Opps not-to-be-missed

I’m sure you’ve seen these many other places by now, but I wanted to direct your attention once again to a couple of terrific local opportunities with deadlines rapidly approaching.

Dan Blask from the Massachusetts Cultural Council wants to make sure we remember to apply for MCC’s 2013 Artist Fellowship in Dramatic Writing. BPT alums Steve Barkhimer, Melinda Lopez, and Masha Obolensky are all past recipients of grants from MCC, so apply, people! Here are the details:

The Massachusetts Cultural Council is now accepting 2013 Artist Fellowships applications in Dramatic Writing. The deadline to apply is October 1, 2012. The program awards unrestricted grants of $7500 through a competitive, anonymously-judged process.

Steve Barkhimer on the Adventurous Life

Steve Barkhimer

Revered Boston actor (currently appearing with fellow BPT alum Richard Snee in Alan Ayckbourn's Living Together at Gloucester Stage), director and alumni playwright Steven Barkhimer talks to us amid a hundred projects. We caught up with him on email. 

What are you working on now?
I’ve been enlisted to help create a set of shows, three of which previewed as workshop productions in April and May 2011. Ben Evett, who started the Actors Shakespeare Project, had an idea for a theatre event, a sort of mini-series, which would be neither a fixture like Shear Madness nor simply an open-ended soap-opera. The hope, of course, is to have a number of shows, each of which stands independently and is satisfying in itself, but would spark an interest in seeing the whole series.

I’m working, incrementally, on writing and re-writing several other plays, including one for which the Massachusetts Cultural Council kindly granted me an Artist Fellowship Award. That one is fancifully autobiographical; among the others are a historical drama in verse and song, one is more brooding American-mythic, another is science-as-performance-piece; another is an adaptation of ancient classic from India -- I'll spend six weeks of my summer in India, in fact, trying to enlist some reliable assistance on that.

I’m slated to appear in, and provide music for, a production of Twelfth Night for the Actors Shakespeare Project this fall and will direct The Merry Wives of Windsor for them in the winter. Very exciting.

MCC budget update

From the Massachusetts Cultural Council Web site, an update:

The Massachusetts House Committee on Ways & Means proposed a budget that would cut funding for the arts, humanities, and sciences by $1.65 million, or 18 percent.

Thanks to your advocacy, more than a quarter of the Massachusetts House of Representatives signed on to an amendment to stop further cuts to state funding for the arts, humanities, and sciences through the MCC.

What you can do now:

Contact your Massachusetts House Representative before April 25:

    * Urge him/her to support Amendment # 417 and stop the cuts to arts and cultural funding through the MCC!

House Ways & Means Budget Proposes Another Significant Cut to Arts & Cultural Funding

From the Mass Cultural Council Web site yesterday -- budget cuts would mean an 18% cut to MCC funding.

(Boston, MA) - The House Ways & Means Committee today released a proposed state budget for the coming fiscal year that would significantly cut support for the arts, humanities, and sciences through the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC).

The House panel recommends $7.5 million for MCC for fiscal year 2012. That would cut $1.65 million, or 18 percent, from the agency's current budget. If enacted, this budget would represent a cumulative cut of 41 percent to MCC's budget since 2009.

The Governor's proposed budget had cut cultural funding by $700,000; the House Ways & Means version represents a cut of nearly $1 million on top of that.

Barkhimer, Obolensky awarded MCC grants

Steve Barkhimer

BPT alums Steve Barkhimer and Masha Obolensky are among the 29 Massachusetts artists recognized by the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC) for creating work of exceptional quality in the disciplines of music composition, playwriting, and sculpture/installation.

Steve was awarded a $7,500 unrestricted grant; Masha was distinguished as a finalist, and awarded a $500 grant.

MCC's Artist Fellowships recognize the unique contribution made by artists to the cultural vitality of the Commonwealth. The fellowships provide direct assistance to Massachusetts artists to recognize excellence and creative ability, and to support further development of their talents. MCC chronicles the impact of these awards in the Fellows Notes section of its blog, ArtSake. Over the years, many artists of national and international prominence have won MCC fellowships.

Congratulations, guys! (Okay, Bark – now you *have* to finish the fish play!)