2015-257-E Arts - Deep Dish Theater Company Arts Grant

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DocuSign Envelope ID: F859AB28-066D-45E9-BB24-D873BDC015A0 We have been developing our audience database over the last few years and are now much better able to keep in contact with our patrons. Productions like Jitney, A Lesson from Aloes, Body Awareness, The Clean House, Radio Golf and A Queer Kiss have introduced our work to new audiences within our community and beyond, and have afforded us opportunities to do outreach into new communities as well. Increasing Diversity We are proud of our efforts in this regard. Our programming, casting and staffing continue to reflect the diversity of our community, and we rededicate ourselves to these efforts with each project. With casting,when ethnicity, gender or other specificity is important—or can be important—to the story we're telling,we make sure we get those details right;when it's not, as will be the case with our production of The Cherry Orchard, we embrace non- traditional casting in an effort to break down assumptions and to create a world on stage that at least in its diversity might serve as a model to the world outside the theater. The breadth and depth of our actor, designer and director pools have increased dramatically over the years, and we have expanded and diversified our board as well. Current Programs and Services Four mainstage productions,presented in a season that runs August-May A two-week long New Play Workshop, in which a playwright and her unproduced play have the opportunity to develop that work with a director and actors in our space and gather feedback from audiences. Book Talks, co-sponsored with the Chapel Hill Public Library, on books related thematically to our productions Pre-and Post-show discussions with scholars and artists Occasional presentations by guest artists (e.g. Mike Wiley's Dar He and Susan Stein's Etty) "Cheap Dish"reduced-price tickets Proposed Use of Grant Funds University Mall has told us they can only guarantee that we can continue to occupy our current space through December,2015. As we look for a new and larger space elsewhere,we will conclude our 15 year residency in the mall by doing something we've never done before. We are requesting support for our Fall 2015 event: two shows in rotating repertory. The productions are: 1) Outside Mullingar, a contemporary comedy by John Patrick Shanley about two young Irish farmers trying desperately to hold onto their land and not to fall in love; and 2)Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, one of the most admired and influential plays ever written, in which the inhabitants of a provincial Russian estate find their lives and their culture at a crossroads. These are very different plays, written over a century apart and on opposite sides of the globe, and consequently emblematic of the breadth of work we've been able to produce in our theater over the years;but they have