NEW YORK - Seven theatres have been selected as recipients of AT&T:OnStage awards for new plays to be produced in 2004. Since 1985, AT&T:OnStage has reflected AT&T's long-standing commitment to innovation and diversity in the theatre arts, with particular attention to the work of women and artists of diverse cultures. To date, ninety-seven new works have been supported at sixty theatre organizations in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada through AT&T:OnStage. For the fourth consecutive year, Theatre Communications Group (TCG) is administering the initiative.

Marilyn Reznick, Executive Director of the AT&T Foundation, stated, "AT&T created the AT&T:OnStage program in 1985 as a way of encouraging and promoting the production of new plays and musicals. Since then, we are delighted that ninety-seven new works have been supported through this flagship program. This year, we salute the seven theatres that are award winners, and we thank TCG for continuing to be our partner in this important philanthropic initiative."

TCG's executive director, Ben Cameron, stated: "We are truly grateful for AT&T's continued support for the arts. The production of these world premieres gives voice to seven significant playwrights, and bolsters the vitality of the American theatre. The quality of the recipient theatres and playwrights confirms the importance of the AT&T:OnStage program to the American theatre, and AT&T's role as a leader in the support of new work."

Grant recipients for 2003-2004 are:

American Conservatory Theater (San Francisco, CA)
Levee James by Sherry Shephard-Massat
February 13, 2004 through March 14, 2004

Berkeley Repertory Theatre (Berkeley, CA)
Fetes de la Nuit by Charles Mee
October 2004 through December 2004

Horizon Theatre Company (Atlanta, GA)
Her Little House by Margaret Baldwin
May 14-June 27, 2004

Manhattan Theatre Club (New York, NY)
Sarah, Sarah by Daniel Goldfarb
March 11, 2004 through June 6, 2004

New York Theatre Workshop (New York, NY)
Light Raise the Roof by Kia Corthron
April 23, 2004 through May 23, 2004

The People's Light and Theatre Company (Malvern, PA)
The Forgiving Harvest by Y York
April 13, 2004 through May 23, 2004

Seattle Children's Theatre (Seattle, WA)
Tibet Through the Red Box, by David Henry Hwang
January 23, 2004 through March 7, 2004

In April of 2003, a select group of seventy theatre companies were invited by the AT&T Foundation to submit proposals for work scheduled for mainstage production in calendar year 2004. In communities across the United States where AT&T has a major business presence, selected theatres were invited to apply, based on their outstanding artistic achievement, commitment to the production of new work, and ongoing work with women and artists of diverse cultures. The invited proposals were for the mainstage premiere of a new play or music-theatre work; first revivals of lost or previously neglected work; newly commissioned English-language translations of plays not frequently performed in English and new theatrical adaptations of pre-existing material for which full-scale remounting offers the potential to expand the canon of literature available for the theatre.

Seven original works were awarded AT&T:OnStage grants for calendar year 2004. A national advisory committee comprised of independent theatre professionals, appointed by TCG with the approval of AT&T, assisted AT&T with the selection process for this initiative. Members of this year's advisory committee were: Gary Anderson, artistic director, Plowshares Theatre Company (Detroit, MI); Kirsten Childs, composer, (New York, NY); David Emmes, producing artistic director, South Coast Repertory (Costa Mesa, CA); Amy Freed, playwright, (San Francisco, CA); James Magruder, associate dramaturg, Center Stage (Baltimore, MD) and Luis Valdez, artistic director, Teatro Campesino (San Juan Bautista, CA).

Past recipients of the AT&T:OnStage grant program include: Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage (Center Stage - Baltimore, MD and South Coast Repertory - Costa Mesa, CA), Bright Ideas by Eric Coble (Cleveland Play House - Cleveland, OH), Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks (Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival - New York, NY); Yellowman by Dael Orlandersmith (McCarter Theatre Center - Princeton, NJ and The Wilma Theater - Philadelphia, PA); Holes by Louis Sachar (Seattle Children's Theatre - Seattle, WA); Ten Unknowns by Jon Robin Baitz (Lincoln Center Theater - New York, NY); The Mummified Deer by Luis Valdez (San Diego Repertory Theatre - San Diego, CA); Violet by Brian Crawley and Jeanine Tesori (Playwrights Horizons - New York, NY); The Cripple of Inishmaan by Martin McDonagh (Royal National Theatre - London, England); Seven Guitars by August Wilson (Goodman Theatre - Chicago, IL); Love! Valour! Compassion! by Terrence McNally (Manhattan Theatre Club - New York, NY); and Unmerciful Good Fortune by Edwin Sanchez (Northlight Theatre - Chicago, IL). (The complete chronology follows.)

AT&T (www.att.com) is among the premier voice and data communications companies in the world, serving businesses, consumers, and government. The company runs one of the most sophisticated communications networks in the United States, backed by the research and development capabilities of AT&T Labs. A leading supplier of data, Internet and managed services for the public and private sectors, AT&T offers outsourcing and consulting to large businesses and government. The company is a market leader in local, long distance and Internet services, as well as transaction-based services like prepaid cards, collect calling and directory assistance. With approximately $37 billion of revenue, AT&T has about 40 million residential customers and 4 million business customers, who depend on AT&T for high-quality communications. AT&T has garnered several awards for outstanding performance and customer service.

Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the American theatre, offers a wide array of services in line with its mission: to strengthen, nurture, and promote the professional not-for-profit American theatre. Through its artistic, management, and international programs, advocacy activities, and publications, TCG seeks to increase the organizational efficiency of its member theatres, cultivate and celebrate the artistic talent and achievements of the field, and promote a larger public understanding of and appreciation for the theatre field. TCG has over 425 member theatres nationwide.

2003-2004 AT&T: Onstage® Grant Recipients

Seven theatres have been selected for AT&T:OnStage awards for new plays to be produced in calendar year 2004. AT&T:OnStage has, since 1985, reflected AT&T's long-standing commitment to innovation and diversity in the theatre arts, with particular attention to the work of women and artists of diverse cultures. To date, ninety-seven new works have been supported at sixty theatre organizations in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada through AT&T:OnStage. For the fourth consecutive year, Theatre Communications Group is administering the initiative.

The 2003-2004 grant recipients are (in alphabetical order):

American Conservatory Theater (San Francisco, CA)
Levee James by Sherry Shephard-Massat
February 13, 2004 through March 14, 2004

In Levee James, set in a steamy small Southern town in the 1920s, a sexy and mysterious woman arrives at the home of her brother-in-law and re-ignites an old passion. Against a background of lynching and racial violence, three individuals struggle to find connection, joy, and dignity.

Berkeley Repertory Theatre (Berkeley, CA)
Fetes de la Nuit by Charles Mee
October 2004 through December 2004

Set in Paris today, Fete de la Nuit is a collage of scenes, images, dances, songs and performance "events." The play examines the Parisians' attempt to reconcile their history with the multiculturalism of the present.

Horizon Theatre Company (Atlanta, GA)
Her Little House by Margaret Baldwin
May 14-June 27, 2004

In Her Little House, the traditional Old South collides with the independent New South when Louise embarks on a weekend visit to interview her Aunt Salt and recapture a moment they shared years before. The encounter between the two women reveals that no life is ordinary and that home exists more in the bonds between people than within the walls of a house.

Manhattan Theatre Club (New York, NY)
Sarah, Sarah by Daniel Goldfarb
March 11, 2004 through June 6, 2004

In Sarah, Sarah, the matriarch of an immigrant family in 1961 Toronto strongly opposes her son's impending marriage. Forty years later, the next generation of this same family travels to China and confronts the past while exploring the ties that bind them.

New York Theatre Workshop (New York, NY)
Light Raise the Roof by Kia Corthron
April 23, 2004 through May 23, 2004

Light Raise the Roof depicts a homeless man's battle to provide housing to those who have none. The play reveals the disenfranchised living underground, below the radar of capitalistic society, and building their own social order and hope for a brighter future.

The People's Light and Theatre Company (Malvern, PA)
The Forgiving Harvest by Y York
April 13, 2004 through May 23, 2004

The Forgiving Harvest is the story of Mika, a widowed farmer's daughter, and Sticky, the prize steer she has been raising, whom she believes is inhabited by the spirit of her dead mother. When Mika realizes that Sticky will soon be sold for beef, she resolves to do everything within her power to keep him from being shipped to slaughter.

Seattle Children's Theatre (Seattle, WA)
Tibet Through the Red Box, adapted by David Henry Hwang
January 30, 2004 through March 14, 2004

Tibet Through the Red Box is David Henry Hwang's adaptation of Peter Sis' book, which tells the story of Sis' filmmaker father, who was sent by the Chinese Communist government to the Himalayas from his native Czechoslovakia in the 1950s to document the Chinese invasion of Tibet. The play touches on conflicts between father and son in the context of wars and occupations both Eastern and Western.

2003-2004 AT&T: Onstage® Playwrights

Margaret Baldwin (Horizon Theatre Company) is a playwright, director and performer. Born and raised in Atlanta, GA, Margaret has produced theatre works throughout the country. Currently she is playwright-in-residence at the Montana Artist's Refuge (Basin, MT), where she is writing plays and developing her Red Cabinet Theater - experimental puppetry in miniature. Her children's play, Alice Through the Wonderglass, was produced in August 2003 by Synchronicity Performance Group at 7 Stages Theatre (Atlanta, GA). Baldwin has an MFA from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop. Her Little House was the first alternate for Playlabs 2003 at the Playwrights Center (Minneapolis, MN) and second place in the Weinberger Residency competition at the University of Cincinnati.

Kia Corthron (New York Theatre Workshop) has written a number of plays and radio plays including Snapshot Silhouette; Slide Glide the Slippery Slope; The Venus de Milo Is Armed; Breath, Boom; Force Continuum; Splash Hatch on the E Going Down; Seeking the Genesis; and Digging Eleven, among others. Corthron has recently received playwriting commissions from Playwrights Horizons (New York, NY), Actors Theatre of Louisville (Louisville, KY) and the Guthrie Theater (Minneapolis, MN). Awards include the Daryl Roth Creative Spirit Award, the Mark Taper Forum's Fadiman Award, NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights, Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, the New Professional Theatre Playwriting Award, and the Callaway Award. Corthron is a resident of New Dramatists (New York, NY) and a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect.

Daniel Goldfarb (Manhattan Theatre Club) made his off-Broadway debut with Adam Baum and the Jew Movie at Blue Light (New York, NY), which won the 2000 NY Newsday Oppenheimer Award, and was nominated for the Dramatists Guild's Hull-Warriner Award. His play Modern Orthodox broke the box office record at the Long Wharf Theatre (New Haven, CT) in 2001. The screenplay adaptation has been optioned by Bob Balaban's Chicago Films. Plays in development include: Dulce de Leche, optioned by Elizabeth Williams and Anita Waxman; musicals with composers David Kirshenbaum and Andrew Lippa; and Double Scoop, a television pilot for Dreamworks. Goldfarb has received commissions from the Roundabout/Nederlander Organization (New York, NY) and South Coast Repertory (Costa Mesa, CA). He is a graduate of the Juilliard School and New York University, where he teaches playwriting and screenwriting, and is a member of the Dramatists Guild and MCC's Playwrights Coalition (New York, NY).

David Henry Hwang (Seattle Children's Theatre) received the Tony Award, and was honored with the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, John Gassner awards, and the 1991 L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award for his Broadway debut, M. Butterfly. He is the author of FOB (1981 Obie Award, Best New Play), The Dance and the Railroad (Drama Desk nomination, Guernsey's Best Plays of 1981-82), Family Devotions (Drama Desk nomination), The House of Sleeping Beauties, and The Sound of a Voice, all of which were produced at the New York Shakespeare Festival (New York, NY). Mr. Hwang attended Stanford and the Yale School of Drama.

Charles Mee (Berkeley Repertory Theatre) has written True Love, First Love, Big Love, Wintertime, Summertime and Vienna: Lusthaus, among other plays. These plays are available on the internet at www.charlesmee.org. bobrauschenbergamerica was performed at the 2003 Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Snow in June will open at the American Repertory Theatre (Cambridge, MA) in December 2003. Wintertime will open at Second Stage Theatre (New York, NY) in January 2004. A Perfect Wedding will perform at the Holland Festival (Amsterdam, Holland) in June 2004. His work is made possible by the support of Richard B. Fisher and Jeanne Donovan Fisher.

Sherry Shephard-Massat (American Conservatory Theater) is the author of Waiting to Be Invited, Someplace Soft to Fall, and Levee James. Waiting to Be Invited has been published by Smith and Kraus in Women Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2000. Shephard-Massat is the recipient of the Adrienne Kennedy Society's Young Dramatists Award; the Roger L. Stevens Award from the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays; a Denver Westword Best of Award; the American Theatre Critics Association's Osborn New Play Award; and the Black Theatre Alliance Award. Levee James has been nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and was developed at the O'Neill Playwrights Conference.

Y York (The People's Light and Theatre Company) has written numerous plays for young people and adults, creating both original works and adaptations. Her work has been produced and workshopped at major U.S. theatres, including ACT (Seattle, WA), Arena Stage (Washington, DC), Seattle Children's Theatre, and the Mark Taper Forum (Los Angeles, CA). York was inducted into New Dramatists (New York, NY) in 1987 and received New Dramatists? 1992 Joe Callaway Award. Other awards include the 1996 Berrilla Kerr Award, 2001 Distinguished Play Award and 2002 Charlotte Chorpenning Award, both from the American Alliance for Theatre and Education. York is a member of the Dramatists Guild (New York, NY) and a recipient of TCG's National Theatre Artist Residency Program grant at Honolulu Theatre for Youth.

AT&T AND THE ARTS

For more than 100 years, AT&T has demonstrated an ongoing commitment to the communities where our employees and customers live and work. AT&T's commitment to public service and philanthropy can be traced back to its founder Alexander Graham Bell, whose work with the hearing-impaired led to the invention of the telephone in 1876 and the formation of the company in 1885.

AT&T sustains a comprehensive corporate giving program, with contributions of over $1 billion in the last 20 years directed toward initiatives in education, health and human services, the environment and the arts. In 2002, AT&T contributed nearly $80 million to not-for-profit organizations and schools. Of that funding, over $10 million went to arts and cultural organizations. AT&T's ongoing support of theatre through the AT&T: Onstage program is an important part of that commitment.

In the past 20 years, AT&T has supported over 1,200 commissions and new productions in theatre, dance, music and opera as well as over 265 exhibitions of contemporary art. While many of these productions and exhibitions have been critical and artistic successes, we are particularly pleased that so many have won awards as well. For example, two commissions with the Boston Symphony Orchestra have won Pulitzer Prizes for Music: John Corigliano's Symphony No. 2 (2001) and George Walker's Lilacs (1996). A commission with the Westchester Philharmonic, Melinda Wagner's Concerto for Flute, Strings and Percussion, won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Music. Suzan-Lori Parks' AT&T: Onstage production, Topdog/Underdog, won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. And, two AT&T: Onstage productions have won Tony Awards for Best Play: The Grapes of Wrath by Frank Galati (1990) and Love! Valour! Compassion! by Terrence McNally (1995).

AT&T's support for exhibitions of contemporary art has covered a wide range, including: the national tour of To Conserve a Legacy: American Art from Historically Black Colleges and Universities; the national tour of Over the Line: The Art and Life of Jacob Lawrence; the national tour of Illusions of Eden: New Visions of the American Heartland; the national tour of Carmen Lomas Garza: A Retrospective. In 2002, AT&T sponsored the exhibitions James Turrell: Into the Light at the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh and Parallels and Intersections: A Remarkable History of Women Artists in California at the San Jose Museum of Art. Currently, AT&T is sponsoring The Art of Romare Bearden at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC and its subsequent tour to San Francisco, Dallas and New York in 2004 and Atlanta in 2005.

AT&T (www.att.com) is among the premier voice and data communications companies in the world, serving businesses, consumers, and government. The company runs one of the most sophisticated communications networks in the United States, backed by the research and development capabilities of AT&T Labs. A leading supplier of data, Internet and managed services for the public and private sectors, AT&T offers outsourcing and consulting to large businesses and government. The company is a market leader in local, long distance and Internet services, as well as transaction-based services like prepaid cards, collect calling and directory assistance. With approximately $37 billion of revenue, AT&T has about 40 million residential customers and 4 million business customers, who depend on AT&T for high-quality communications. AT&T has garnered several awards for outstanding performance and customer service.

ABOUT TCG

Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the American theatre founded in 1961, offers a wide array of services in line with our mission: to strengthen, nurture and promote the professional not-for-profit American theatre. TCG serves over 425 member theatres and over 17,000 individual members.

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