Pittsburgh City Paper: City Theatre launched its Kemp Powers Commission Fund for Black Playwrights in 2020 as a way to support early-career Black theater professionals in Pittsburgh. Through the program, Pittsburgh native and Carnegie Mellon School of Drama graduate Ty Greenwood, the inaugural recipient, was able to develop the play Dependency, a coming-of-age story about high school drug abuse that was staged at the theater's 2022 Momentum Festival.
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Although a short entry, this article on the City Theatre of Pittsburgh is a wonderful example of the strides being made to illuminate the Black Community within theatrical spaces. The article goes on to talk a little bit about the City Theatre’s efforts to hold up Black playwrights, one of which is the Kemp Powers Commission Fund developed in 2020. This fund was created in hopes of creating more opportunities for black theatrical professionals within the early stages of their careers, one of which was School of Drama alumni Ty Greenwood. This article is another example of the modern strides to create equal opportunities for members of a mass amount of marginalized communities, and is an inspiring stride towards upholding the Black Community within our local theatre environment.
This program really excites me because this should be the precedent for supporting Black and other marginalized folks in theatre. While it is important to talk about and celebrate Black theatre makers, the true support comes from tangible opportunities and financial support. What I also love about this program is that it’s not a one time thing - this is a program that will continue to support a wide variety of Black artists and hopefully can expand even further in the future. I’m excited to learn more about the most recent winner, a.k. payne. She seems like an playwright who creates fascinating work and I hope to be able to see a work of hers staged at the City Theatre at some point as well as reading some of her work.
I’ve always been fascinated by playwrighting programs that fund the creation of a new production. This feels like the idealized version of devised work: a fully-funded process where the playwright and creative team can develop a work together, in the room. ‘Devised’ or ‘developing’ work at CMU can sometimes have a negative connotation because it makes calendars and deadlines blurry. When will the project actually be finished? When will the script be frozen for actors to learn their lines and designers to write in cues? I understand this sentiment because our calendar was not designed for this type of process. That doesn’t make it wrong by any means, but it does spark my curiosity about what different structures could be like. City Theatre’s program seems to have the right priorities, and I love that the recipient, a. k. payne, has such a strong connection to Pittsburgh, and some experience at City Theatre itself.
I love programs like this because I feel like it helps create a really specific working environment that leads to real creation. I love that the creative team works alongside the playwright and I think that is an element that is sometimes missing in other playwright programs. The ability to bounce ideas off one another and not be created in a vacuum is really important for all theatre makers i think. I also love that this program continues to support Black theatre practitioners in a tangible way. Often the community offers their support through words but this kind of support with a program and financial backing is so much more impactful and important. I hope in the future we see more of this type of program.
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