OVERVIEW: The Princess Grace Foundation provides scholarships and fellowships to emerging artists in theater, dance, and film. The foundation seeks to provide long-term financial and emotional support for award winners.
IP TAKE: This is a good funder to know for students and early professionals in film and the performing arts. It’s an accessible funder, but in many cases, you also need the backing of the school or performing arts organization with which you are affiliated. The foundation is also approachable and responsive.
The prestigious Princess Grace Awards aims to support promising early-career artists in the fields of dance, theater and film. Scholarships support undergraduate and graduate students at leading performing arts schools in the U.S., while fellowships support developing dancers, choreographers, actors, directors, theater professionals and filmmakers who are working with established companies, groups or institutions in their respective disciplines. The foundation also offers support to its past awardees through its special projects and works in progress awards programs.
PROFILE: Founded in 1982, the Princess Grace Foundation was created by Prince Rainier III of Monaco to honor the memory of his wife, Princess Grace Kelly, and to continue her legacy of supporting American performing and film artists. The foundation prioritizes “identifying and assisting emerging talent in theater, dance, and film by awarding grants in the form of scholarships, apprenticeships, and fellowships” and is committed to “elevating a diverse range of artists across disciplines, geography, race, gender and sexuality.” Recipients of these prestigious awards often go on to receive high acclaim and accolades for their artistic achievements.
Grants for Dance
The Princess Grace Kelly Foundation awards dance grants in the two categories of performance and choreography. The foundation prioritizes individual artists rather than companies and organizations. To receive an award, the individual must be nominated by the Dean/Chair of his or her academic organization or the head of his or her dance company. Applications are made available on the foundation’s website in February of each year, with deadlines falling in the spring, usually at the end of April.
Dance performance grants specifically fund tuition or salary assistance, and they typically range from $15,000 to $30,000 depending on factors such as tuition costs and thesis project costs. The choreography fellowship is a set amount of $10,000, with $8,000 earmarked for the choreographer’s fee and the remaining $2,000 for production costs. Past recipients of dance grants have come from places like Juilliard, Boston Ballet, and Visceral Dance Chicago.
Dance performance and choreography applicants must be nominated for a Princess Grace Foundation award by a non-profit school or dance company. Also, each nominating entity can nominate only one scholarship and one fellowship nominee at a time.
Dance scholarships support students at leading dance programs at institutions of higher education, while fellowships fund dancers who are beginning their careers with dance companies representing styles ranging from classical ballet to contemporary and ethnic styles. Recent fellowships have gone to members of the New York City Ballet, BalletX, ODC Dance and the Dorrance Dance Company. The foundation also awards fellowships to emerging choreographers, and these awards tend to support artists working in modern or contemporary styles and techniques. In recent years, the foundation has awarded a single dance honorarium to a choreographer whose early work has been recognized as having exceptional promise. Recipients of dance awards become eligible to receive the foundation’s Statue Award, which recognizes former award winners who have “made significant contributions to their chosen artistic field of theater, dance or film since receiving their initiation scholarships, apprenticeships or fellowships.”
Grants for Film
The foundation awards film scholarships at the undergraduate and graduate levels in order. Scholarships defray the costs of students’ thesis films. Princess Grace Award Film grants average between $15,000-$30,000. Categories of work supported include narrative, documentary, experimental, animation, hybrid work, media installations, transmedia, webisodes and interactive web work. Past film award winners include Pamela Guest of Pacific Northwest College of Art and Daniel Chein of San Francisco State University.
The foundation also offers the Stephen Hillenburg Animation Scholarship, which is awarded to one undergraduate or graduate film student in the field of animation. Grants average between $15,000-$30,000, and it is made in accordance with the student’s final animation project budget.
Each grantmaking program has its own deadlines. Submissions for film scholarships are typically due around June 1 each year. Students must be nominated for this scholarship program.
Recent scholarships have supported the work of students at New York University, the California Institute of the Arts, Columbia University, George Mason University and the University of California at Santa Cruz. Honoraria have gone to students and professional filmmakers working in various genres and whose work has been recognized as having exceptional potential. Recent honorees have been affiliated with Howard University, Purchase College and Montana State University.
Grants for Theater
The foundation supports Theater in the form of fellowships, apprenticeships, and scholarships to individual directors, designers, and actors.
Fellowships and Apprenticeships are for directors, primary designers, or lead actors who will have a “substantial relationship” with a theater company throughout a season. The apprenticeship should include the opportunity for the grantee to create his/her own work in a workshop or second stage venue. Scholarships are for tuition assistance for the last year of professional training at a non-profit, U.S. school.
Though funds support individual theater artists, the application must be collaborative—with either a non-profit theater company or a school. The Princess Grace Foundation-USA calls the non-profit theaters or schools “nominators” and the individual theater artists are “nominees.” Both nominators and nominees have responsibilities for the application process.
Recent awards have gone to students pursuing studies in acting, set design and costume design at schools including the Juilliard School, Yale School of Drama and the California Institute of the Arts. Fellowships have recently gone to emerging directors of theater who are engaged in projects at established U.S. theater companies or repertory groups. Honoraria support actors, directors and other theater professionals and educators who show outstanding innovation and leadership in the field. And the annual Princess Grace Playwriting Fellowship has recently supported emerging playwrights whose work explores themes of social justice. Recipients of any of these awards become eligible to receive the foundation’s Statue Award, which recognizes former award winners who have “made significant contributions to their chosen artistic field of theater, dance or film since receiving their initiation scholarships apprenticeships or fellowships.”
Grants for Writing
The foundation also partners with New Dramatists to fund playwrights through the Princess Grace Awards Playwriting Fellowship. The award includes a $7,500 grant as well as opportunities for script development and mentorship.
This grant supports playwrights who have not yet had his or her work produced on a large scale—applicants cannot have had their plays produced under anything grander than the Equity showcase code or its equivalent. Playwriting Fellowship applications are also due in late March.
Important Grant Details:
Princess Grace’s scholarships, fellowships and honoraria are awarded in the amount of $10,000. The foundation awards between seven and ten awards each in theater, dance and film each year. For information about recent awards, see the foundation’s recent winners page.
Princess Grace awards are open to U.S.-based artists who are currently working in the U.S. Artists who are not citizens of the U.S. must have permanent work authorization. Award candidates must be nominated “by a non-profit university, organization, media arts center or previous Princess Grace Award winner.” Nominations consist of a letter of recommendation, an artist’s statement, one additional letter of recommendation and a headshot. If selected, candidates will be invited to submit additional written materials and samples of work based on their discipline for a second round of adjudication. Nominations are due on February 15, and applications are due on May 1 of each year. The foundation posts additional guidelines and application information on its website.
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