By Indie Theater, for Indie Theater
Every day in New York City, hundreds of companies and thousands of artists make innovative and deeply original work in independent (downtown or Off-Off Broadway) theaters. This diverse community is the research and development wing of the American theater.
The independent theater sector is a breeding ground of artistic and managerial innovation with influence far beyond its means or visibility. It’s where Sam Shepard, Edward Albee, Eugene O’Neill, Tony Kushner, Al Pacino, Martin Sheen, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Judith Malina, Maria Irene Fornes, Jean- Claude Van Itallie, Lanford Wilson, Charles L. Mee, Jr., Amiri Baraka, Charles Busch, Bernadette Peters, Michael Greif, Sarah Ruhl, Allison Janney, Alex Timbers, Elizabeth Meriwether, Moises Kaufman, Michael Emerson and Mindy Kaling began their careers. The place where Genet and Ionesco were first seen in America. The place where Manhattan Theatre Club and Playwrights Horizons, Hair and Urinetown got their starts.
We celebrate independent theater in New York City — a living cultural treasure — with the LIT Fund, a mechanism for its self-sustainability.
MISSION. The LIT FUND protects, sustains and strengthens independent theater presented in the five boroughs of New York City. In addition to granting vital financial resources to theater companies and individual artists, we stimulate the growth of independent theater by seeding projects that support and develop the community as a whole.
The LIT Fund represents a coalition of companies, venues and artists who contribute 5 cents of every ticket they sell to a pool of money that supports independent theater. We call this the “Nickel Campaign,” and it’s the LIT Fund’s core notion. The Fund will also solicit contributions from patrons of the arts.
Dispensing the Fund: The Fund is apportioned according to three areas of need identified by our community: unrestricted project funding, an urgency/opportunity fund, and an endowment. Through a radically transparent process, funds will be granted to applications made by theater companies or by individual artists, as well as applications for community-wide projects spearheaded by those artists and companies individually or as consortia. The Fund will not operate pay-to-play; if an artist or company meets the eligibility requirements, they can apply and be funded regardless of whether they contribute to the Fund.
