Valley Shakespeare Company at Western Oregon University to Receive Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts
Monmouth, OR—Valley Shakespeare Company at Western Oregon University has been approved for a $10.000 Grants for Arts Projects award from the National Endowment for the Arts to support the $32,000 project: El Bardo en el Valle: Milagro Theatre at Valley Shakespeare Company.
This project will bring a Spanish-language production, in addition to its usual seasonal offering, to the stage of Valley Shakespeare Company in the summer of 2023, in a collaboration between Valley Shakespeare Company at Western Oregon University and Milagro, the Northwest’s premier Latino Cultural Center, based in Portland, Oregon.
Valley Shakespeare Company at Western Oregon University’s project is among 1,125 projects across America, totaling more than $26.6 million, that were selected during this second round of Grants for Arts Projects fiscal year 2022 funding.
“The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support arts and cultural organizations throughout the nation with these grants, including El Bardo en el Valle: with Milagro at Valley Shakespeare Company, providing opportunities for all of us to live artful lives,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “The arts contribute to our individual well-being, the well-being of our communities, and to our local economies. The arts are also crucial to helping us make sense of our circumstances from different perspectives as we emerge from the pandemic and plan for a shared new normal informed by our examined experience.”
David Janowiak, Artistic Director of Valley Shakespeare Company and Chair of the Division of Creative Arts at WOU, said, “Producing a Spanish language production of ‘Complete Works’ will serve the dual purpose of increasing access to the arts in the Willamette Valley and providing an entertaining and welcoming introduction into the world of classical theatre. The project supports the mission and vision of both VSC and Milagro.”
This project represents a collaboration between WOU’s Valley Shakespeare Company, the local Latinx community of the Willamette Valley and Milagro. Milagro has provided extraordinary Latino theatre, culture and arts education throughout the Northwest since 1985. In the seven years since its founding, Valley Shakespeare Company has established itself in Oregon’s Willamette Valley as a premier semi-professional company, dedicated to producing classical works of the highest quality and noted for artistic excellence and innovation. In the summer of 2023, VSC will collaborate with Milagro to bring a Spanish- language production of The Reduced Theatre Company’s celebration and parody of Shakespeare’s works, The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged).
For more information on other projects included in the Arts Endowment grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news.
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