Steppenwolf Theatre Company is pleased to announce that the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation has awarded the theater a challenge grant of $700,000 for the artistic endowment dedicated toward the development of new work.
Steppenwolf is honored to be one of only six recipients of grants awarded to theaters by the Leading National Theatres Program, a joint initiative of both the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, in this round of funding. Other grant recipients include: the Actors Theatre of Louisville in Kentucky, American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Center Stage Associates in Baltimore, Intiman Theatre in Seattle and The Public Theater in New York City.
“Steppenwolf exemplifies the leadership traits the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation seek when selecting theaters to participate in the Leading National Theatres Program,” said Olga Garay, Program Director for the Arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. “Not only is Steppenwolf dedicated to drawing out the talents of its family of artists, but it has proactively sought presentation opportunities throughout the world, providing audiences in numerous countries an opportunity to see one of America’s most talented theater companies.”
This season, Steppenwolf will produce six world premieres – Stephen Jeffreys’s Lost Land, Bruce Norris’s The Pain and the Itch, a coproduction of Moisés Kaufman’s adaptation of Tennessee Williams’s One Arm, an adaptation of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye by Lydia Diamond, Andrew Case’s Pacific and Adam Rapp’s Red Light Winter – and will launch the First Look Repertory of New Work, celebrating new plays.
Steppenwolf must match the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation grant dollar-for-dollar by raising an additional $700,000. We will reach out to all of our stakeholders to help meet the Duke challenge grant. All donations and matching gifts will go to the artistic endowment. When Steppenwolf meets the matching requirements of the Duke Challenge grant, the company will have completed the $21 million fundraising effort Staging the Future: The Campaign for Steppenwolf.
The mission of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation is to improve the quality of people’s lives through grants supporting the performing arts, wildlife conservation, medical research, and the prevention of child maltreatment, and through preservation of the cultural and environmental legacy of Doris Duke’s properties. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation makes grants on a selective basis to institutions of higher education, independent libraries, centers for advanced study, museums, art conservation and performing arts organizations.