Theater News

SPACE on Ryder Farm Announces Plans for 2017 Season

”The Great Comet”’s Dave Malloy, ”The Wolves”’ Sarah DeLappe, and more will be among this year’s residents.

Sarah DeLappe will be among the 2017 residents at SPACE on Ryder Farm.
Sarah DeLappe will be among the 2017 residents at SPACE on Ryder Farm.
(© Tricia Baron)

SPACE on Ryder Farm, a nonprofit residency program for artists and activists housed on a 221-year-old working organic farm in Brewster, New York, has announced plans for its 2017 season of residency programs, including The Working Farm, Family Residency, Creative Solutions Symposium, Creative Residency, Institutional Residency and inaugural Film Lab, and Playwriting Mentorship Residency.

The 2017 residents include Tony nominee Dave Malloy (The Great Comet), Tony-winning costume designer Linda Cho (Anastasia), Erin Courtney (Map of Virtue), Kirsten Greenidge (Milk Like Sugar), Ethan Lipton (Tumacho), Pulitzer Prize finalist Sarah DeLappe (The Wolves); MacArthur Fellow Samuel D. Hunter (The Harvest), writer and scholar Todd London, monologist Mike Daisey, Aleshea Harris (Is God Is), Mike Lew (Tiger Style!), Shaina Taub (Shakespeare in the Park's Twelfth Night), Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Janicza Bravo, actor and comedian Brett Gelman, independent filmmaker James C. Strouse, and legal activist team 5 Boro Defenders as well as companies including the Debate Society, the National Black Theatre, New Dramatists, New Georges, Playwrights Horizons, Playwrights Realm, Roundabout Theatre Company, and Soho Rep.

Members of the 2017 Working Farm, SPACE’s resident playwrights group, are Kevin Armento, Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas, Erin Courtney, Emily Feldman, C.A. Johnson, Ethan Lipton, Shaina Taub, and Andrea Thome (Pinkolandia). The five-week residency culminates in the Roving Dinner, an eight-course farm fresh meal paired with excerpts from the resident's new plays and served at historic locations around Ryder Farm.

Participants in the 2017 Creative Residency program, which supports artists and social activists with weeklong stays on Ryder Farm, include Brittany Allen, Ama Codjoe, Sam Chanse, Shayok Misha Chowdhury, Cusi Cram, Halley Feiffer, Katherine Fritz, Donnetta Grays, MJ Kaufman, Kimbritive with Brittany Brathwaite and Kimberly Huggins, Abe Koogler, Kris Kukul, Dane Laffrey, Martin Moran, Isaac Oliver, Sam Pinkleton, Jen Silverman, Charly Simpson, Keith Randolph Smith, Daniella Topol, Jenny Rachel Weiner, and Stefanie Zadravec.

Among the participants in the Creative Solutions Symposium, a weeklong residency for activists and human rights organizations creatively addressing social justice issues, are 5 Boro Defenders, a coalition of New York City public defenders, and How Our Lives Link Altogether (HOLLA!), a youth community organizing organization dedicated to social justice.

This season, SPACE pilots two new residency programs. The Film Lab brings together a diverse group of early and mid-career filmmakers and their collaborators to offer one-on-one consultations with established industry professionals, artists, subject-matter experts and thought leaders. Residents include Janicza Bravo, Chioke Nassor, James C. Strouse and Anu Valia. The Playwriting Mentorship Residency offers promising emerging writers a weeklong residency on Ryder Farm with access to artistic and professional guidance from Obie winners Adam Bock (A Life) and Lucy Thurber (Transfers).

Now in its third year, the Family Residency, in association with the Lilly Awards Foundation, hosts working artists and their children for a weeklong residency designed to give parents space to work on their craft in a retreat environment while SPACE staff facilitate creative and nature-focused programming for their children. The 2017 Family Residency participants include Linda Cho, Terrance Flynn, Kirsten Greenidge, Mary Hamilton, Karen Hartman, Aditi Kapil, Todd London, and their children.

In 2017, SPACE has made all individual and small group residences free, granted at least 50 percent of its residencies to persons of color and underrepresented voices and doubled the number of spaces for the Family Residency, in association with the Lilly Awards Foundation.

For a full list of the 2017 residents, click here.