Past
Grantees

Chris Watts is a visual artist currently working in New York, NY. Through the transfiguration of painting, drawing, video, and installations his work revises, interrogates, and re-examines social and personal narratives. This re-examination is not to simply supplement a new narrative, but to create a project of disruption. These works have been exhibited at the Monica King Contemporary, New York; Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, MI; David Klein Gallery, Detroit, MI; Knockdown Center, Queens, NY; Winston Salem State University, NC; Greensboro College, NC; and the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris, France.

Watts completed residency programs at the Marek Maria Pienkowski Foundation, Chelm, Poland (2019); the McColl Center for Art + Innovation, Charlotte NC (2019 and 2010); Henry Street Settlements Abrons Arts Center, New York, (2018); and the Lower Manhattan Culture Council Workspace Program, New York, NY (2016-2017). He participated as a Fellow in the Art & Law Program at Cornell University, NY (2018). He received training from the College of Arts + Architecture at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte and from the Yale University School of Art.

Kit Yan and Melissa Li are a Queer Asian-American musical theater writing team based in New York City. They are 2019 Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellows, MacDowell Colony Fellows, Lincoln Center Writers-in-Residence, and 2019-2020 Musical Theater Factory MAKERS. Their works include Interstate, which had its world premiere in March 2020 at Mixed Blood Theater and won “Best Lyrics” at the 2018 New York Musical Festival, and MISS STEP, which was commissioned by The 5th Avenue Theater’s first draft program and won a 2019 Vivace Award from the Bret Adams and Paul Reisch Foundation. Most recently, they completed a one-act musical called Cancelled, a commission by Keen Company.

Their work has been supported by The 5th Avenue Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Weston Playhouse, NewYorkRep, Goodspeed Musicals Johnny Mercer Colony, The Village Theater, Musical Theater Factory, Dixon Place, and many others.