Ucross, WY— January 14, 2021 -- Ucross, a prestigious artist residency program and creative laboratory for the arts in northeast Wyoming, today announced playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins as its newest board member. Jacobs-Jenkins, whose work includes Everybody (Signature Theater), Neighbors (Public Theater), An Octoroon (Soho Rep, OBIE Award for Best New Play), Appropriate (Signature Theater, OBIE Award for Best New Play, Outer Critics Circle nominee), Gloria (Vineyard Theater, 2015), and War (Yale Rep, forthcoming), is a former Ucross Fellow.
 
Jacobs-Jenkins joins current board members Jim Nelson, Ucross board chair and former energy executive; attorney Charlie Hart, Ucross board secretary; Deborah Koehler, executive director of the Raymond N. Plank Philanthropy Fund; attorney Kim Cannon; Steve Farris, former chairman and CEO of Apache Corporation; Lisa Hatchadoorian, executive director of the Museum of Art | Fort Collins, Colorado; Teri Rueb, Ucross alumna, artist, and professor of Critical Media Practices at the University of Colorado; Jesse Marion, founder of Millennium Seismic Ltd., a Calgary, Alberta-based company, and CEO and President of Integrated Corrosion Companies; author Dorie McCullough Lawson; Susan Miller, arts patron, collector, and former chair of the WYO Theater in Sheridan, WY; Kate Schutt, Ucross alumna, singer, songwriter, and producer living in New York City; and Scott Manning Stevens, director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Program at Syracuse University.
 
“First and foremost, Branden is a writer, and we are proud to welcome him and his talents to the Ucross board,” said Sharon Dynak, President and Executive Director of Ucross. “As a Ucross Fellow, Branden came to Ucross where we were able to offer him the gift of time and space as he continued to develop his brilliant playwriting voice. As a board member, we know he will represent and support his fellow artists as we continue to build innovative programs for the artist community nationally and beyond.”
 
Jacobs-Jenkins plays have been performed at such venues as Lincoln Center Theatre/LCT3, Soho Rep, the Public Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, Actors Theater of Louisville, Center Theatre Group, Victory Gardens Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theater, The Matrix Theater, CompanyOne, Theater Bielefeld in Germany, and the HighTide Festival in the UK. He is currently a Residency Five playwright at Signature Theatre and master-artist-in-residence in the Playwriting MFA program of Hunter College, City University of New York. Other honors include a 2016 MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, the Paula Vogel Award, a Fulbright Arts Grant, a Helen Merrill Award, the Dorothy Strelsin playwriting fellowship, and the inaugural Tennessee Williams Award.
 
He is a Princeton alum from the Class of 2006, holds an M.F.A. in Performance Studies from NYU, and is a graduate of the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program at Juilliard. In addition, he teaches in The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Fine Arts. He is a Ucross Fellow through its longtime partnership with the Sundance Institute Theatre Program.
 
"My time at Ucross remains one of the most memorable and transformative experiences of my creative life. It's an honor to be invited to return in this capacity,” said Jacobs-Jenkins. “I look forward to working to ensure that the gifts of this place and these wonderful, hardworking people be accessible to as wide a range of talented artists and thinkers as is possible."
 
Located on a 20,000-acre working cattle ranch on the majestic high plains of Wyoming, Ucross welcomes 100 artists from a variety of creative disciplines each year and provides meals, accommodations, and uninterrupted time to work and create. Annie Proulx's The Shipping News, Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love, Adam Guettel's The Light in the Piazza, Ricky Ian Gordon's operatic adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath, and Michael R. Jackson’s A Strange Loop are just a few of the acclaimed works that have been created in part during Ucross residencies.

Ucross, WY – (January 12, 2021) – Ucross is pleased to announce the opening of an exhibition presenting artwork by the 2019 winners of the Ucross Fellowship for Native American Visual Artists. Marking Time: Heidi Brandow + Luzene Hill, 2019 Ucross Native American Fellows opens on January 11, and it will be on view at Ucross through March 26, 2021. Heidi Brandow (Diné/Kanaka Mãoli) lives in Santa Fe and Luzene Hill (Eastern Band of Cherokee) is based in Atlanta. Both were in residence at Ucross in 2019.
 
A closing reception with the artists will take place on Friday, March 26 from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. Afterword, the exhibition will travel to the Yellowstone Art Museum in Billings, where it will be on view from April 8 through June 27.
 
The multidisciplinary exhibition includes 25 works of art by Brandow and Hill, both distinguished multi-disciplinary artists. Brandow, as described by Suzanne Newman Fricke in the exhibition brochure introduction, is an artist with a background in science “known for her use of whimsical characters, bright colors, and lacquered surface.” Hill’s work in the exhibition includes a series of ink drawings from a series called Now that the Gates of Hell Are Closed, as well as an installation titled Missing that incorporates cochineal dyed silk and beeswax. Missing calls attention to the missing and murdered Indigenous women in the United States and Canada.
 
“It is a great honor to present Heidi and Luzene’s work in this exceptional exhibition, which is the second exhibition to feature winners of the Ucross Fellowship for Native American Visual Artists,” says Ucross President Sharon Dynak.  “We welcome the public to view this visually stunning and powerful work at the Ucross Art Gallery. We are especially grateful to the Yellowstone Art Museum for expanding the exhibition’s reach in our region.”
​
Marking Time is supported in part by the Wyoming Arts Council, through funding from the National
Endowment for the Arts and the Wyoming State Legislature. The Ucross Foundation Art Gallery is
located a half mile east of the intersection of Highways 14 and 16 East in Ucross. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The gallery will continue to follow current guidelines from the Wyoming Department of Health to ensure the safety of its guests and staff.
 
Brandow is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work is commonly filled with whimsical characters and
monsters that are often combined with words of poetry, stories, and personal reflections. Hailing from a long line of Native Hawaiian singers, musicians, and performers on her mother’s side and Diné storytellers and medicine people on her father’s side, she has found that her pursuit of a career in the arts was a natural progression. Primarily a painter, printmaker, and social practice artist, Brandow’s work is centered on the inclusion of Indigenous people, and perspectives in the development of ethical and sustainable methods of creative engagement. Heidi K. Brandow is a graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts, studied Industrial Design at Istanbul Technical University, and is currently a Master of Design Studies in Art, Design, and the Public Domain at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
 
Hill is a multi-media artist, best known for socially engaged conceptual installations and performances.  Her work reflects interdisciplinary scholarship in visual art, women's studies, Native American culture – topics that are integral to her background and personal journey. Through work informed by pre-contact culture of the Americas, Hill advocates for indigenous sovereignty – linguistic, cultural and personal sovereignty.  These concepts form the basis for her installations, performance, drawings, and artist's books. Recent work, employing indigenous matrilineal motifs, asserts female agency and challenges male dictated hierarchies. An enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Hill lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, Russia, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Her awards include the 2019 Ucross Fellowship, the 2016 Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Fellowship in Visual Arts, the 2015 Eiteljorg Museum Fellowship, and 2015 First Peoples Fund Fellowship.  Hill's work is featured in Susan Powers' book, Cherokee Art: Prehistory to Present and in Josh McPhee's book, Celebrate People's History!: The Poster Book of Resistance and Revolution, and the PBS Documentary, “Native Art NOW!”.
 
Initiated in 2017, the Ucross Fellowship for Native American Visual Artists supports the work of contemporary Native American artists at all stages of their professional careers. It is open to disciplines that include, but are not limited to, painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, video, performance art, installation, ceramics, and projects involving multiple disciplines. Two Fellowships are awarded annually, one each in spring and fall. The Fellowship provides up to a one-month residency at Ucross, as well as a stipend of $2,000. Each Fellow is featured in an exhibition at the Ucross Art Gallery during the year following their residency. The next application deadline for the Fellowship is March 1, 2021.

For further information, contact (307) 737-2291, info@ucross.org, or apply online at ucross.org.

Ucross, WY (November 25, 2020) -- Ucross Foundation invites the community to experience “Silent Nights at Ucross,” a month-long opportunity to visit the festively decorated grounds in the Park at Ucross. Thousands of Christmas lights adorn the trees in the Park, which will be lit daily from dusk to dawn from November 27 through January 11.  The Ucross Chapel will also be open daily throughout the holiday season.
 
Powder River Energy Corporation has once again provided volunteer help with the Christmas tree lights. Special touches and additional decorations will be found throughout the grounds and in the Ucross Chapel.
 
Due to public health precautions, a public event will not be held this year. “While it was a difficult decision to forego our annual Ucross Community Christmas Celebration, we have chosen to be abundantly cautious, especially at the holidays,” said Ucross President Sharon Dynak. “We hope the dazzling lights and magical outdoor setting of the Park at Ucross will bring joy and peace to our neighbors, friends and families this holiday season.”  A special Ucross Christmas video, which will include a reading by Craig Johnson, will be created in early December and made available on Ucross social platforms and at ucross.org.
 
In the spirit of holiday giving, Ucross will make donations to Sheridan People Assistant Food Bank in Sheridan and the Bread of Life Food Pantry in Buffalo. This year, in light of the Ucross Native American Fellowship initiatives, donations will also be made to organizations in our region who are working to help Native American families.
 
The Park at Ucross and Ucross Chapel are located at the intersection of Highways 14 and 16 east in Ucross. For further information, visit www.ucross.org or contact (307) 737-2291 or info@ucross.org.  

Ucross, a prestigious artist residency program, and The Blank Theatre, a Los Angeles institution celebrating 30 years of imaginative theater, today announced the newly created Ucross + The Blank Theatre – Future of Playwriting Prize, a one-of-a-kind award for young playwrights nationwide. Ucross and The Blank are partnering to showcase the importance of emerging artists across the country and to celebrate the innovative work that is asking questions and evolving theater as we know it. Submissions for the national prize open today through December 21.
 
The award will be given annually to an emerging playwright (ages 21 to 30) who best personifies the “Future of Theatre”: someone whose voice will shape theater for decades to come, and who will bring new thoughts and views to the American theatrical conversation. Eligibility and submission guidelines can be found at TheBlank.com.
 
“The Blank has always supported and believed in young playwrights as seen through our Young Playwrights Festival and the incredible work we’ve produced over the years,” said Daniel Henning, the founding artistic director of The Blank Theatre. “This new award, developed alongside the Ucross team, will profoundly impact young, emerging voices by offering them monetary support, uninterrupted time and space during a residency, and a platform to showcase their work.”
 
The chosen playwright will receive a $5,000 cash award, a professionally produced staged reading in The Blank Theatre’s Living Room Series (a new play development program), and a two-week residency at Ucross’s 20,000-acre ranch at the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains (including transportation). Two additional finalists will each be awarded $500 cash prizes. There is no entry fee.
 
At Ucross, artists in residence experience an inspiring combination of solitude and community, with expansive time for private work, as well as lively exchanges at group dinners with fellow artists. Facilities include four visual arts studios, four writers’ studios, and two composers’ studios, and a large loft space suitable for dance and theatre collaborations.
 
“Ucross is pleased to announce this new award with The Blank, as it expands our long-standing support of new and emerging artists across disciplines,” said Sharon Dynak, president of Ucross.

“For years we have watched the amazing work and development happening at The Blank and are excited to welcome a winning playwright to our campus.”

The Ucross + The Blank Theatre - Future of Playwriting Prize is made possible through the generous support of Deb and Ed Koehler and the Raymond N. Plank Philanthropy Fund.
 
The Blank was founded in 1990 by Daniel Henning and the theater’s over 70 mainstage productions have won 13 LA Drama Critics Circle Awards, eight LA Weekly Awards, five LA Stage Alliance Ovation Awards, four NAACP Awards, 20 BackStage Garland Awards, four BroadwayWorld Awards, and received hundreds of other nominations. Named "One of the Best Theatre Companies in America" by the Drama League, The Blank was honored by the LA City Council and won the Hollywood Arts Council's Award "for pursuing artistic excellence and nurturing the next generation of playwrights.”

The Blank has offered thousands of diverse theatre artists the opportunity to stretch their abilities in a safe, nurturing, equal environment and is one of the nation's most important developers of new work and artists. Very early in their careers, The Blank supported Stephen Karam (2016 Tony Award-winner for Best Play for The Humans); Doris Duke Artist Lauren Yee, the second most produced playwright in the United States; Max Posner, whose play The Treasurer was a Critics Choice in the New York Times; Aliza Goldstein (2017 LA Drama Critics Circle Award for Outstanding World Premiere Play for her ground-breaking play A Singular They;  Austin Winsberg (First Date on Broadway and NBC’s Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist); Kit Steinkellner (creator of Sorry For Your Loss on Facebook Watch), to name only a few.

Ucross was founded in 1981. Since its founding, Ucross has provided more than 2,500 residencies to established and emerging artists. Ucross provides a platform that nurtures and supports artists, many on the eve of major career breakouts. Ucross has been home to 10 Pulitzer Prize winners, eight MacArthur “genius” grantees, seven Tony Award winners, six National Book Award winners, and two Academy Award winners. Alumni include Billy Porter, Colson Whitehead, Yaa Gyasi, Annie Proulx, Terry Tempest Williams, Elizabeth Gilbert, Ann Patchett, Ricky Ian Gordon, and Adam Guettel. 

Nathan Gunn, Shaun Leonardo, and Ottessa Moshfegh amongst 28 artists selected for residencies in Wyoming’s majestic High Plains
 
Ucross, WY (October 26, 2020) — Ucross, a prestigious artist residency program and creative laboratory for the arts, today announced the Fall 2020 roster of artists in residence. Twenty-eight artists, working in a variety of disciplines, including visual art, writing, music, and performance art, were selected from nearly 300 applicants to receive uninterrupted time, studio space, and living accommodations on Ucross’s 20,000-acre ranch at the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains.
 
Performer Nathan Gunn, multidisciplinary artist Shaun Leonardo, and writer Ottessa Moshfegh are among the artists scheduled for a Ucross residency this fall season. After a brief interruption in Spring 2020 due to the pandemic, Ucross welcomed back artists with new procedures and protocols in place to safeguard the health of the artists and Ucross staff. Ucross is a place that invites, and celebrates, distance and space for its fellows to let their work grow.
 
“In this year of great turmoil, Ucross knows how important it is for artists to keep working,” said Ucross President Sharon Dynak. “First and foremost, we continue to support those efforts through the gift of uninterrupted time to concentrate on creative work and thinking. By providing this crucial time and space, in an environment of safety and natural beauty, we hope to be a small part of the healing process and the exceptional work that artists are creating in 2020.”
 
The Fall 2020 list includes artists across the U.S., as well as artists coming to Ucross through partnerships such as the recently launched programs with The University of Houston’s Creative Writing Program and Cave Canem. Additional fellowship partnerships include the PEN/Hemingway Award, Ford Family Foundation, and Herb Alpert Award. The list also includes the most recent recipients of the Ucross Fellowships for Native American Visual Artists and Writers, which awards fellowships to Native American artists and writers at all stages of their professional careers.
 
"I’m in deep anticipation for this residency named for a beloved mentor, Toi Derricotte, whose love has nurtured my being and my creative voice for the entire fullness of my adult life, ever since hers were the wide open arms to welcome 25-year-old me to my first Cave Canem Retreat for Black poets,” said Karma Mayet Johnson, the Fall 2020 Cave Canem Fellow at Ucross.
 
Please find the full list of Fall 2020 artists in residence below:

• Literature: Brendan Basham, David Cote, Alyson Hagy, J.C. Hallman, Nell Hanley, Onyinye Ihezukwu, Karma Mayet Johnson, Rainey Knudson, Ottessa Moshfegh, Anna Paige, Misha Rai, Ben Sáenz, Austin Segrest, Michel Stone
• Visual Arts:  James Drake, Elizabeth Duffy, Nina Elder, Leila Hamidi, Shaun Leonardo, Nicole Sara Simpkins, Kerry Skarbakka, Patricia Sonnino, Kirsten Stolle
• Music/Dance: Andy Akiho, Michael Harrison, Jessica Pavone
• Theatre/Performance: Nathan Gunn, Anthony Hudson

 
At Ucross, artists in residence experience an inspiring combination of solitude and community, with expansive time for private work, as well as lively exchanges at group dinners with fellow artists. Facilities include four visual arts studios, four writers’ studios, and two composers’ studios, and a large loft space suitable for dance and theatre collaborations.
 
Ucross was founded in 1981 by Raymond Plank. Since its founding, Ucross has provided more than 2,500 residencies to established and emerging artists. Ucross provides a platform that nurtures and supports artists, many on the eve of major career breakouts. Ucross has been home to 10 Pulitzer Prize winners, eight MacArthur “genius” grantees, seven Tony Award winners, six National Book Award winners, and two Academy Award winners. Alumni include Billy Porter, Colson Whitehead, Yaa Gyasi, Annie Proulx, Terry Tempest Williams, Elizabeth Gilbert, Ann Patchett, Ricky Ian Gordon, and Adam Guettel. 

UCROSS, WY (September 10, 2020) — Ucross and the University of Houston Creative Writing Program today announced a new partnership to support UH writers at Ucross in northeastern Wyoming. The Raymond Plank – University of Houston Fellowship in Creative Writing, named in honor of the founder of Ucross, will provide a four-week residency and stipend to one writer each year. Onyinye Ihezukwu has been selected as the first award winner and will come to Ucross this month.

"As a shift from routine and everyday life, I expect that my time at Ucross will expand my creativity and enable me to push forward a work in progress,” says Ihezukwu. “I look forward to interacting with both other artists and nature on such a close scale."

Onyinye Ihezukwu is a Nigerian-born writer whose fiction largely explores contemporary socio-spiritual themes. She held a 2015-2017 Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University, and she also has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Virginia. She’s currently working on a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Houston. Her work has appeared in Zoetrope: All Story, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and The American Scholar, among others.  

“Ucross is honored to select Onyinye Ihezukwu as the first recipient of the University of Houston-Ucross Fellowship,” said Ucross President Sharon Dynak. “Her strong writing, literary accomplishments, dedication, and wide-ranging life experience will make her a wonderful fit for our program. As she describes it, her work ‘depicts stories of Nigerian women within Africa and America, as they grapple with issues of identity, family, love, and trust.’ We look forward to supporting this emerging writer with the gift of time and space to focus on her work.”

The Raymond Plank - University of Houston Creative Writing Fellowship at Ucross was established in 2019 through an endowed gift from the Raymond N. Plank Philanthropy Fund. Ucross Trustee Deborah Koehler, who serves as Executive Director of the Fund, was instrumental in connecting Ucross to UH.

Ucross, WY (July 21, 2020) -- The Ucross Art Gallery is pleased to announce that it has reopened to the public as of July 20, 2020. The exhibition, Entwined: Jennifer Reifsneider + Martha Tuttle has been extended through October 23, 2020, with hours Monday through Friday from 10 am to 4 pm. Entwined showcases 24 contemporary multidisciplinary works by Ucross Fellows Jennifer Reifsneider and Martha Tuttle that incorporate various elements including fabric, sculpture, paint, and fiber techniques such as weaving, spinning, crocheting, and knitting.

“We look forward to being able to share this unique exhibition with the community again after closure this spring,” said Ucross President Sharon Dynak. “This beautiful work from Jennifer and Martha reflects a depth of multi-faceted engagement with the world, and leads us to find fresh ways to encounter and interpret our complex lives and surroundings.”

Jennifer Reifsneider has exhibited her work in more than 70 solo and group exhibitions across the United States, most recently in the Montana Triennial at the Yellowstone Art Museum, the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Center for Craft in America, and the Craft and Folk Art Museum. Her work is in private and public collections, including at the Museum of Modern Art / Franklin Furnace Artist Book Archive and the Yellowstone Art Museum. Reifsneider participated in High Desert Test Sites as part of the artist collective, Constellation Lab. She’s the recipient of an Investing in Artists grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation, and an Artist’s Innovation Award, made possible by the Montana Arts Council, an agency of State Government. She was an artist-in-residence at Ucross in 2000 and 2017. Reifsneider was raised on a working farm in rural southeastern Pennsylvania. She earned her BFA from Rochester Institute of Technology in 1995 and MFA from California State University, Long Beach in 2011. She lives in Missoula, Montana.

Martha Tuttle works between painting and textile. Her fabric-based wall works and sculptural interventions engage with the nuances of form and the hopeful fluidity between states of matter. Recent solo exhibitions include Baccante by the Sea (Geukens and De Vil, Belgium), Dances with Atoms (Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago) and I long and seek after (Jack Tilton Gallery, NYC). She was an artist-in-residence at Ucross in 2016, and has also received residencies from The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, The Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, The Josef Albers Foundation, and The Beinecke Rare Books Library. She received a B.A. from Bard College in 2011, and an M.F.A from the Yale School of Art in 2015. Born in Santa Fe, NM, she now lives and works in Brooklyn, N.Y. ​

UCROSS, WY (May 26, 2020) – In the past three months, Ucross artist alumni have received an unusually high number of high-profile, prestigious honors and awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction to Colson Whitehead and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama to Michael R. Jackson. (Jackson’s win for his musical A Strange Loop marked only the tenth time a musical has won in the Drama category in the 102-year history of the Pulitzer Prizes.) Whitehead’s win was also historic, as it marked his second Pulitzer Prize, placing the author in a rare group of two-time winners, including William Faulkner and John Updike.  
 
Six Ucross alumni received Guggenheim Fellowships in a variety of disciplines, including choreography, film/video, drama/performing arts, fine arts, and fiction from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Six drama alumni received Lucille Lortel Award nominations (with one win), and two visual artists were named Pollock-Krasner grant recipients from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. One writer won a prestigious Whiting Award, and the Library of Congress reappointed Joy Harjo to a second term as the United States Poet Laureate. For a full list of award recipients, see below.
 
“It has been a quiet yet challenging spring everywhere, no less for artists and arts organizations. So it was extremely exciting to see the national awards roll in for Ucross alumni in literature, the visual arts, and the performing arts,” says Sharon Dynak, President and Executive Director of Ucross. “This is important recognition for the artists and it also underscores how meaningful artistic creativity is to the world. The mission of our residency program – located on a 20,000-acre ranch in northeast Wyoming – is to support individual creators with space and time to work. Their time in Ucross bears amazing fruit in future years, and 2020 has been an especially fruitful year so far.”
 
For nearly 40 years, Ucross has been dedicated to supporting the creation of new work, from a diverse range of artists, working across disciplines at varying stages of their professional careers. The recent prizes, awards, and fellowships are among a long list of Ucross alumni achievements that include 13 Pulitzer Prizes, nine MacArthur “Genius” Awards, seven National Book Awards (including two winners in 2019), eight Tony Awards, 85 Guggenheim Fellowships, two Academy Awards, and many more. These distinguished honors – some of which have been awarded to works created in part at Ucross – serve as a testament to the power of the “time and space” and the High Plains experience that Ucross provides.
 
Pulitzer Prizes – 2020 Pulitzer Prizes, announced on May 4, were awarded to Michael R. Jackson’s musical A Strange Loop in the Drama category and Colson Whitehead’s novel The Nickel Boys in the Fiction category. Jackson worked on his musical during two separate residencies at Ucross. He also provided a sneak peek to attendees of Ucross’s first New York Gala & Awards Dinner in 2018. In addition, the organization’s first Ucross Spotlight event coincided with the premiere of A Strange Loop at Playwrights Horizons in New York
 
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City. Two additional two Ucross alumni were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize: Ann Patchett for her novel The Dutch House in the Fiction category and Jeanine Tesori (with David Henry Hwang) for Soft Power in the Drama category.
 
Guggenheim Fellowships – Announced in April, six Ucross alumni were among the 175 scholars, artists, and writers honored with 2020 Guggenheim Fellowships from the John S. Guggenheim Foundation: Moyra Davey (Film-Video), Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Drama and Performance Art), Alex Ketley (Choreography), Helen Mirra (Fine Arts), Sigrid Nunez (Fiction), and Helen Phillips (Fiction).
 
Lucille Lortel Awards – Six Ucross alumni were nominated for Lucille Lortel Awards, which recognize off-Broadway artists and productions. One alumnus, Dave Malloy went on to win in the Outstanding Musical category for Octet. Other nominees were: Aziza Barnes for BLKS in the Outstanding Play category; Eisa Davis for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Musical in The Secret Life Of Bees; Michael Jackson for A Strange Loop and Jeanine Tesori for Soft Power in the Outstanding Musical category; and Matthew Dean Marsh for We’re Only Alive for A Short Amount of Time in the Outstanding Solo Show category.
 
Ucross alumni have recently received additional honors and grants: visual artists Rhona Bitner and Munson Hunt were awarded Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grants in contemporary art; Ling Ma received a Whiting Award in Fiction for her novel Severance; John Kelly, Sheila Tousey, and Jennifer Kidwell (who plans to come to Ucross soon) were named recipients of the Mabou Mines 2020 “Ruthie” Award named in honor of Ucross alumna Ruth Maleczech; Tanya Barfield was named the winner of the PEN/Laura Pels Theatre Award; Peter Rock was named a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for his novel The Night Swimmers.