(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 are now being accepted for the 2024 GreenStage Artists’ Awards. As many as three $5,000 grants will be available to fund the creation or completion of original, new work for premiere at the next GreenStage Live Arts festival, tentatively scheduled for mid-August 2025.
Applications are being 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 are eligible.
The application window is open from 9 a.m. on Friday, May 10, until 11:59 p.m. on Monday, July 22, 2024. Applications received after that date will not be considered. They'll be judged on artistic merit, originality, innovation, and cultural or social relevance consistent with the festival's mission. Panels of GreenStage judges—one for each category—will evaluate applications in July and August, and the GreenStage programming committee will review the panels' votes and make the final selections. Recipients will be notified in early September; they'll have approximately one year to complete their work and ready it for performance.
See the official rules and judging criteria here. Please read them carefully before applying. You'll find a link to the application form at the end of the rules.
Since 2018 we've granted a total of $27,500 to 11 performing artists, premiering three new works 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 live. The Artists' Awards 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.
To date 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.