Statement: PlayPenn, the NEA, and DEI

Over the past 20 years, PlayPenn has provided a platform for hundreds of playwrights to share their voices, providing them the environment to explore, dream, inspire, demand, question, challenge, and express ideas. Our role is to amplify the voices of our nation’s playwrights which means PlayPenn can never be silent – nor can we force our playwrights to be. To silence them would erase our very existence. The definition of silence reads as such:

• The absence of sound – A state in which no noise is present.

• A lack of communication or expression – The state of not speaking or writing.

• To stop someone from speaking or expressing an opinion – To suppress or prevent speech.

• To put an end to something, such as a rumor or fear – To quell or suppress.

  
  

Silence is the antithesis of our work here at PlayPenn.

PlayPenn is committed to serving all writers from diverse backgrounds regardless of ethnicity, religion, culture, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, ability, or socio-economic status. Our organization thrives because of the ever growing variety of playwrights that we have the pleasure of supporting.

Regardless of where you stand politically, something is happening in our country right now that is spreading fear across theatres and arts organizations nationwide.

Arts organizations recently learned that the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is updating its grant guidelines, prioritizing funding for projects that align with “certain themes” in addition to cancelling the Challenge for America grant program. Under the new Presidential administration, the NEA now has the power to deny funding to any arts organization based on the content of its work. The new NEA requirements prohibit theatres and arts organizations from operating programs that promote “diversity, equity, and inclusion”.

While the NEA has long been required to consider “general standards of decency” in grant-making, those standards have now been broadened to an unprecedented degree. Historically, the NEA has rarely, beyond a few limited cases, engaged in content-based funding decisions. The recent changes at the NEA target the very heart of art-making, making it a function of the state and not the function of artists serving their respective communities.

This shift aligns with a troubling pattern across federal agencies. Recently, the administration released a list of words and phrases that have been flagged for removal from documents tied to the National Science Foundation (NSF), an independent federal agency that supports scientific research and education.

According a post by a NSF scientist, these are among the words that can now trigger additional scrutiny:

Advocacy, Black and Latinx, community, diversity, cultural differences, diverse backgrounds, equal opportunity, excluded, female, females, inclusion, LGBT, marginalized, multicultural, political, sense of belonging, women, and underrepresented.

When words themselves become a threat, silence isn’t far behind. And if the playwrights are silenced, there is no PlayPenn.

In November 2024, PlayPenn received news that we had been awarded a $15,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts — the first since 2022. The grant was intended to help fund our 2025 New Play Development Conference, a vital event supporting new theatrical voices.

There is a very real chance we may never see our NEA funds.

Will you help us? 

We are aiming to build a fund that will enable us to continue our work in supporting playwrights in developing new work. We cannot silence playwrights to appease values that are antithetical to the very nature of artistic exploration.

PlayPenn has developed over 160 new plays over 20 years from infancy to a state closer to production-readiness. These plays have achieved more than 600 professional productions, including at the National Theatre (London), English Theatre Berlin, Roundabout Theatre, Lincoln Center, Atlantic Theatre, Second Stage, Actors Theatre of Louisville, La Jolla Playhouse, Denver Center, South Coast Rep, Philadelphia Theatre Company and dozens more.

We are an artist-driven organization dedicated to the development of new plays and playwrights. PlayPenn fully supports the needs of the writer and the demands of the play in an ever-evolving process. Help us ensure the future of risk-taking, boundary-pushing new work made by fearless playwrights.

PlayPenn will not be silent. We believe the playwright is the fundamental authority in the creation of new work. We stand with our writers. All of them.

We hope our ever growing community of PlayPenn supporters also stands with us.

Che’Rae AdamsPlayPenn Artistic Director

Nancy BoykinPlayPenn Board President