Guthrie Theatre Names Tracy Brigden Senior Artistic Producer
Tracy BrigdenShortly after directing Thrown Stone’s 2022 repertory season, Tracy Brigden was named the Guthrie Theater’s Senior Artistic Producer and a member of the Senior Management Team. This role oversees all artistic team operations at the acclaimed Minneapolis, MN regional theatre, one of the most influential in the United States.
Tracy led City Theatre in Pittsburgh, PA as their Artistic Director for 16 years, produced almost 200 plays, and launched an extensive play development program — including a new play festival. She has also directed new plays around the country, including at City Theatre, Hartford Stage, Atlantic Theatre Company, Barrington Stage Company, TheaterWorks Hartford, Pittsburgh Public Theater, and many more. Thrown Stone congratulates Tracy on this well-earned position and we wish her all the best in Minneapolis!
2022 New Connections Award Honorees
In 2022 we were pleased to recognize RVNAhealth President and CEO Theresa Santoro and Ridgefield Conservatory of Dance Executive Director Amy Piantaggini as the inaugural honorees of the Thrown Stone New Connections Award.
The New Connections Awards were envisioned to recognize individuals who exemplify Thrown Stone’s values and our mission to move, connect, and challenge all who join our theatrical conversation. Each year, the award will focus on a distinct theme that harmonizes with our season. In 2022, that theme was Mentoring Young Women.
The inaugural honorees have distinguished themselves over a number of years as mentors, and have each selected a mentee, who presented their awards in a short ceremony following our opening night performances. Thrown Stone is grateful to these mentors who make a profound difference in our region, and we are delighted to celebrate their work with this award.
Thrown Stone’s 2023 season will feature the world premiere of Seven Cousins for a Horse by Tammy Ryan. Originally commissioned in 2020 with underwriting by the Daniel E. Offutt, III Charitable Trust, this work features a new playwright and a new title. Seven Cousins for a Horse tells the story of Ammi Phillips, the most prolific folk artist in American History, returning to his home town of Colebrook, Connecticut in the wake of a personal tragedy. It is 1848, a time of great change. The Seneca Falls Convention is about to call for women’s suffrage, chattel slavery has finally ended in Connecticut, and there is already talk of a war between the states. But Ammi has work to do. He must capture the likenesses of his cousins, the Kinney family. All they can offer in payment is a strong horse, but that may be just the thing he needs to reset his itinerant career — and find his way back home.
In the late spring of 2021, playwright Tammy Ryan joined the project, replacing Jacqueline Goldfinger, who withdrew for personal reasons. Tammy dove headlong into Ammi’s world with a research trip in late April and a Ridgefield residency in August. By October, she completed a first draft, which was workshopped and read for an invited audience on October 22. Directed by Artistic Director Jonathan Winn, the cast included Thrown Stone collaborators Shannon Helene Barnes, Will Jeffries, Aidan Meachem, and Mark Silence; and introduced our audience to actors Amanda Curtin, Emmanuelle Nadeau, and Marissa Ruben. The performances were received with overwhelming enthusiasm by our invited audience, and a second draft was completed at the end of 2022, which will be workshopped in New York City at New Dramatists in April, 2023.
Seven Cousins for a Horse will open at Ridgefield Conservatory of Dance in July of 2023.
The Surviving Kinney Portraits
Ammi Phillips (Detail), 1848
Thrown Stone Receives ARPA Support from the Town of Ridgefield
In December, Thrown Stone was among the 21 local arts and culture nonprofits to receive a portion of Ridgefield’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds. We are deeply grateful to the town for this unprecedented support. Thrown Stone’s allocation represents about 3.5% of our 2022 budget, and while that is significant, support from patrons like you remains crucial to our mission to develop and present new professional theatre in our region.
Read more at The Ridgefield Press.
The 068 Magazine Playwriting Fellowship
This year, with support from 068 Magazine, The Borman Family Foundation, and the Cultural Alliance of Western Connecticut, we launched the 068 Magazine Playwriting Fellowship and named its first fellow, Phanésia Pharel. The fellowship began February 1, and included a six-month stipend, dramaturgical support, and a workshop of the playwright’s new material. During the fellowship, Ms. Pharel wrote R&B, a play honoring the survivors of gendered violence in the music industry; joined The Wish Collective, a group of pro-choice artists who wrote and performed their play, The Wish, across the United States; completed new drafts of Black Girl Joy, her play set at a home for vulnerable youth in Miami; and began work on a third play, Just the Two of Us, a play about a mother, a daughter, and the American dream. Ms. Pharel also spent the summer with Thrown Stone, assistant-directing our #GirlPower season. With dramaturgical and production support from Thrown Stone, a workshop of Just the Two of Us is planned for this spring. Without the support of Dee Dee Colabella, Kate Borman, and Lisa Scails, this incredible output from a significant new voice in the theatre would not have been possible. Ms. Pharel, now enrolled in the graduate playwriting program at UCSD, put it this way: “I cannot imagine the last six months of my life without this fellowship.”
| A | Donations & Grants | $183,900 |
| B | In-Kind Donations | $30,700 |
| C | Ticket Sales, Concessions, Other | $28,000 |
| Total | $242,600 |
| A | Production, Space Rental, Marketing | $65,700 |
| B | Artist and Other Salaries | $118,600 |
| C | Commissions & Licensing | $18,700 |
| D | Fellowship | $17,500 |
| E | General Operating | $3,500 |
| Total | $224,000 |
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