Program History

In 1991, Mabou Mines co-Founder Ruth Maleczech established the Resident Artist Program as a laboratory for early career artists to experiment with performance ideas. As long-practicing artists, the company understands the formidable pressures that early career artists face and the difficulty of finding space to explore and create. We believe that process-focused development is the best way to create original work and that the opportunity to work in this way can be crucial to an artist’s career.

Mabou Mines’ definition of “early-career artist,” is one with a consistent practice who has worked in their chosen field for several years with some recognition, and not reached a point in their career where they are receiving opportunities from high-level presenters, producers, festivals or funders. They have put in the effort of practice, garnered the beginning of a performing history, have begun to hone their aesthetic, and are seeking a means of articulating their creative vision in a more formalized way.

Program Restarts

After a three year pause, the company is resuming the Resident Artist Program in 2023. The panel seeks to select artists who represent a range of performance disciplines, reflect a unique and diverse array of artistic perspectives and racial and gender identities, and who propose a compelling, diverse performance idea, in artistic form and/or socio-political content. Ensuring a diverse group of artists in this way creates space for artists across creative disciplines, with a multitude of lived experiences, to mutually inspire and inform one another’s work.

Successful applicants to the Mabou Mines’ RAP have the ability to articulate: 1) their identity as an early career artist, 2) their project ideas and proposed creative processes and 3) how this residency, at this point in their career, will support their process. Early career artists may not be enrolled students. In addition, as a process-focused program, applicants who seek an opportunity to premiere or showcase their work are discouraged.

The Resident Artist Program offers emerging artists the opportunity to work in residence at Mabou Mines for six months, receiving mentoring from our Artistic Directors and Associates, a stipend, rehearsal/performance space, and administrative and technical assistance. Participants attend monthly meetings, creating an artistic community through shared ideas in a forum-like setting. Resident Artists show their work at the program’s culmination. The showings are free to the public.

This program is supported with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council and New York State Council on the Arts.