Performing Arts Fellowships
The Wyoming Arts Council’s Performing Arts Fellowships program was created in 1990 and are given to honor excellence in the artists’ field and are based on appropriate media samples and artist statements in Music and Theatre/Dance.
About the Performing Arts Fellowship
Performing Arts Fellowships are $5,000 unrestricted awards of merit that are given in honor of excellence in the artist’s field. They are juried by noted professionals in the field based on appropriate media samples and artist statements. Up to four fellowships may be awarded; two in the category of Music and two in the category of Theatre and Dance.
2024 Performing Arts Fellowship Info
2024 Application Window: April 10 – June 10, 2024
Click here for the online application:
Apply for the Peforming Arts Fellowship Here
ELIGIBILITY- Must be at least 18 years of age at time of application.
- Must not be a full-time student pursuing high school, college, or university art-related degrees.
- Must be a U.S. citizen or have legal resident status (evidence of U.S. citizenship, resident status and state residency may be required).
- May not be affiliated with the Wyoming Arts Council either as a board member or staff member, including their families, whether full-time, part-time or contractual.
- May not be an employee of the Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources.
- Must have been domiciled within the state borders for a total of 20 months in the previous two years.
- Must remain a Wyoming resident for at least one year after award, living in the state for at least 10 months of the year.
- Must not have received a Performing Arts fellowship within the last four years.
- May receive a total of two fellowship awards in your lifetime.
- You may enter the competition only once by the deadline.
- You may only enter the competition in one category (Music -or- Theatre and Dance).
WHAT IF YOU WIN AN AWARD?
- You’ll receive $5,000 up front.
- You’ll sign a contract that verifies you’re eligible to receive this award.
- You’ll need to supply a bio and a photograph for publicity.
- The Arts Council will work with you to find an appropriate venue or showcase to publicly share your work.
- You will retain all rights to this work and the work you produce during the grant period.
- You must create an impact statement, due August 31, 2025, sharing how this award helped you and what you accomplished during the year you received it.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES (Theatre and Dance)
- Applicants may apply as either a creator or a performer. Dance or choreography (any style or genre), theatre or musical theatre works, technical theatre (lighting, set, or costume design), storytelling, and directing will be considered.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES (Music)
- Applicants may apply as either a composer or a performer. Solo, chamber, or orchestra/large ensemble works for any combination of instruments and/or voice (including electronic and electro-acoustic works), and including independent musicians, singer-songwriters, Native American, folk, traditional, and world music will be considered.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES (All)
- All applicants must register or update their information on the WY Arts Council’s Artists & Venues Directory.
- Jurying is done anonymously; application materials should not list your name.
- All applications must be submitted online through Submittable.
- All submissions must include:
- If available, reviews of your work
- A maximum of 5 work samples that best demonstrate the applicant’s work must submitted in the correct format. Documents, images, audio, and video files will be accepted, or a combination thereof.
- Each work sample must include a written statement explaining your concept/choices/process for the works submitted as examples; This statement must also include context (i.e. did you compose/choreograph/direct the piece or are you performing the work?).
- Those applying as either a composer or creator must submit original work created within the past 5 years.
- Performances may be original works or performances of other works (not original) that were performed within the past 5 years.
- If performing in the work of another artist, you must credit the artist and indicate that permission has been granted.
- Fellowships are awarded to an individual; however works samples of group performances will be accepted for demonstrative purposes as long as the individual applicant is clearly identified.
Meet the 2024 Jurors
Theatre and Dance Juror
Cecilia J. Pang, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she currently serves as the Associate Chair. Born and raised in Hong Kong, and educated in Canada and America, Cecilia brings to her work an East-West fusion aesthetics. As a Theatre director, Pang has helmed over 60 productions ranging from Greek tragedy to American musicals to original work. She is also a documentary filmmaker and has tackled issues as immigrant Peking opera artists, women scientists, motherhood vs artistry, domestic violence and Cantonese Opera in Hong Kong. She has served as an Artistic Associate of the New York based Qi Shu Fang Peking Opera Company for the last twenty years. Presently, she is the Artistic Director of Insight Colab Theatre, an Asian American Theatre in Colorado.
Music Juror
Craig Hill is a performer, educator, and composer specializing in percussion. Past tours include the Broadway musical, Swing!, and premieres of the BBC Earth: in Concert productions. He was the featured soloist in 2013-14’s Tokyo production of Kitchen Beat. Through the GRAMMY Experience, the Billboard Media group, and a number of corporate Grand World Voyages, Craig has toured internationally and across the U.S. A few of the artists that he has performed with include Wayne Newton, Melissa Manchester, Anthony Cox, Nestor Torres, George Lewis and Zeitgeist, Judy Carmichael, Sugar Blue, Roddie Romero, Joel Mason, Paul Baker, Ian Finkel, Jeff Trachta, and Lovena Fox. The Craig Hill Presents: concert series features musicians and interdisciplinary artists with a focus on new works and improvisation. This includes a solo performance art video series focusing on characters and first- take improvisations.
Touring nationally with the Dallas Brass, chamber and orchestral repertoire is joined with percussion improvisation and acting. The tours also feature percussion masterclasses and lectures on chamber music. Further private and ensemble education projects focus on community outreach, music appreciation, and improvisation. Craig received the Master of Music degree in Percussion Performance from Youngstown State University in 2005, as a teaching assistant. Completing the Bachelor of Music in Education from Youngstown State University in 2003, he is licensed to teach in the states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas.
2023 Music Fellowship Recipients
Patrick Chadwick, Jackson
For more than a decade in Jackson Hole, Patrick Chadwick has crooned introspective lyrics that deftly reflect their setting, whether it is a mountain vista, a changing relationship or civil unrest. The singer-songwriter and guitarist’s latest outlet is the indie rock band Inland Isle, whose debut 2021 album “Time Has Changed Us” was lauded for its “rich heartland rock, folk harmonies and anthemic vocal hooks” by Under the Radar magazine.
With Inland Isle, Chadwick’s songs are given life with four-part vocal harmonies and well-crafted accompaniment from longtime Jackson musicians on electric guitar, bass and drums. Glide Magazine called the music a “big Laurel Canyon sound” while Atwood Magazine praised it as “charming and evocative, intimate and energizing.”
Kalyn Beasley, Cody
Kalyn Beasley is an acclaimed songwriter, storyteller, singer and musician. Kalyn’s songs are meticulously crafted narratives, with clever, infectious and intellectually stimulating ideas, melodies and hooks. An authentic Westerner, his life as a cowboy, rodeo hand, pilot, bookseller and outdoorsman has furnished him with a novel palate from which to color his works.
His 2022 album, ‘A Matter of Time’, is nominated for All Genre Album of the Year at the 2023 Josie Music Awards.
Kalyn makes his home in the high, dry mountains of Northern Wyoming, land of geysers and grizzlies.
2023 Theatre and Dance Fellowship Recipients
Oakley Boycott, Lander: Theatre
Oakley Boycott (she.her.they.them) is not a pseudonym. They are a multi-disciplinary artist born and raised in Lander, Wyoming on Apsaalooké (Crow), Eastern Shoshone, and Cheyenne land. The majority of their childhood was spent touring with her parents, the Western music duo “The Grizzlies” to communities across the country, focusing on the Rocky Mountain West. Based out of New York City since 2007 working predominantly in theatre, film and television she can be seen regularly on stage and screen and with consistent appearances and accolades at the Metropolitan Opera, the Town Hall Theatre, Feinsteins 54 Below, and Theatre Row.
As an endurance artist, Oakley has performed endurance art piece: SILENCE based on Marina Abramovics “The Artist Is Present” in both New York City and Wyoming. SILENCE takes place over the course of three, 8-hour days, sitting in complete silence with no breaks. Oakley has extensive ongoing collaborations across with artists of varying mediums across the country.
Scott Tedmon-Jones, Laramie: Stage Design
Scott Tedmon-Jones is an assistant professor at the University of Wyoming in the Department of Theatre and Dance and a freelance designer.
In NYC, Scott has designed sets for the premieres of David Rhodes’s Consent (The Black Box Theatre at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center For Theatre), Mallery Avidon’s Mary-Kate Olsen Is In Love (The Flea Theater), and Lindsay Joy’s Rise And Fall Of A Teenage Cyberqueen (Labrats Theater Company).
He has been a guest designer at the Juilliard School, NYU/Tisch New Studio on Broadway, The College at Brockport SUNY, and the University of Rochester. As an associate designer he has worked on regional and off-Broadway productions and in 2015, was the associate designer for the Broadway premiere of Sam Shepard’s Fool For Love.
He received his MFA in Scene Design from Carnegie Mellon University in 2010.
Previous Performing Arts Fellowship Recipients
Previous Recipients2023: Music: Patrick Chadwick, Jackson; Kalyn Beasley, Cody; Theatre & Dance: Oakley Boycott, Lander; Scott Tedmon-Jones, Laramie
2022: Music: Julie Huebner, Sheridan; Ron Coulter, Casper; Theatre & Dance: Michaela Ellingson, Jackson; Francesca Romo, Jackson
2021: Music: Andrew Wheelock, Laramie; Tris Munsick, Sheridan; Theatre & Dance: Aaron Wood, Casper; Andrew Munz, Jackson
2020: Music: Aaron Davis, Jackson; Abby Webster, Wilson; Theatre and Dance: Anne Mason, Laramie; Luke Dakota Zender, Jackson
2019: Music: Michael Gould, Cody; Nicole Lamartine, Laramie; Theatre & Dance: Marsha Knight, Laramie; Kathleen Vreeland, Cheyenne
2018: Music Composition: Ben Markley, Laramie; Leif Routman, Jackson; Beth Vanderborgh, Laramie; Dr. Mark Elliot Bergman, Sheridan
2017: Music Composition: Ron Coulter, Casper; Theatre & Dance Performance: Rachel Holmes, Jackson
2014: Music Performance: Madelaine German, Jackson; Miss “V” the Gypsy Cowbelle, Thermopolis
2013: Theatre & Dance Performance: Lawrence Jackson (dancer), Laramie; Natalia Duncan (actor), Jackson
2011: Music Composition: Anne Marie Guzzo (composer), Laramie; Jeff Troxel (singer/songwriter), Powell
2010: Theatre Direction, Dance Choreography and Stage Design: Larry Hazlett (lighting designer), Laramie; Carrie Noel Richer (film director & choreographer), Jackson; Babs Case (choreographer), Jackson
2009: Music Performance: Anne Sibley (singer/musician), Jackson; Theresa Bogard (pianist), Laramie
2008: Awards on one-year hiatus
2007: Theatre & Dance Performance: Kema Jamal (dancer), Cheyenne; Jodeen Tebay (dancer), Jackson
2006: Music Composition: Christian Erickson (composer), Gillette; Anne Guzzo (composer), Laramie
2005: Theatre Direction, Choreography & Stage Design: Barbara “Babs” Case (choreography), Jackson; Ken George (set design), Casper; Marsha Knight (choreography), Laramie
2004: Music Performance: Judd Grossman (singer/guitarist), Jackson; Scott Turpen (saxophonist), Laramie
2003: Theatre & Dance Performance: Bob Berky (theatrical clown/mime), Jackson; General McArthur Hambrick (dancer), Laramie
2002: Music Composition: Dave Brinkman (composer), Laramie; Jeff Troxel (composer), Powell
1996: Janet Griffith (musician); Jewel Dirks (composer); Patrick Brien (theatre director)
1995: Rebecca Hilliker (theatre director); Gary Smart (composer); Theodore Lapina (musician)
1994: Tom Empey (theatre director); Kevin S. Hart (musician); Larry Hazlett (light design); Ann Panalsek (choreographer)
1993: David Dundas (scenic designer); Pamela Glasser (musician); The Grizzlies (musicians); Terry Yazzolino (storyteller)
1992: Chris Kennedy (musician); Randy Milligan (actor); Margaret Stalder (choreographer); Lucy Woodman (composer)
1991: Jewel Dirks (composer); Gary Smart (musician); Britton Theurer (musician); Patricia Tate (choreographer)
1990: Beth McIntosh (musician); Lisa Morgan (choreographer); Ron Steger (scenic design); Eugene Zenzen (musician)
