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Playwrights’ Center Announces 2016-17 McKnight Theater Artist Fellows

A costume designer and two actors will receive awards and development funds.

MINNEAPOLIS: The Playwrights’ Center has announced the 2016-17 recipients of the McKnight Theater Artist Fellowships, which recognize theatre artists other than playwrights whose work demonstrates “exceptional artistic merit.”

The winners are costume designer Sonya Berlovitz, a longtime collaborator with Minneapolis’s now-defunct Theatre de la Jeune Lune, who designs for Minneapolis’s the Moving Company, Ten Thousand Things, and Jungle Theater, among others; actor Thomasina Petrus, a company member at Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul, Minn., and Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis; and actor Kimberly Richardson, a Ten Thousand Things “Artist Core” member.

Thomasina Petrus (Photo by Fabulous Photos)
Thomasina Petrus. (Photo credit Fabulous Photos)

“Not only are these artists demonstrating high levels of skill and innovation in their individual crafts, but they are all deeply invested in the Minnesota theatre community, ” Playwrights’ Center producing artistic director Jeremy B. Cohen said in a statement. “These generous fellowships from the McKnight Foundation recognize the artists’ impressive work and will give them time and resources to further develop their already exceptional talent.”

Each fellowship recipient will receive a $25,000 award as well as $7,000 in development funds to launch a new collaboration to build a new theatrical work.

The public is invited to see works in progress by two of the 2015-16 McKnight fellows, Aimee K. Bryant and James A. Williams, on Tuesday, June 28 at 7 p.m. at the Southern Theater.

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