The Wellesley Repertory Theatre Grant
Wellesley Repertory Theatre, in partnership with Wellesley College Theatre, offers a project-based grant for graduates
The 2026-27 Application is now open! Apply below by August 31
Share your creative voice with our community and the world beyond
About the Grant
Wellesley Repertory Theatre was established in 1998 (as Wellesley Summer Theatre) by Founding Artistic Producer And Director Emerita of Wellesley College Theatre Nora Hussey. Wellesley Rep productions over the decades have been lauded by critics and audiences alike, and we are so proud of its ongoing legacy! Nora’s mission, supported by the generosity of Ruth Nagel Jones ‘42 and carried forward by Nora’s successor Marta Rainer ‘98, was to establish a professional artistic community for an ensemble of Wellesley College students, graduates, educators, and local theatre makers. For over twenty years, through the annual production of plays on campus outside of the academic year, Wellesley Rep built a bridge for Wellesley College students and graduates into their professional lives!
During the several years of pandemic-induced production pause, we actively engaged with a wide web of graduates in our field to understand what sustains them in challenging times, and how we could be of service. What emerged in 2024 was the evolution of Wellesley Repertory Theatre’s form!
Through the WRT Grant Program and Festival, Wellesley Rep continues its core mission: to support and celebrate theatre-making Wellesley grads out in the world from our shared starting place of Wellesley College. We take our responsibility to be effective and intentional stewards of the resources endowed to us very seriously. We aspire to create opportunities that have direct and lasting impact on the manifold creative lives and careers of our graduates in an evolving, multifaceted artistic landscape.
The Wellesley Rep Grant Program vision and structure is such:
WRT will provide project grants of $7,500 every two years to Wellesley College graduate theatre-makers to bolster career progression, encourage creative risk, establish bespoke laboratory conditions for artistic growth, and foster artistic engagement in their own communities.
WRT will gather this cohort of grant recipients and our campus community of makers in alternate years to connect, reflect, and share - through presentations, performances, conversations, gatherings and workshops.
In this way, WRT remains committed to acting as a creative incubator and source of artistic sustenance for current Wellesley College Theatre students, our amazing graduate body, and our supporters.
To invest in this mission, Wellesley College Theatre (the Wellesley College Theatre Studies Program and Wellesley Repertory Theatre) will award up to 3 Wellesley Repertory Theatre Grants during each grant-making year. This grant provides project-based support to Wellesley College graduates for the development and/or production of unpublished/unproduced work in the field. This unrestricted funding enables recent graduates and working alums to set aside time for creation, purchase materials, fund collaboration with other artists, rent rehearsal or performance space, and/or otherwise expand and bolster their work. Projects are expected to be completed during the following academic year. Grantees will commit to attending the Wellesley Rep Festival, capping off their process on the Wellesley College campus the following September by sharing their work with Theatre Studies students, the campus community, and the general public.
FAQs
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Applicants should be a Wellesley College graduate 2 or more full years post-diploma.
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No problem! Theatre sits at the cross-section of many disciplines. We encourage graduates with any degree to apply, though you should be able to demonstrate a history of work in the performing arts, and your project should be theatre-based.
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In 2026-27, WRT seeks to award 3 projects at $7,500 each.
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These funds can be used at the grantee’s discretion to cover both personal expenses and general expenses for the project, including but not limited to; travel related to project development, purchasing supplies, hiring collaborators, specialists, performers, and securing venue rentals.
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Yes, Wellesley College Theatre will arrange travel and accommodation for your participation in the festival. You do not have to use grant funds for this purpose.
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August 31: Applications due at 11:59pm
October 2026: Grantees announced
October 2026 - August 2027: Grant activities should take place within this period.
September 2027: Grantees attend the 2027 WRT Festival
Propose your project:
We invite Wellesley College graduates to propose original or adapted live performing arts projects they would like support to realize. Experimental, “out of the box”, socially engaged and/or multidisciplinary works are among the many forms encouraged. Applicants should be a Wellesley College graduate 2 or more years post-diploma.
Projects may look like, but are not limited to:
Completion of a new script
Completion of a newly devised work
Staging an original work for the first time
Acquisition of, training with and implementation in practice of speciality technical equipment
Bringing a performance of original work to underserved populations or areas
Presentation at the 2027 Wellesley Repertory Theatre Festival/Conference may look like, but is not limited to:
A play reading of your new script
A workshop or performance of your new work
A presentation about your completed project and its impact
A teaching circle to pass along acquired skills to current students & community members
How to Apply:
By August 31 at 11:59, please submit an application form, which includes
A written Proposal (under 5000 characters) which addresses the following:
Experience - Give us an overview of your time since leaving Wellesley College. What kind of work have you engaged with? What experiences have shaped your work and goals? What projects are you most proud of? What interests/moves you to create? How does your past experience inform your work on this project? Describe how your current work and proposed project are an extension of your learning experience at Wellesley College.
Overview - Why are you interested in collaborating with Wellesley College Theatre? What would you like to explore with this project? What would your project look like - what are your specific goals and expected outcomes during the grant period? How would funding for this project further your artistic and career ambitions?
Impact - What kind of artistic, social, civic, or communal impact do you hope your project will have? What kind of audience do you hope to reach, and why? How do you plan to achieve this? Why this project, and why now?
Proposed budget explanation - Please use the Project Budget Form to list expected expenses and income from the project (if any). Explain in your proposal; Will you need to travel? To hire collaborators or performers? To purchase special equipment or materials?
Presentation at the Wellesley Repertory Theatre Festival: How might your project involve or inspire current Wellesley College Theatre students? While here, there will be multiple points of contact with the campus community, including the sharing of your work. How do you envision using this opportunity? How might you present research findings or project outcomes? Could you or your team lead workshops highlighting aspects of your creative process? Please expand!
Fill out the Project Budget Form
Upload your Proposal and Project Budget Form along with a Resume/CV to the application form.
2024-25 WRT Grant Recipients:
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Sabina Sethi Unni
Sabina Sethi Unni is a public theater artist, community organizer, and urban planner dedicated to telling funny stories about our crumbling infrastructure (and neighbors organizing to save it) in public spaces. She’s proudest of performing in open spaces in every corner of her city: Hunts Point Riverside Park, Travers Park, Queens Botanical Garden, Qahwah House Astoria, Washington Square Park, Newkirk Open Street, La Plaza Cultural, Domino Square, Queens College, Lt. Frank McConnell Park, Rockaway Beach, Gowanus Dredgers Community Boathouse, Fordham University, Snug Harbor Botanical Garden, PYO Chai, Edgemere Farm, Orchard Alley Community Garden, Rockaway Community Park, Loisaida United Community Garden, the Astoria Food Pantry, 31st Avenue Open Street, PS Family NYC, & more if you let her!
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Maia Macdonald
Maia Macdonald (b.1983) is an interdisciplinary artist, musician, and producer living in Brooklyn, NY. Grounded in sound, her work explores the tension between the seen and unseen, tracing concentric circles through iterative projects across mediums. Maia has spent the past five years creating her upcoming album, Slow Motion Cumbia. Stages (I), a collaboration with director Krystine Summers, is a long awaited theatrical exploration of its themes.
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Annie Jin Wang
Annie Jin Wang is a first-generation Chinese-American dramaturg for new plays, musicals, and opera. From new play development to revitalizing classic texts for today’s audiences, Annie’s body of work primarily investigates constructs of race, gender, and citizenship through a compassionate and critical lens. Collaborations with Cinthia Chen include: Salesman 之死 (Yangtze Rep, Obie Award for Outstanding New Play), Untitled Seagull Project (Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab), and Bloodlines (Fault Line Theater’s Irons in the Fire); projects in development include The Actress Who Died A Thousand Deaths and 7 Nights in Augustine.
As a dramaturg, Annie is currently supporting new projects in development at Beth Morrison Projects, Signature Theatre, Fresh Ink Theatre & CHUANG Stage, and NYC PAC. She is currently guest faculty at BerkleeNYC and adjunct faculty at Marymount Manhattan College. MFA: Columbia University; BAs: Wellesley College.
@Isabelle Luna
@Micah Fong
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@Isabelle Luna
@Micah Fong
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@Isabelle Luna
@Micah Fong
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@Isabelle Luna
@Micah Fong
@Micah Fong
@Isabelle Luna
@Micah Fong
@Isabelle Luna
@Micah Fong
@Micah Fong
@Micah Fong
@Isabelle Luna
@Micah Fong
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@Micah Fong
Grantee Projects presented at the 2025 Festival:
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FLOOD SENSOR AUNTY
directed and written by Sabina Sethi Unni
Saturday 9/27 at 5pm
Sunday 9/28 at 3pmHalfway between really funny devised theater and culturally competent community disaster prevention, this piece is about how the best way to protect yourself from flooding, climate change, and despair is through knowing your neighbors.
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SLOW MOTION CUMBIA: STAGES (I)
by Maia Macdonald
directed by Krystine Summers
ft. The SombrasSaturday 9/27 at 7pm
A syncretic, adaptable work in process, moving from haunted reckoning to creation amidst crisis. Based on new music.
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THE ACTRESS WHO DIED A THOUSAND DEATHS
Co-created by Cinthia Chen and Annie Jin Wang
Conceived by Cinthia ChenTuesday 9/30 at 7pm
In a surreal dreamscape, legendary film star Anna May Wong comes face-to-face with her younger self in the nascent years of Hollywood's Orientalist obsessions, and retakes control of the camera's Gaze.
“With WRT’s support, I was able to take the next step in my career as an artist, expanding my initial proposal concept through an iterative development process, involving filmed stretches of multi-disciplinary experimental work in spaces across Brooklyn. What started as a quiet “what if” blossomed into the expansion of my practice…and allowed for the integration of multiple disciplines, frameworks, and approaches.
As I reflect on the experience, I’m struck by the impact of creating this wider web of connections between alums, professors, and current students.
[As expressed to the Wellesley News], the WRT grant has offered such robust moral, spiritual, and monetary support to explore ideas in embodied performance, research, and sound design. It has facilitated collaborations and approaches to making a stage show that previously lived only in a dream space.
[I am] reinvigorated by the generative possibilities encouraged by thoughtful programming and creative, mission driven organizations like Wellesley Repertory Theatre. … I’ll forever be grateful for this life changing (and career advancing!) support, and look forward to continuing the conversations and building the new relationships fostered by this program.
- Cohort 1 Grantee Maia Macdonald ‘06