Cesar Alvarez

Cesar Alvarez

 

The American Theatre Wing announced today that the 2016 Jonathan Larson® Grants recipients are César Alvarez (book, music and lyrics), Nikko Benson (music and lyrics), Carson Kreitzer (book and lyrics), and Sam Salmond (book, music, and lyrics). Four prestigious grants of $10,000 each, totaling $40,000, will be presented on Monday, March 21, 2016 at a private event, featuring special performances of the recipients’ work.

 

Nikko Benson

Nikko Benson

 

This year’s recipients were selected by an expert panel consisting of composer/lyricist and past Larson Grant recipient Dave Malloy (Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812), producer Kristin Caskey (President of Fox Theatricals and producer of Fun Home), and director Kristin Marting (Artistic Director of HERE Arts Center).

 

 

 

Carson Kreitzer

Carson Kreuzer

 

The Jonathan Larson Grants, given annually to honor emerging composers, lyricists and book writers, help to continue Tony Award®-winning composer Jonathan Larson’s dream of infusing musical theatre with a contemporary, joyful, urban vitality. The American Theatre Wing is dedicated to also offering Jonathan Larson Grant artists industry resources to advance their work.

Sam Salmond

Sam Salmond

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

César Alvarez, Nikko Benson, and Sam Salmond are also receiving The Saw Island Foundation Recording Grants. The recording grants are a new addition to the Jonathan Larson Grants for 2016. The Saw Island Foundation seeks to empower innovative and high-impact institutions to improve existing programs; it has created this enhancement to provide artists with additional support to help arrange for the production of new demo recordings to more fully represent the musical theater writer’s vision.

 

Carson Kreitzer is receiving a residency at Running Deer Musical Theatre Lab’s Writer’s Retreat, which consists of a weeklong residency for her and her collaborators at this incubation center for new musicals.

Finally, Adelphi University Performing Arts Center is awarding both César Alvarez and Sam Salmond with an evening of performance featuring their work as part of their Larson Legacy Concert Series, which celebrates the next generation of creative artists at the college home of Jonathan Larson, class of ’82, to carry on his legacy.

Past recipients of the Larson Grants include Benj Pasek & Justin Paul (A Christmas Story), Dave Malloy (Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812), Tom Kitt & Brian Yorkey (Next to Normal), Chad Beguelin & Matthew Sklar (The Wedding Singer), John Bucchino (A Catered Affair), Laurence O’Keefe (Bat Boy: The Musical), Michael Korie (Grey Gardens), Amanda Green (Hands on a Hardbody), Sara Cooper & Zach Redler (The Memory Show), and Shaina Taub (The Daughters).

César Alvarez is a composer, lyricist, performer and writer. César’s band, The Lisps, has released 4 albums and played hundreds of shows around the country since 2005   www.musicisfreenow.org

Nikko Benson is a musical theater writer and performer. Creator of numerous original musicals and cabarets, he is currently developing Nikola Tesla Drops The Beat (with Benjamin Halstead), an electronic musical that received development residencies with the Johnny Mercer Songwriters Project and Johnny Mercer Writers Colony, as well as presentations at Musical Theatre Factory and Joe’s Pub.

Carson Kreitzer is a 2015/16 McKnight Fellow in Playwriting at the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, her third time receiving the honor. Current projects include Capital Crime!, a commission for the Guthrie Theatre, and Lempicka, a new musical with composer Matt Gould. Her plays include The Love Song of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Rosenthal New Play Prize, American Theatre Critics’ Steinberg New Play Citation, and Barrie Stavis Award.

Sam Salmond is a Brooklyn-based composer, lyricist, and bookwriter. He’s currently writing music and lyrics for an adaptation of Eighty-Sixed, the novel by humorist and AIDS activist, David Feinberg. The show recently had a developmental reading at Second Stage Theatre. He’s the creator of Uncool: the Party, an immersive night of rock ‘n roll, games, stories, and dancing, which was workshopped at CAP21 and the Musical Theatre Factory.