NEA awards WIT new grant to support classes at Project Create
Washington Improv Theater is pleased to announce that we have been approved by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to receive a Grants for Arts Projects award of $10,000 to support our ongoing work with Project Create. The award will fund adult improv classes at the venue, which are free for residents of Wards 7 and 8.
Located in Washington DC’s Ward 8, Project Create provides opportunities for creative youth development through accessible, multidisciplinary arts education to empower young people and amplify their voices. The organization’s programmatic goals are to create art, opportunity, and community, which align closely with WIT’s core values of building community and facilitating creative joy and self-discovery through the artform of improvisation.
“We have been programming classes at Project Create for two years now and I can’t adequately express how thrilled I am at the results,” said WIT Education Manager Kacie Peterson. “Two groups of students completed the curriculum last year and many of them have continued their improv journeys by performing and taking advanced classes. I am incredibly excited to grow our community of improvisers at Project Create.”
The first round of classes supported by the grant will be a pair of Level 1 courses starting in April. If you live in Wards 7 and 8 and would like to join an upcoming class, please let us know via this interest form.
“The NEA is delighted to announce this grant to Washington Improv Theater, which is helping contribute to the strength and well-being of the arts sector and local community,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “We are pleased to be able to support this community and help create an environment where all people have the opportunity to live artful lives.”
In addition to grant-funded adult classes, WIT also plans to continue after school improv classes at Project Create this year. Youth classes are free for Project Create’s community members and will be taught by longtime teaching artist Dave Johnson.
In 2023, WIT provided instruction in all five levels of our core classes at Project Create. WIT enrolled 12 Level 1 students, ten Level 2 students, eight Level 3 students, 15 Level 4 students (in two classes), and 14 Level 5 students (also in two classes). In total, we had 59 enrollments in our core curriculum at Project Create last year.
This is WIT’s fifth grant from the NEA. In total, the NEA is awarding 958 Grants for Arts Projects awards—totaling more than $27.1 million—as part of its first round of fiscal year 2024 grants.