Van Lier Fellowship

2024-25 Van Lier New Voices Fellows

Alex Lin

kanishk pandey

With the support of The New York Community Trust and the Jerome Foundation, the Van Lier New Voices Fellowship was rehomed from The Lark to Rattlestick in 2022 after its closure. This fellowship provides substantial support to two playwrights of color under 30 each year. Fellows receive a $35,000 living stipend, a $5,000 artistic fund to support career development, mentorship with a veteran playwright, workshops and readings of their work, and participation in Rattlestick’s artistic communities and programming.

We're excited to announce our 2024-2025 Van Lier Fellows: Alex Lin and kanishk pandey.

“We are thrilled to kick off the 2024-2025 Van Lier New Voices Fellowship. Our new cohort, Alex Lin and kanishk pandey, will spend the year at Rattlestick, advancing their careers through mentorship, workshops, and collaboration with our staff and community. Alex and kanishk are remarkable writers whose work is both playful and fearless, searing and adventurous. I am honored and grateful to support the invaluable art they will create this year and eagerly anticipate sharing their work with our community.”

- Will Davis, Artistic Director

About the Van Lier New Voices Fellowship

This program provides substantial support to two playwrights of color under 30 annually, including a $35,000 living stipend, a $5,000 artistic fund, mentorship with a chosen mentor playwright, workshops and readings of new work, as well as participation in Rattlestick's larger artistic network. The Van Lier New Voices Fellowship is funded by The New York Community Trust and the Jerome Foundation.

Since 2011, the Fellowship has supported sixteen playwrights including Susan Soon He Stanton, Christopher Oscar Peña, Anna Moench, Donja R. Love, C.A. Johnson, Christina Quintana, Brittany Allen, David Zheng, Erika Dickerson-Despenza, Xavier Galva, Ife Olujobi, Edison Ventura Mata Diaz, Zora Howard, and outgoing 2022-23 fellows May Treuhaft-Ali, and Minghao Tu. These extraordinary playwrights have produced and presented dozens of works to thousands of audience members both regionally and throughout New York City, with many of these aforementioned fellows garnering Peabody, WGA, Princess Grace Awards, Pulitzer Prizes for Drama Finalists, and Susan Smith Blackburn Special Commendations.

How it works

Each year, two Van Lier Fellows are selected for the Fellowship from a panel of former Van Lier alumni and industry professionals.. Each receives a $35,000 living stipend, a $5,000 artistic fund to support career development, mentorship with a veteran playwright, workshops and sharings of their work, and participation in Rattlestick’s artistic communities and programming. The Van Lier Fellowship is flexible, artist-led, and responsive to the unique demands of the project at hand.

WHO IS IT FOR:

The Van Lier New Voices Fellowship is open to playwrights who:

Reside in, or within 30 mile radius of, New York City.
Are between the ages of 18 - 30 from June 2024 to May 2025
Identify as a BIPOC individual
Are not enrolled in a degree-granting program June 2024 to May 2025.
Demonstrate exceptional talent in playwriting and theater-making, particularly with a deep understanding of the collaborative nature of play-making.
Make a case for how a Van Lier Fellowship would transform their professional and creative lives and why now is the ideal moment for them to participate in the program.

Note: Priority will be given to applicants who do not have other time-intensive writing commitments during the duration of the Fellowship.

HOW IT WORKS:

Stipend
- Each Van Lier Fellow will receive a $35,000 living stipend to be used to best further their goals throughout the year.

Mentorship
- In consultation with Rattlestick Theater, each Van Lier Fellow will be paired with a veteran playwright mentor who will read drafts, offer one-on-one feedback, provide professional development, and attend a workshop rehearsal and/or final presentation, subject to their availability.

Sharings and Workshops
- Each Van Lier Fellow will be provided with multiple opportunities throughout the year to share their work in progress with a personally curated group of peers, as well as with Rattlestick staff. The nature of these sharings are driven by the needs of the playwright and should be flexible based on where the playwright is in their writing process. Additionally, each Van Lier Fellow is provided a week-long workshop and invited presentation at the end of their fellowship year (May).

APPLICATION PROCESS:

Applications for the Van Lier Fellowship open in January 2024. Applicants are asked to submit a play you have written that you believe is most representative of your work/style. The play does not need to be complete, but please provide the fullest, most up to date version possible. They are also asked to verify their eligibility.

Each application is thoughtfully reviewed by a diverse reader pool of Van Lier Fellowship alumni, Rattlestick staff, and industry professionals. Each application is reviewed in the first round by at least 2 different readers. Semi-finalists and finalists are selected through two rounds of consideration and are required to reconfirm their eligibility. Finalists are asked to provide a full length script and are granted an interview with a selection panel made up of Rattlestick affiliated artists and staff members.