An update on the 2025-2026 Van Lier Fellowship Application:

Thank you for your interest in the Van Lier New Voices Fellowship, which supports two BIPOC playwrights aged 18–30 with a substantial financial award, annual participation in the Rattlestick Fellowship cohort, and a professional showcase of their new plays each year. Rattlestick is honored to continue to run this impactful program and to be a theater committed to providing thriving opportunities for theater artists.

 Due to a shift in the funding cycle of a key foundation that provides significant support for this program, Rattlestick will open applications for the 2025/26 Van Lier Fellowship in September 2025. Starting in August 2025, potential applicants will have access to guidelines for the materials that the application will require.

 If you have any questions about this change, please email us at vanlier@rattlestick.org."

We recognize that this delay may impact those who would have been eligible this year but will age out before applications open. While we are required to uphold the existing age requirement by our funder, we understand that this may be disappointing. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at vanlier@rattlestick.org.

We look forward to hearing from you.

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.

2024-25 Van Lier New Voices Fellows

Alex Lin
2024-25 Van Lier Fellow

Alex Lin is just a girl from Jersey. Plays developed at Roundabout, Second Stage, NYTW, MTC, the O'Neill, South Coast Rep, New Harmony, Two River, Playwrights Realm, Ojai, CCTP, Central Square Theater, and Theater Mu. Guest lectures at CMU, Rutgers, and Union College. As an actor, Actors Theatre of Louisville, New Victory, HVSF, Ma-Yi, Amphibian Stage, Ojai, CCTP, Jewish Plays Project, and Commonwealth Shakespeare. Susan Smith Blackburn Prize finalist and Weissberger Award nominee. Juilliard. alexandralinholden.co

📸: Sub/Urban photography

kanishk pandey
2024-25 Van Lier Fellow

kanishk pandey is a writer, director, and exile. He uses the label exile, inspired by the works of James Joyce as well as his own experience as a member of the South Asian diaspora, to describe a relationship with nationalism that is forever nomadic and critical. His work is unified by the belief that consciousness can only exist through dialogue. kanishk holds a BFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU. He is an alumni of Clubbed Thumb’s Early Career Writers Group. His play PRISONCORE! will debut as part of the Exponential Theater Festival in January 2025, and his play ,The Fate of the Online Cow, will debut in Spring of 2025 with Synecdoche Works. He is excited to be a 2024-2025 Van Lier Fellow at Rattlestick Theater. (Full bio at kanishkpandey.com)

📸: Lauren Serafica

“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 opened in January 2024. Applicants were asked to submit a play they have written that they believed is most representative of their 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.