Lookingglass Theatre Company is thrilled to announce its partnership with the Adrienne Shelly Foundation (ASF) for its first-ever Playwrights Award for women writers, and its recipient, Lookingglass Artistic Associate Sara Gmitter. The inaugural $3,000 Adrienne Shelly Foundation Playwrights Award will be funded by ASF and given to Gmitter to support her writing of The Night Witches, an original play set on the Eastern Front of WWII, and concerning the 588th Night Bombers, a group of Soviet female combat pilots.
Sara Gmitter is a long-time Artistic Associate with Lookingglass Theatre Company. Gmitter made her Lookingglass debut as a playwright with the production of In the Garden: A Darwinian Love Story, which received a Jeff Award Nomination for Best New Work.
“I'm thrilled to be the first recipient of the Adrienne Shelly Foundation Playwrights Award,” Gmitter said. “It has long been my goal to seek out and lift up the stories of women who have been overlooked or underappreciated, so I feel a great kinship for the mission of the ASF and the woman whose memory it honors.”
The partnership with Lookingglass is the first for the Adrienne Shelly Foundation in the theater arena. Since its 2007 inception, ASF has awarded over 100 production grants to women filmmakers through various partnerships with academic and filmmaking institutions including Sundance Institute, Tribeca Film Institute, AFI, NY Women in Film & TV, Film Fatales, Columbia University and UCLA.
“This is our first ever grant for a playwright,” said Andy Ostroy, ASF Founder & Executive Director. “Adrienne was a playwright at heart, and theater was always an important element of her art. She wrote, directed and acted in many productions and in her early 20’s founded her own theater company, Missing Children. So partnering with such an esteemed Company as Lookingglass to support women playwrights is an exciting and natural evolution for us,” he added.
“Knowing that a young Adrienne Shelly fixed her roots in the theatre, this moment feels like a sort of spiritual homecoming,” said Kareem Bandealy, Lookingglass Ensemble Member and Artistic Producer: New Works. “We feel honored to partner with ASF on their first ever playwright award. And we can’t wait to witness what yarn our own Sara Gmitter will spin from it.”
Lookingglass has a long history of supporting women artists and of putting women in leadership positions. Currently its Artistic Director, Executive Director, and Board Chair are all women. Historically over half of Lookingglass play directors, and nearly half of Lookingglass playwrights have been women. Lookingglass continues to support women playwrights, and currently has 13 plays by women in development. Some Ensemble Members who have launched their distinguished careers with the company: Mary Zimmerman, recipient of both a Tony Award and the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship; Laura Eason, a Golden Globe-nominated screenwriter and producer; and playwright, actor, director and current Andrew W. Mellon Playwright-in-Residence J. Nicole Brooks, who recently won the 2021 Harold and Mimi Steinberg / American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award for Her Honor Jane Byrne.
About The Adrienne Shelly Foundation
The Adrienne Shelly Foundation is 501(c)3 non-profit organization providing production grants to women filmmakers and playwrights. ASF is named after Adrienne Shelly, who was murdered in 2006. She starred in over 20 films, including three which she wrote and directed, including WAITRESS, which was a critical and box office success and years later was adapted for the stage in the smash hit Broadway musical of the same name. Since its inception, ASF has awarded over 100 grants to talented women all over the world, including 2021 Academy Award Best Director winner Chloe Zhao, who in 2012 received a grant while in development with her first feature film.
For more information, visit adrienneshellyfoundation.org.
About Lookingglass Theatre Company
Inventive. Collaborative. Transformative. Lookingglass Theatre Company, recipient of the 2011 Regional Theatre Tony Award, was founded in 1988 by eight Northwestern University students. Now in its 34th Season, Lookingglass is home to a multi-disciplined ensemble of artists who create story-centered theatrical work that is physical, aurally rich and visually metaphoric. The Company, located in Chicago’s landmark Water Tower Water Works, has staged 70 world premieres, received 161 Joseph Jefferson Award Nominations, and produced work all across the United States. In 2016, Lookingglass received the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions and in 2017, was the recipient of the League of Chicago Theatres’ Artistic Achievement Award. Lookingglass continues to expand its artistic, financial, and institutional boundaries under the guidance of Artistic Director Heidi Stillman, Executive Director Rachel L. Fink, a 29-member artistic ensemble, 22 artistic associates, an administrative staff, and a dedicated board of directors led by Chair Diane Whatton.
For more information, visit lookingglasstheatre.org.
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About The Artist
Sara Gmitter is a longtime Artistic Associate with Lookingglass Theatre. She began her career at Lookingglass as an Assistant Stage Manager for The Idiot. She subsequently stage managed 42 productions and workshops for the company including multiple iterations of Lookingglass Alice. She counts 20 world premieres among the shows she helped to shepherd from first rehearsal to closing night. She has also served the company as a teaching artist, writer, and director for the Lookingglass Young Ensemble (Waging Peace, Mending the Peace). In 2014 she made her main stage debut as a playwright with In the Garden: A Darwinian Love Story (Jeff Award Nomination for Best New Work). Previous playwriting credits include: Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy (New Suit Theatre Company), co-written with Jason Burkett, adapted from the film by Dr. Randy Olson; and A Long Fatal Love Chase (Powerhouse Theatre Company) adapted from the novel by Louisa May Alcott. Her short story, Harold has been heard on WBEZ’s Stories On.
She earned a B.A. in Theatre from the College of William and Mary and an M.A. in Peace Education from the UN mandated University for Peace in Costa Rica. She currently serves as Program Assistant for Girls Inc. of Santa Fe and is also the co-clerk of the American Friends Service Committee’s Nobel Peace Prize Nominating Task Group.