(GreenStage Artists' Awards recipients to date: top row, L-R, Noah Baerman, Emily Breeze, Susan Cinoman, Dimensional Dance; middle row, L-R, Julie Fitzpatrick, Skyler Hagner, Jennifer Munro, Denise Keyes Page; bottom row, L-R, Iddi Saaka, Peter Sonenstein, Frances Ortiz and Ted Thomas, Ilana Zaks)
Applications will open soon for the GreenStage Live Arts 2024 Artists’ Awards, which will commission new works by Connecticut artists for premiere at the next festival, tentatively scheduled for September 2025. We'll announce details of the program in the near future, including the specific amount of each grant (a total of $15,000 is available), the application and award deadlines, rules and criteria.
GreenStage has granted a total of $27,500 since 2018 to 11 performing artists, who have created or completed new work—three in dance, five in drama and three in music. The grants have enabled us to bring innovative new works to Shoreline Connecticut audiences, bolster the careers of Connecticut performers and, during the Covid pandemic, provide artists with a bit of income to offset their inability to perform.
Applications will be accepted in three categories: music, dance and drama (which will include all forms of spoken word, including poetry and comedy). All professional performing artists who live in Connecticut will be eligible. Recipients must use the grant to develop original, new work and premiere it at the 2025 GreenStage Live Arts Festival.
The grants are possible in large part because of the generosity of donors through the Community Foundation of Greater New Haven’s Great Give and other festival supporters.
The 2025 festival will again feature dozens of live acts in music, drama, dance and spoken word, performing arts workshops and arts-based community-service projects. Events will take place on the historic Guilford Green as well as in various other locations in Guilford and other Shoreline towns. It will be the fifth GreenStage Live Arts Festival (formerly Guilford Performing Arts Festival) staged; it started in 2017 with the goals of energizing the Connecticut Shoreline with live entertainment, providing innovative arts education, employing the arts in community building and human service, providing a platform for diverse voices, and supporting and showcasing the work of Connecticut artists.
Since 2017, we've presented 132 live shows, 51 public and in-school workshops and master classes, reached a total audience of more than 12,000, served approximately 1,000 students of all ages and contributed more than $1 million to the local economy.