Five theaters have received a total of $1.5 million from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to help launch a partnership that will commission plays by writers of color, Broadway World reports.

Through the Generation Now initiative, the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis, Ma-Yi Theater Company in New York City, Latino Theater Company and Native Voices at the Autry in Los Angeles, and Penumbra Theatre in Saint Paul will develop sixteen plays by Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian-American/Pacific Islander writers for multigenerational audiences. The partnership is aimed at radically expanding the inclusiveness of each theater, broadening the canon of work produced for multigenerational audiences, and creating a model of transformative partnership for the field.

"From its inception, Native Voices has been dedicated to supporting Indigenous playwrights and theatre artists and sharing Native stories with audiences of all ages," said Native Voices artistic director DeLanna Studi. "We are excited to collaborate with these incredible cohort theatres on Generation Now to reach across generations and geography, bringing multi-generational, diverse audiences together to appreciate the universal human experience and collectively shape an inclusive, shared future."

"Theaters serving multigenerational audiences are often the first places audiences encounter live theater," said Mellon Foundation arts and culture program officer Susan Feder. "Yet despite decades of activity that has resulted in the commissioning of original stories and adaptations of classical and contemporary ones, the field lacks a repertoire that includes a plurality of voices and stories from emerging and established artists of color. The Mellon Foundation is delighted to be supporting the sixteen artists who will be working with these five eminent theaters to co-develop new plays and musicals serving audiences for whom culturally relevant voices and stories could be formative. We look forward to the development of a significant body of artistically rigorous new work to be produced in multiple venues across the country."

(Photo credit: Penumbra Theatre)