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News Releases 
Prestigious Invitations and Awards Continue For The Children's Theatre Company 
New Visions/New Voices at The Kennedy Center
Children's Theatre Foundation of America 2004 Medallion Recipient
PlayLabs Festival at The Playwrights' Center
For Immediate Release: May 12, 2004
Minneapolis, MN - Nearly a year after CTC received the history-making 2003 Tony® Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre, the organization continues to be recognized for its extraordinary body of work as well as its new play development. In the next two months, artistic director Peter C. Brosius will travel to Washington, D.C., Salt Lake City, Utah and then back to the Twin Cities to participate in prestigious play development programs and receive the highest award from the Children's Theatre Foundation of America.
"To receive the 2004 CFTA Medallion in the presence of international artists, scholars and playwrights is indeed an honor," said Peter C. Brosius, CTC artistic director. "It is especially thrilling to be the first theater organization to receive this award. It's also an honor to be invited along with playwright Naomi Iizuka to attend New Visions/New Voices at The Kennedy Center and participate with playwright Lonnie Carter in the PlayLabs Festival."
May 21-23, Brosius and Iizuka will attend New Visions/New Voices, A Festival of New Works for Young Audiences at The Kennedy Center. Iizuka's play for CTC is Anon(ymous): an Adaptation of the Odyssey. Her adaptation depicts a vivid contemporary American landscape peopled by immigrants and refugees whose pasts are haunted by the specters of poverty and war and whose futures hang in a delicate balance between the possibility of a better life and the probability of exploitation. Brosius will direct the piece.
July 12-25, Brosius and Lonnie Carter will participate in PlayLabs, one of the nation's most celebrated annual festivals of new work at The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis. Eleven playwrights have been chosen from hundreds of applicants to engage in this two-week development conference, culminating in a weekend of public readings. Carter's play in development for CTC, The Lost Boys of the Sudan, follows Sudanese refugee boys to Fargo, North Dakota. Brosius will direct the play.
Both Anon(ymous): An Adaptation of the Odyssey and The Lost Boys of the Sudan are being developed in CTC's new play lab, THRESHOLD. Since 1998, THRESHOLD has been embracing collaborations with artists and institutions to generate new theater for a multi-generational audience that tackles challenging content and introduces new aesthetics. At any given time, six to twelve plays are in development and thirteen have been produced on CTC's main stage.
July 29, Brosius will be in Salt Lake City, Utah to accept the Children's Theatre Foundation of America's highest honor, the 2004 Medallion. It is the first time an entire theater organization will receive this honor. The CFTA Award celebrates CTC's distinguished 40 year record of "unparalleled affirming, creative work in theatre, work that asserts the power of great theater to build a humane community of state and national influence," said Dr. Dorothy Webb, president of the foundation. Other 2004 recipients are Dr. Harold Oaks, Emeritus Professor of Theatre, Brigham Young University; the International Thespian Society; and Patricia Whitton Forrest, founding publisher/editor of NEW PLAYS, INCORPORATED.
Established in 1958, CFTA seeks to advance the artistic and professional interests of theater for children, and theater education of the young. The foundation pursues its goals by funding a variety of proposals of artists, scholars and special projects of national import to the field. Its Medallion honors significant achievement of all artists whose creations impact the imagination of youth.
Also on July 29 in Salt Lake City, Brosius will give the keynote address at the American Alliance of Theatre and Education Summer Conference (AATE), CFTA's sister organization. The mission of AATE is to promote standards of excellence in theatre and theatre education, connecting artists, educators, researchers and scholars with each other, and by providing opportunities for their membership to learn, exchange, expand and diversify their work, their audience and their perspectives.
The Children's Theatre Company, founded in 1965, is the recipient of the 2003 Tony® Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre. Under the leadership of artistic director Peter C. Brosius and managing director Teresa Eyring, the theatre serves nearly 350,000 people annually through its main stage productions, teen productions, community and education programs and theatre arts training programs. CTC is currently expanding its south Minneapolis facility, adding a second stage (to be programmed primarily for teens and pre-schoolers), an education wing and dedicated rehearsal space. CTC has currently raised $24 million toward its goal of $27 million in its first-ever capital campaign.
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