ArtsEmerson Wins Grant for Audience Outreach

ArtsEmerson artist in residence Daniel Beaty performs at the Paramount Center in 2014. The organization was awarded a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to help support the partnership. File photo/Nicole O’Neil

ArtsEmerson was one of 24 arts organizations nationally, and the only group in the Boston area, to receive a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) to support its outreach efforts to communities of color.

The $115,000 grant will help support ArtsEmerson’s work with writer/performer Daniel Beaty to increase participation of black, Latino/a, and Asian populations in the city’s cultural opportunities.

“We are proud to continue our partnership with Emerson College resident artist Daniel Beaty,” ArtsEmerson Executive Director David Howse said in a statement. “Together, we believe that the arts are truly for all—and with the artist at the center of this work, we are committed to building meaningful relationships with communities who haven’t always felt an authentic invitation to engage.”

The grant was awarded as part of the DDCF’s Building Demand for the Arts program, which supports partnerships that use the performing arts to create connections with targeted populations. Each grant also comes with funding to evaluate the project.

“This award will help continue the important community work we’ve been doing with Daniel, taking it further into the neighborhoods,” ArtsEmerson Co-Artistic Director Polly Carl said in a statement.

Beaty has been a resident artist at ArtsEmerson since 2013. He is an award-winning actor, singer, writer, and composer, whose solo play, Through the Night, had an extended off-Broadway run last season and has been nominated for multiple awards, winning an AUDELCO Award for Outstanding Solo Performance and an Ovation Award for Best Male Lead Actor. His play Emergence-See! (later renamed Emergency) received an Obie Award for Excellence in Off-Broadway Theater for Writing and Performing and an AUDELCO Award, as well as a Scotsman Fringe First Award from the Edinburgh Festival, a Lamplighter Award from the Black Leadership Forum, and two NAACP Theater Awards.