Audible Creates $5 Million Fund for Emerging Playwrights -
By JOSHUA BARONEMAY 30, 2017
Audible, the digital audiobook giant, announced Tuesday
that it would create a $5 million fund to commission new works from emerging playwrights — not for the stage, but for people’s headphones and speakers.
Butterfly”); the directors Trip Cullman (“Six Degrees of Separation”)
and Leigh Silverman (“Violet”); and two artistic directors of Off Broadway companies, Oskar Eustis of the Public Theater, and Mimi O’Donnell of Labyrinth Theater Company.
Grant recipients will be recommended by an advisory board made up of theater industry insiders: the actress Annette Bening (“20th Century
Women”); the award-winning playwrights Lynn Nottage (“Sweat”), Tom Stoppard (“The Coast of Utopia”) and David Henry Hwang (“M.
Mr. Katz said he hoped that Audible’s format would help widen the reach of emerging playwrights,
who might otherwise be writing for Off (or even Off Off) Broadway theaters.
Playwrights can apply for grants to cover both “industry standards” for new commissions
and the cost of production, said Donald R. Katz, Audible’s chief executive and a former journalist and author.
