STEPPING STONE GRANTS

Once per year, we accept applications from Chicago-area theatres who are ready to make their next big step. Each Stepping Stone Grant gives $150,000, to be distributed over 3 years. Past recipients include:

2019

Jackalope Theatre Company

Support to hire full-time Artistic Director and Managing Director - From Edgeville Buzz - “We are extremely thankful and humbled to receive this grant from Chef Rick Bayless and The Bayless Family Foundation,” the Jackalope Theatre said on their social media. “This very special honor will help us survive and thrive in the greatest theatre city on earth!”

Lifeline Theatre

Support to hire a Development Manager - From Block Club Chicago - Lifeline Theatre was founded in 1982 by five Northwest University graduates. Three years later, the company moved to its current home, a converted ComEd substation at 6912 N. Glenwood in Rogers Park. “It is no hyperbole to say it is a game changer,” Lifeline Managing Director Allison Cain said in a statement.

2018

Albany Park Theatre Project

Support for ‘Port of Entry’ Project - From Block Club Chicago - The Albany Park company has been based out of the The Laura Wiley Theater at Eugene Field Park since 1999. The grant will help support the production of “Port of Entry,” a collaboration with New York-based Third Rail Project which aims to share Albany Park’s unique history as an immigrant neighborhood. “Port of Entry” will particularly focus on the neighborhood’s history from 1970s to present, Feiner said.“Albany Park has become the neighborhood where immigrants from all around the world live side by side,” he said. The production, like Albany Park Theater Project’s other performances, is being written in collaboration with teens from the neighborhood.

Porchlight Music Theatre

Support to hire a Production and Operations Director - From Porchlight- The newly hired person “will provide production supervision for all of Porchlight's artistic programming at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts and throughout Chicagoland including the Mainstage, Porchlight Revisits and New Faces Sing Broadway productions, major fundraising, additional company events as well as oversee all production-related matters and equipment.The new director will take over duties previously undertaken by Porchlight's artistic and executive directors; thereby enabling them to devote more time to visioning, long range and strategic planning, community involvement, civic engagement, and building capacity for the company's next twenty-five years.”

Steep Theatre

Support to hire Equity Actors - From the Chicago Tribune - "A big part of this is keeping the Steep ensemble working on our stage,” Steep managing director Kate Piatt-Eckert told me this week. “Caroline (Neff) has gone Equity. Joel (Reitsma) is about to go Equity. Michael Salinas is an Equity member who is part of our ensemble and he has not been able to work on our stage in quite a while. We want to make sure we can hang on to the heart and soul of Steep, and we also want to be able to cast a broader net in terms of casting."