Over $100,000 Awarded to NAMT Member Organizations
for New Musicals & Capacity-Building Initiatives
NAMT has announced the 11 Award Recipients for the 2025/2026 Frank Young Fund for New Musicals Project Development & Production Grants and the 7 Award Recipients for the 2025/2026 Impact & Exploration Fund. The Frank Young Fund for New Musicals (FYFNM) is a major funding program to support NAMT member not-for-profit theatres in their collaborations with writers to create, develop and produce new musicals. The Impact & Exploration Fund (I&EF) is designed to help NAMT member theatres pilot new capacity-building programs to advance their missions and build a library of practices and procedures from which other members can learn. During the 2025/2026 season, the Funds are awarding over $100,000 in grants to NAMT member organizations.
“Each year, these grants represent strategic investments in the future of our field,” says Betsy King Militello. “This year’s recipients are introducing artist-centered and organization-strengthening approaches that will serve as models for our entire field. We’re proud to support their leadership and to celebrate the transformative impact they’re making in their communities and across the industry.”
2025/2026 FRANK YOUNG FUND FOR NEW MUSICALS GRANTS
The Frank Young Fund for New Musicals has awarded each of the following member organizations $5,000 to $10,000 to support full productions:
Barrington Stage Company (Pittsfield, MA) for fuzzy by Will Van Dyke & Jeff Talbott
La Jolla Playhouse (La Jolla, CA) for The Heart by Kait Kerrigan, Anne Eisendrath & Ian Eisendrath
Seattle Rep (Seattle, WA) for Freak the Mighty by Ryan Fielding Garrett & Anthony Drewe
Transport Group (New York, NY) for Beautiful Jolie Gabor, Her Glamorous Three Daughters, and Always the Happiness is Life by Michael John LaChiusa
ZACH Theatre (Austin, TX) for Zapata: A Folklorico Superhero Musical by Jesse J. Sanchez
The Frank Young Fund for New Musicals has awarded each of the following member organizations $2,000 to $5,000 to support a workshop or reading:
Center REP (Walnut Creek, CA) for Lewis Loves Clark by Dylan MarcAurele & Mike Ross
MusiCoLab (Philadelphia, PA) for Red & Black by Nick Hatcher, Sheridan Merrick & David Thomas
Prospect Musicals (New York, NY) for Songs for Hands on a Thursday by Jay Alan Zimmerman
Theatre Now New York (New York, NY) for The Sustain by Alice Jankell, Pamela Weiler Grayson & Aaron Drescher
TheatreWorks Silicon Valley (Palo Alto, CA) for The Tell-Tale Heart by Carlos Aguirre
Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre (Chicago, IL) for Things We Don’t Say by EllaRose Chary & Brandon James Gwinn
The Frank Young Fund for New Musicals is overseen by NAMT New Works Director Frankie Dailey, and the recommended Grant Recipients for the Production and Project Development Grants are selected by a distinguished panel of industry. The panelists for the 2025/2026 cycle are Brannon Bowers, Co-Artistic Director, Center for New Work Development at Carnegie Mellon University (PA); Kwofe Coleman, President & CEO, The Muny (MO); Julie Felise Dubiner, Director of Artistic Initiatives, McCarter Theatre Center (NJ); Jacob Harvey, Managing Artistic Director, Fine Arts Building – Studebaker Theater (IL); Henry Tisch, Producer, Key to the City Productions (NY); Abbie Van Nostrand, Client Relations & Community Engagement Consultant, Concord Theatricals (NY); and Julianne Wick Davis, Program Director for Writing & Production for Musical Theater, BerkleeNYC (NY).
Recipients of Writers Residency Grants, also part of the Frank Young Fund for New Musicals, will be announced later this year.
2026/2026 IMPACT & EXPLORATION FUND GRANTS
The Impact & Exploration Fund, with generous funding from the Capdevilla Gillespie Foundation, has awarded each of the following member organizations $1,000 to $5,000 to support their projects:
The 5th Avenue Theatre (Seattle, WA) for Be a SUFF: A Community Engagement Initiative
Asolo Repertory Theatre (Sarasota, FL) for ASL-Interpreted Performances
Constellation Stage & Screen (Bloomington, IN) for PB&J Café: A Dinner Theatre for Kids
Flint Repertory Theatre (Flint, MI) for ASL Incorporation
La Jolla Playhouse (La Jolla, CA) for Mobile Technical Theatre Training
The Old Globe (San Diego, CA) for Breaking Bread: Family Edition
Pittsburgh CLO (Pittsburgh, PA) for Reaching New Pittsburgh CLO Audiences
Playwrights Horizons (New York, NY) for Free Community Playwriting Workshops
Prospect Musicals (New York, NY) for Songs for Hands on a Thursday
TheatreWorks Silicon Valley (Palo Alto, CA) for Fiscal Sponsorship Collaboration with Medical Clown Project
Zach Theatre (Austin, TX) for Zach Theatre Website Phase II: Deepening Access and Engagement
The Impact & Exploration Fund is overseen by NAMT Member Services Director Adam Grosswirth, and the recommended Grant Recipients are selected by a distinguished panel of industry leaders. The panelists for this year’s cycle were Jenny Case, Executive Director of Diversionary Theatre and a member of NAMT’s Board of Directors (CA); Victoria Detres, Co-Founder of the RISE Theatre Directory and Manager of the RISE Theatre Program, under Maestra Music (NY); Wendy Gillespie, a San Diego-based Broadway producer (CA); Devanand Janki, an award-winning Director/Choreographer and Artistic Director of Live & In Color (CT); Eric Nelson, Director of Advancement & Audience Strategy at MCC Theater (NY); Dakota Patrick, Operations Manager at Red Mountain Theatre (AL); and John Thew, President of the National Foundation for Musical Theatre (CO).
ABOUT THE FRANK YOUNG FUND FOR NEW MUSICALS
The Frank Young Fund for New Musicals has provided over $1 Million of funding to new musicals over the last 17 years, including A Strange Loop by Michael R. Jackson (NAMT Fest ’19) at Playwrights Horizons; Oratorio for Living Things by Heather Christian (NAMT Fest ’22) at Ars Nova; Eight-Sixed by Sam Salmond and Jeremy J. King at Diversionary Theatre; Soft Power by David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori at both Center Theatre Group and The Public Theater; Renascence by Dick Scanlan (NAMT Fest ’96) and Carmel Dean at Transport Theatre Group; The Band’s Visit by David Yazbek and Itamar Moses (NAMT Fest ’12) at Atlantic Theater Company; When We’re Gone (fka Mortality Play, NAMT Fest ’16) by Alana Jacoby and Scotty Arnold at Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma; Bella: An American Tall Tale by Kirsten Childs (NAMT Fests ’98 & ’12) at Playwrights Horizons and Dallas Theater Center; Ordinary Days (NAMT Fest ’08) by Adam Gwon (NAMT Fests ’08, ’11, ’14 & ‘25) at Adirondack Theatre Festival; Far From Heaven by Michael Korie, Scott Frankel and Richard Greenberg at Playwrights Horizons; The Circus in Winter (NAMT Fest ’12) by Ben Clark, Hunter Foster and Beth Turcotte at Goodspeed Musicals; and Southern Comfort (NAMT Fest ’12) by Julianne Wick Davis (NAMT Fests ’12 & ’19) and Dan Collins (NAMT Fest ’12) at all three grant levels, at Playwrights Horizons, CAP21 and Barrington Stage Company; among many others. To learn more, visit namt.org/FYFNM info.
ABOUT THE IMPACT & EXPLORATION FUND
The Impact & Exploration Fund has provided over $160,000 of funding since 2017, for projects in areas of technology, accessibility, artistic innovation, and more. Past recipients include: Diversionary Theatre to support solar panel installation; Music Theatre Wichita for Child Protection Trainings; Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma’s integration of a Deaf performer into their production of Fun Home; Ars Nova for the creation of an exploratory childcare fund for artists in production; Theater Latté Da to support “Artists Intersecting with Audiences” and “Dramaturgical Cabarets;” TheatreWorks Silicon Valley to expand sensory sensitive performances in their season; Playwrights Horizons to support the Artist Financial Literacy Program; Philadelphia Theatre Company to support accessibility training for front-of-house staff; and more. Grant recipients’ final reports, along with supplemental materials such as video interviews, are shared with NAMT members in a growing online library, The Impact and Exploration Guide, allowing other theatres to learn from and adapt these programs and advances. To learn more, and see video highlights of some of these recipients, visit namt.org/iepast.
ABOUT NAMT
The National Alliance for Musical Theatre, founded in 1985, is a not-for-profit organization serving the musical theatre community. Its mission is to be a catalyst for nurturing musical theatre development, production, innovation and collaboration. Their 140 organizational members and 60 individual members, located throughout 31 states and six countries abroad, are some of the leading producers of musical theatre in the world and include theatres, presenting organizations, higher education programs and individual producers. In 2024, NAMT reached $1 million in awards to member organizations through NAMT granting programs including the Frank Young Fund for New Musicals and the Impact & Exploration Fund. Among the 300 musicals launched by NAMT’s Annual Festival of New Musicals are Come From Away, Lempicka, The Drowsy Chaperone, Lizard Boy, Teeth, Gun & Powder, King of Pangea, Benny & Joon, Darling Grenadine, Ordinary Days, It Shoulda Been You and Thoroughly Modern Millie, among many others, representing 575 writers. This year, 104 students from 27 states participated in the Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge for High School Students, an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with NAMT. Discover more at namt.org.
NAMT thanks the following foundations, government agencies and organizations for their ongoing support of our programs: The Marleen and Kenny Alhadeff Charitable Fund, ASCAP Foundation Irving Caesar Fund, The Sheri and Les Biller Family Foundation, BMI Foundation, Wendy Gillespie (Capdevilla Gillespie Foundation), The Giving Bee Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, The Hollywood Pantages, Lucille Lortel Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Rodgers & Hammerstein Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, The Ted Snowdon Foundation, and Anonymous donors.