BETHESDA, MD.: Creativeness Stage has introduced that founding inventive director Janet Stanford will step down in the summertime of 2024, after greater than 30 years within the place. Working alongside founder Bonnie Fogel, Stanford helped remodel the small performing arts program right into a nationally-recognized regional theatre and chief in optimistic youth improvement by the performing arts for kids ages 1-21.

When Fogel retired in 2020, Stanford continued to information Creativeness Stage out of the pandemic and has since partnered with managing director Jason Najjoum to plan a sustainable future for the group. The corporate’s board of trustees will kind a committee to conduct a nationwide seek for Stanford’s successor.

“I’ve watched Janet in awe as we’ve labored collectively during the last 18 months,” mentioned Najjoum in a press release. “She is a fierce advocate for the wants of youngsters, but in addition extremely sort and whip sensible–continually rising as a frontrunner and artist whereas additionally being our position mannequin. I’ll dearly miss working together with her day by day, however am grateful that she is going to proceed to advise us from the board of trustees. And I’m honored that she and Bonnie have entrusted the group to us, the subsequent technology of arts educators.”

Since becoming a member of the corporate in 1993, Stanford has produced 160 exhibits, directed 55, written 9, commissioned 50 new works, launched modern academic packages, and fostered enduring partnerships with fellow TYA Theatres. She established the Youth Speaks to Age Sequence within the 1990’s that introduced a dozen new scripts by BIPOC playwrights to the sector, has featured Deaf actors and actors with disabilities in 9 mainstage productions, pioneered programming for the very younger (TVY), and made a follow of casting various actors in all the pieces so that every one kids may see themselves onstage.

Stanford has commissioned works from native and worldwide writers akin to Charles Manner, David S. Craig, Psalmayene 24, Joan Cushing, Karen Zacarias, and extra. She was honored by Theatre for Younger Audiences/USA (TYA/USA) with the Harold Oaks Award for Sustained Excellence in TYA, and Creativeness Stage has received a complete of 12 Helen Hayes Awards, together with Excellent Manufacturing–Theatre for Younger Audiences seven occasions.

“Janet Stanford is the primary individual to fee a play from me,” mentioned playwright Karen Zacarias in a press release. “Because the 1990’s, Janet has made it her mission to ask playwrights of shade to create new performs for her viewers. The craft I realized whereas writing my kids’s performs beneath her course has translated right into a vibrant inventive muscle that has influenced and bettered my work for adults. She made me a greater author…and a greater individual…by reminding me to by no means lose sight of why I’m writing a narrative. With Creativeness Stage, I’ve watched her develop an thought into an establishment with substance and integrity and supply an impetus and residential for all the brand new tales she has fostered. She has modified the face and content material of TYA.”

By her work, Stanford has traveled to festivals in South America, Europe, the U.Okay., Scandinavia, Canada, and Asia, and invited visitor artists again to Creativeness Stage. In 2007 she piloted Edge Fest, a global pageant for kids which morphed into the corporate’s reference to Children Euro Competition, the European Union’s program for kids that introduced tons of of performers from 28 EU nations to Washington D.C. annually for a decade.

“A dedication to youth is the North Star that pulls us all,” Stanford wrote in a letter pals and colleagues. “Collectively, we’ve performed a lot in 4 many years to convey the humanities to greater than 1,000,000 younger individuals, and to nurture them with the “sluggish meals” that solely reside theatre can present.”

Creativeness Stage is a holistic theatre arts group for all kids and youth. The theatre seeks to empower all younger individuals to find their voice and identification by performing arts schooling {and professional} theatre. As of 2022, Creativeness Stage had an approximate price range of $4.8 million.

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