Theater News

Two River Theater Honored With Grant From The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation

The grant will support a Red Bank residency for playwright Tanya Saracho and director Jerry Ruiz.

Tanya Saracho will write a play about the experiences of Red Bank's Latino community as part of Two River Theater's Building Demand for the Arts program.
Tanya Saracho will write a play about the experiences of Red Bank's Latino community as part of Two River Theater's Building Demand for the Arts program.

Two River Theater announced that the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation has awarded the theater a $40,000 grant through the foundation's Building Demand for the Arts program, which launched last year. The program funds inventive partnerships that create new methods for developing the public's interest in and access to the performing arts.

The grant will fund a residency for playwright Tanya Saracho and director Jerry Ruiz to focus on building demand for theater among Latino audiences. To that end, Saracho and Ruiz will create and lead storytelling workshops for Red Bank's Latino community, bringing them into direct contact with the process of creating theater and allowing them to experience the art form as something that is vital and relevant to them. Two River will then commission Saracho to write a play about the experiences and challenges that are specific to this community. The play will be developed at the theater and directed by Ruiz.

Two River Theater produces an eight-play season on two stages, including classics, new plays, and musicals. The company offers new-play commissions and artistic development activities that support adventurous artists in the American theater, invites its audience to be part of the creative process through readings and open rehearsals, and cultivates students and young people to participate in innovative arts-education programs.