The
Billie Holiday Theatre, Under The Leadership of Artistic Director Dr.
Indira Etwaroo, Will Spearhead A Strategic Initiative For Black Theatre
Institutions With A $5 Million Lead Gift From
The Mellon Foundation
The
Billie Holiday Theatre announced a $5 million lead gift by The Andrew
W. Mellon Foundation, historically the largest one-time investment in a
Black theater initiative to support The Black Seed, a national strategic
plan to create impact and thrivability for Black theater institutions
and initiatives.
This initiative is unprecedentedly helmed by a
Black-led artistic institution, The Billie Holiday Theatre, founded in
1972 in response to the Civil Rights and Black Arts Movements and
theater home to the largest African American community in the nation -
Central Brooklyn - in collaboration with three Black-led institutions,
The CRAFT Institute, Plowshares Theatre Company, and WACO Theatre
Center. The Black Seed National Initiative serves as a synergistic
paradigm shift for systemic change in the arts and culture world with a
multi-pronged strategy that includes: The Black Seed Fund fueled by
investments from private and public funders to support a national
think-tank of Black theater leaders, collectively tackling racial
injustices and inequities with up to 50 multi-year impact grants that
focus on replicable models that will develop and leverage national
partnerships, new artistic commissions, institutional capacity-building,
and systemic shifts towards greater equity for Black theater
institutions; The Black Seed National Leadership Circle, which invites
major donor investments for the Black theater field; a cohort of
national networks and coalitions, comprised of Black Theatre Commons,
Black Theatre Network, Black Theatre United, The International Black
Theatre Summit, Project1Voice, and We See You White American Theatre
that will convene twice a year to move the Black theater field forward;
and a national marketing campaign to tell the story of Black theater in
America.
The Black Seed embodies the words of Richard Wright, as
Black theater institutions - “fling [ourselves] into the unknown . . .
to see if we could grow differently, if we could drink of new and cool
rains, bend in strange winds, respond to the warmth of other suns and,
perhaps, to bloom.”
The Black Seed Think Tank will convene at the
Black Theater Network’s annual conference with Black theater leaders
who serve predominantly Black communities and who produce, present,
and/or commission new works and classic works, readings, conversations,
festivals, summits and conferences, and/or performance art, as well as
Black-led institutions focused on Black audience development, all rooted
in the full diversity, complexity, and intersectionality of the Black
experience. This Think Tank will receive multi-year financial and
marketing investments - countering decades of disinvestment and
inequitable funding practices. Based on the Helicon Collaborative’s
research, an estimated $4 billion dollars in philanthropic support is
given by foundations to arts organizations. Almost 60% of that support
goes to the largest 2% of organizations, all predominately white-led and
serving predominantly white audiences. The other 98% of organizations
split the last 42% and arts organizations serving communities of the
global majority shared only 4% of those investments. Grants awarded will
support innovative initiatives to strengthen Black theater
infrastructures to better serve Black theater artists, audiences, and
communities. Up to 50 Black theater institutions will be awarded one to
three-year grants, ranging from $30,000 to $300,000 via a selection
process by an adjudication panel consisting of experts in the field.
The
Black Seed’s three-year national strategic initiative has a fundraising
goal of $10 million to be comprised of private and public funders, as
well as individual donors.
An RFP requesting proposals from Black theatre institutions will be announced October 2020.
For more information about The Black Seed National Initiative, please email TheBlackSeed@restorationplaza.org
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