A.R.T./New York is proud to announce the following theaters for the 20th Year Anniversary FY26 Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Design Enhancement Fund! The following 8 companies will receive a total of $57,000 for their productions.
Notch // Creation Story
Design Enhancement: Set
Creation Story is a Southwest-inspired musical that remixes the Hopi emergence tale through a Chicanofuturist lens, blending myth, migration, and environmental collapse with rancheras, baladas, and desert-born sounds. Set in a shape-shifting world of stone and light, the piece follows a writer and her unruly characters as they unravel the mysteries of creation, destruction, and cultural memory.
The Flea Theater // we come to collect: a flirtation, with capitalism
Design Element: Set
we come to collect: a flirtation with capitalism is a new performance artwork created by Jennifer Kidwell, and told in English and American Sign Language (ASL) that melds genres from stand-up to performance art, clowning to carnival, to question capitalism and work-life’s inherent imbalance.
The Bushwick Starr // Gooey’s Toxic Aquatic Adventure
Design Element: Puppetry
Gooey’s Toxic Aquatic Adventure follows Gooey, an insecure “mermaid” with a tail made of the trash polluting New York City’s waterways, and Scabby, the streetwise rat who raised her, as they journey from the filthy canal they call home in search of a better life and gainful employment at Wasteland ThemePark. Gooey’s Toxic Aquatic Adventure is a puppet musical about self-discovery, community and late-stage capitalism.
Et Alia Theater // Blood Orange
Design Element: Set
Blood Orange by Abigail Duclos is a new dark comedy/horror play about grief and gay girls in a small Appalachian town, blending experimental dance, puppetry, and magical realism to explore trauma, queerness, and girlhood. We are seeking funds for the play’s scenic design, which will evoke a forgotten, heat-stricken home—textured, slightly surreal, and pulsing with the quiet presence of blood, decay, and ritual.
Superhero Clubhouse / Future River // There Will Be Monsters
Design Element: Sound
There Will Be Monsters is a theatrical game experience for a hopeful climate future, in which the audience is cast as a group of multispecies heroes determined to solve the “monster” crisis. Superhero Clubhouse received funding to enhance Charles Coes’s sound design for the project.
Immediate Medium // Idiot Void
Design Element: Digital Puppetry
IDIOT VOID is a multimedia puppet and video piece that playfully uses dystopian sci-fi tropes to talk about urgent contemporary issues surrounding social media addiction, loneliness, and human isolation in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Remote Theater Project // The Last Play in Gaza
Design Element: Video Projections
The Last Play in Gaza is a collaboration between Gazan actor/writer Hossam al Madhoun (a founder of “Theatre for Everybody”) and Israeli director/writer Einat Weizman.
Hit The Lights! Co. // ISLA
Design Element: Costumes
ISLA is a bilingual shadow-puppet musical that blends magical realism, live music, and puppetry to tell the story of three sisters fleeing their island in search of home. The Design Enhancement Fund will support the development of character-specific costumes evocative of 1960s Cuba, which integrate practical elements like light and prop interaction to enhance the visual storytelling.
FY26 Edith Lutyens & Norman Bel Geddes
Design Enhancement Fund Panelists
Denis Butkus
Company Producer, Theater Mitu
Jes Levine
Production Manager, Chase Crew Consulting
Interim Production Manager, Playwrights Horizons
Josh Luxenberg
Co-Artistic Director, Sinking Ship Productions
New Initiatives, Artistic Producer, New York Theatre Workshop
Julia Borowski
Event Producer
Kate Wilson
Theatre [Untitled]
Advance NYC
Patricia Marjorie
Multidisciplinary Theatre Artist – Director, Performer, Designer & Educator
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