Playwrights Horizons Receives $2 Million Grant to Develop Musicals

Playwrights Horizons has been awarded its largest-ever grant, $2 million from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, to create a fund to develop new works of musical theater in partnership with regional theaters. The program aims to commission at least four new works and develop and produce three or four full-scale productions. Each will be produced both at the regional partner and at Playwrights Horizons, keeping them in the nonprofit system from start to finish.

“This is the 30th anniversary of Playwrights Horizons’ musical theater program,” artistic director Tim Sanford said in a statement. “This grant is an enormous step toward making sure that new musicals—regardless of their commercial potential—can continue to be developed and produced across the country. While producing musicals in partnerships with commercial producers has been fruitful for many institutions, the Mellon Foundation grant will allow us to create partnerships with like-minded institutions across the country without having to rely on support from the commercial world.”

Musical developed at Playwrights Horizons include Grey Gardens, James Joyce’s The Dead, Floyd Collins, Assassins, Sunday in the Park with George and the Falsettos trilogy.