Generative artists always own their ideas and the work they create. 

Is Olney Theatre Center open to partnerships?
Yes! In development, in production, in workshops, whatever. We try to operate from a place of abundance, sharing, and transparency, and want what’s best for the generative artists and their work.

Ok, I’m interested, I’ve got an idea, what should I do?