About the Program

SUITE/space is a NYC based performance residency for early career interdisciplinary artists whose practices emerge from lived experiences at the margins—artists whose bodies, identities, histories, or access to opportunity have been shaped by systems of exclusion, and who are redefining the cultural landscape through innovative, boundary-crossing work. The program offers artists the opportunity to work in residence at Mabou Mines to strengthen their practice and experiment with performance ideas. 

The Resident Artist Program (RAP) was established in 1991 by Ruth Maleczech as a laboratory where emerging artists could freely explore performance concepts. As long-practicing artists, the Company  recognizes the formidable pressures artists face in finding space to explore and create. We believe that process-focused development is the best way to create original work, offering artists the  opportunity to deepen their practice. The program has supported over 400 artists in its 30+ year history, including all three of Mabou Mines’ current co-Artistic Directors. 

SUITE/space evolved from RAP in 2018, led by Karen Kandel and Carl Hancock Rux, specifically to support BIPOC artists. Based on cohort feedback, as well as being sensitive and responsive to the needs of the times, we have restructured SUITE/space and experimented with new ideas in pursuit of a more holistic, integrated experience for each artist. In this spirit, this year’s residency expands its focus to include marginalized artists across a broader spectrum of identities and demographics. We are especially interested in artists who want to interrogate form, language, structure, and intention—artists willing to undo as much as they build. 

SUITE/space aligns with the ethos articulated by Lee Breuer, who frequently emphasized that theater is not a factory of uniform outputs but “a place where the unknown is invited to speak.” Within such a framework, ritual becomes not a prescribed sequence to be mastered, but a living practice shaped collaboratively through presence, listening, and the continual negotiation between intention, discourse and surprise.

SUITE/space Artists Receive

• • Two $4,000 stipends
  • 80 hours of rehearsal space
  • Technical and administrative support
  • Ongoing artistic dialogue with Artistic Directors and guest advisors
  • SUITE/space free in-progress public showing
  • SUITE/space 3 night performance run with a 50/50 box office split at the culmination of the residency

APPLICATION OPENS 

Tuesday, February 17, 2026

APPLICATION CLOSES

Friday, March  13, 2026 @ 11:59pm ET

APPLICATION GUIDELINES HERE

PROJECT PROPOSAL INSTRUCTIONS HERE

APPLY HERE

For any questions email rap@maboumines.org

Selection Process

• • February Application Opens
  • March Application Closes
  • March Selection Process & Finalist Interviews
  • April Resident Artist Announcement
  • May First Artist Meeting

Direct Program support for SUITE/Space has been provided by the New York Community Trust, The Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) and the The NYC Department of Cultural Affairs – THIS PROGRAM IS SUPPORTED, IN PART, BY PUBLIC FUNDS FROM THE NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS.

Co-Artistic Director, Karen Kandel‘s deep commitment to collaboration fueled her work with many other like-minded artists committed to expanding traditional notions of theatre, among them Elizabeth Swados, Ann Bogart, Peter Sellars, Andre Serban, and JoAnne Akalitis (one of the Company’s founders). Karen’s work with Mabou Mines has earned her numerous awards including her performance as the narrator in Peter and Wendy (OBIE)– called “astonishing and enchanting.” She became a Co-Artistic Director at Mabou Mines in 2015.

Karen’s creative vision continues to move her toward “work that embraces every possibility.”  She recently co-created with composer Eve Beglarian The Vicksburg Project, a song cycle following women’s lives in Mississippi from the Civil War to today.

Karen is the recipient of numerous awards and honors. Among them are three OBIEs, the Connecticut Critics Circle Award, United States Artists, Ziporyn Fellowship, Asian Cultural Council Fellowship and Nominated for a Drama League Outstanding Performance Citation. She was one of only six recipients of the Audrey Skirball-Kenis T.I.M.E. Grant.

Associate Artist, David Thomson is a collaborative interdisciplinary artist who has worked in a range of disciplines.  His history as an artist encompasses work with Jane Comfort, Trisha Brown (’87-’93), Susan Rethorst, Bebe Miller, Marta Renzi, Remy Charlip, Ralph Lemon (’99-’10), Sekou Sundiata, Tracie Morris, Meg Stuart, Marina Abramović, Yvonne Rainer, Deborah Hay, Alain Buffard, Maria Hassabi, Yanira Castro, Daria Faïn, Kaneza Schaal and Okwui Okpokwasili among many others. His own work questions our unconscious narratives regarding presence and identity. Creating performance installations in a range of temporal forms from short works to durational tasks, that sabotage assumptions to provoke reimagining.  He received Bessies for Sustained Achievement (2001) and Outstanding Production (2018) for his first full ending length work, he his own mythical beast.  Thomson has been recognized with awards and fellowships from US Artist, Yaddo, MacDowell and Rauschenberg.  He is currently a LMCC Extended Life Fellow (2018-21) and was awarded the Herb Alpert in 2025.

In 2017, he initiated The Artist Sustainability Project in collaboration with Kate Watson-Wallace, which serves as a platform and practice to expand the discourse surrounding ideas of financial, artistic, and personal empowerment within the arts community.  At the heart of this work are larger questions and philosophies around aspects of care, community, and resources that feed and support each artist’s individual ecosystem of sustainability.

Co-Artistic Director, Carl Hancock Rux is an award-winning poet, playwright, librettist, novelist, director, essayist, performer and recording artist.  Rux is the author of the novel, Asphalt, the OBIE Award winning play, Talk, and the Village Voice Literary prize-winning collection of poetry, Pagan Operetta. Rux has  performed with Marlies Yearby’s Movin’ Spirits Dance Theater, Urban Bush Women, Jane Comfort & Co., Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater,  Martha Clark, The Foundry Theatre and Robert Wilson.  Rux received a BESSIE© award for his direction of the Lisa Jones/Alva Rogers dance musical, Stained.

Mr. Rux’s albums include Rux Revue (Sony/550), Apothecary Rx (Giant Step), Good Bread Alley (Thirsty Ear)  and Homeostasis (CD Baby).

Rux is the subject of the Voices of America television documentary, Carl Hancock Rux, Coming of Age, recipient of the CINE Golden Eagle Award (Larry Clamage/Richard Maniscalo producers). He is the recipient of the Herb Alpert Prize, NYFA Prize, NYFA Gregory Millard Fellow, and NEA/TCG Artist-in-Residency Fellow. Carl became a became a Co-Artistic Director at Mabou Mines in 2020.