SARASOTA COUNTY, FLA.:<\/strong> Andy Sandberg<\/a>, inventive director and CEO of the Hermitage Artist Retreat<\/a>, has introduced that composer and theatre artist Imani Uzuri<\/a> has been chosen because the third recipient of the Hermitage Major Theater Award (HMTA). This nationwide jury-selected prize, established by the Hermitage in 2021 with beneficiant assist from the Kutya Major Foundation, presents one of many largest nonprofit theatre commissions within the nation. Uzuri will obtain a money prize of $35,000 towards the event of a brand new work of theatre, in addition to a residency on the Hermitage\u2019s web site in Florida and a developmental workshop in a serious arts capital in fall 2024.<\/p>\n Uzuri, raised in rural North Carolina, is an award-winning composer, vocalist, experimental librettist,\u00a0improviser, and lyricist. \u201cI am ebullient, in awe, and overwhelmed with joy and gratitude!\u201d she enthused in an announcement. \u201cI am also thrilled that the Hermitage is committed to ecology, preservation, and community. These are values that are significantly important to me as an artist. Receiving this phenomenal award and residency will enhance my artistic life immeasurably and transform the landscape of my theater career.\u201d<\/p>\n The three distinguished finalists for the HMTA embody Nissy Aya, a playwright, educator, and cultural employee; AnnMarie Milazzo, a Tony- and Grammy-nominated vocal designer, orchestrator, and composer; and Daniel J. Watts, a Tony-nominated actor and theatre artist. Each has been awarded a Hermitage residency and fellowship, along with a money prize of $1,000.<\/p>\n HMTA winners and finalists are nominated and chosen by a jury of nationally acknowledged arts leaders within the area of theatre. This yr\u2019s HMTA Award Committee included Christopher Burney, a member of the Hermitage Curatorial Council and the outgoing inventive director of New York Stage and Film<\/a>; Patricia McGregor<\/a>, an acclaimed director and the brand new inventive director of New York Theatre Workshop; and Jeanine Tesori<\/a>, a Hermitage alumna and the Tony-winning composer of Fun Home<\/a><\/em>, Kimberly Akimbo<\/em>, and Caroline, or Change<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cAmid four extraordinary and worthy finalists, Imani Uzuri revealed herself to be a passionate theatre artist who impressed the Award Committee with her heartfelt and inspired vision,\u201d stated Hermitage inventive director and CEO Andy Sandberg. \u201cWe are honored to support Imani as she creates through this commission a compelling and ambitious new musical\u2014a piece that aspires to not only entertain but to build community.\u201d<\/p>\n Uzuri composes, performs, and creates interdisciplinary works, together with concert events, ritual performances, albums, sound artwork installations, and compositions for chamber ensembles, movie, voice, and theatre, usually coping with themes of ancestral reminiscence, magical realism, liminality, haunting, Black American vernacular tradition, spirituality, and panorama.<\/p>\n In an announcement, Uzuri described Lighthouse of the Singing Birds<\/em>, her meant HMTA fee, for which she might be writing authentic music, lyrics, and e book, as \u201can immersive magical realist work of musical theatre centering a young Black girl on the precipice of her 13th birthday\u2014a special one. She lives in an enchanted lighthouse\u00a0and bird sanctuary on a small island (populated with elusive wild horses) surrounded by a Sound with a purple beach (made so by coral) off the coast of the Outerbanks in rural North Carolina with her\u00a0beloved grandmother (matriarch and head lighthouse keeper) and her intergenerational, quirky extended family of artists, including quilters, singers, moonshiners, and instrument makers.\u201d<\/p>\n Previous recipients of the HMTA have included playwright and screenwriter Madeleine George<\/a> and theateremaker and director Shariffa Ali<\/a>. Their respective commissions are anticipated to obtain developmental workshops within the fall of 2023.<\/p>\n In addition to this newly created fee, the Hermitage Artist Retreat yearly awards the celebrated jury-selected Hermitage Greenfield Prize<\/a> (HGP), a $30,000 fee that rotates annually between the disciplines of music, theatre, and visible artwork. Past recipients in theater have included Aleshea Harris (2021), Martyna Majok (2018), Nilo Cruz (2015), John Guare (2012), and Craig Lucas (2009).<\/p>\n The Hermitage hosts artists on its Gulf Coast Manasota Key campus for multi-week residencies, the place numerous and achieved artists from all over the world and throughout a number of disciplines create and develop new works of theatre, music, visible artwork, literature, dance, and extra. As a part of their residencies, Hermitage Fellows take part in free group applications, providing audiences within the area a singular alternative to have interaction with among the world\u2019s main artists and to get a \u201csneak peek\u201d into extraordinary tasks and inventive minds earlier than their works go on to main theatres, galleries, live performance halls, and museums all over the world.<\/p>\n
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