I've been doing a great deal of grant research recently and come to the conclusion that an individual artist without a non-profit institution is basically a funding pariah. Unless they're a playwright. Which brings me to a question-- why is theatre (generally recognized as a collaborative artform) only allowed individual grants to playwrights? Don't get me wrong, I love writers. I have spent my career working with writers. They have earned their place in the funding cycle. However, with very few exceptions, there seems to be only the institutional route for other artists to get their ideas funded and explored. There is exactly one grant for emerging directors as individuals, and that's a grant for observation, not creation. The other individual grants are major (Guggenheim, MacArthur, USA) and take some real established ties to qualify.
Is there a place that funds the generation of non-scripted ideas? Or commissions artists that don't bill (necessarily) as "playwright"? I see more and more theatre companies creating focused commissioning programs that give decent amounts of money (dollar amounts that can sustain an artist for 3-5months) to individual writers. It's a wonderful model and about time we moved from the "we'll develop you with a public reading" mode of developmental support to the "you need to not work a day job and write" kind of support. I suppose, selfishly, I want that kind of focused support for my own ideas without having to run a company or be at home on a computer. I would like to see a paradigm shift in the funding community that grants money to "theatre artists" generating work. Think of it as focused commissioning support that funds the ideas and initial phases of execution-- space, time, and money for the artists involved to create a work -- not the production end of things. Where is the support for interactive, on your feet creation?
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First, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities has a $5,000 grant/fellowship that they offer every 2 years to theatre artists. It's actually not for companies, but for individual artists, and you can use the money for anything from housing to project funds.
They also offer a young artists grant that is project-oriented, so if you wanted you could use the $2,500 from the commission to do a devised piece if you wanted.
What is funny about applying as a theatre person, particularly as a director, is that it is really hard to talk about one's work in "I" statements, as one almost never works as an "I".
At least, I found that to be true in my applications. So much of what we do has to do with harnessing the time and talents of anywhere from 10 to 40 people, give or take, and as a leader one often delegates huge tasks.
Of course, very few theatre artists create without having a company as the foundation for that work - which I think might be a good subject for an upcoming rant. The funding most likely doesn't exist because the need hasn't been articulated. We could have a chicken-egg debate about this idea, but I think that often good programs (especially pioneering programs) attract funding.
In other words: create it, they will come.
(sometimes)
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