MTI FALL 2025

MAKING FRIENDS with ARTIST GRANTS & FELLOWSHIPS

with SAYMOUKDA DUANGPHOUXAY VONGSAY

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AN A LA CARTE SERIES ON ARTIST GRANTS

Mellon Foundation playwright-in-residence Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay is teaching a three-part, a la carte series on how to tackle artist grants and fellowships. This class is ideal for creatives who want to scale up their work and apply for grants and fellowships to support their projects, artistic learning, and reach their professional goals. Expect to talk about your artistic practice, the purpose of your work/project, and money. Participants should have confidence in their identity and artistic work, and they should be ready to articulate a few creative and professional goals that they want to achieve in the next one to three years.

Although each class will be intensive, you do not need to have grant proposal-writing experience to join the course. Having familiarity, however, is a plus. Participants can expect to feel more affirmed in their artistic practice and gain more confidence in grant proposal writing after this class.

This series is designed for emerging and mid-career artists (16+) in the global majority. Deadline for registration nis Oct 7.

Saymoukda will give an overview of several major state and regional granters, and she will facilitate a Q&A panel made up of local grant officers. This will be an opportunity for artists to build relationships with funders. Participants will come out of this session with a better understanding of which types of grants may fit best for their project and their career journey.

The Oct 14 will also be recorded. If you are not able to attend, you may still register and a password protected video will be sent to you by the following day.
During this session, you will learn the basics of how to apply for grants and fellowships. You’ll go over common application sections, learn what grants are asking for in a proposal overview, and look at examples of grant proposal narratives to understand how word choice and clarity can effectively communicate your vision, purpose, and impact.
In this session, participants will be guided through exercises to help them craft compelling artist statements, their project plan, and project budget. It is recommended that participants already have a project in mind to make the best use of this session.

While a number of the opportunities Saymoukda touches on are for multiple types of arts, this course will focus more on the performing arts (eg, playwrights, directors, actors, dancers, composers, lighting designers). Participants are welcome to pick and choose which session they attend or go to all three!

Note: Everyone coming Oct 18 or 19 will have to fill out a worksheet that Saymoukda will send out after the Oct 14 class.

GENERAL INFORMATION

DATES

Tue, Oct 14, from 7-9 pm - How to Find and Understand Artist Grants & Fellowships

Sat, Oct 18, from 1-3 pm - How to Apply to Artist Grants & Fellowships

Sun, Oct 19, from 1-3 pm - Craft Your Artist Statement, Project Purpose, & Budget

LOCATION

This MTI course will take place in person at the Mu Studio (755 Prior Ave. N, Suite 107, Saint Paul, MN 55104). All sessions will be held in person; there is currently no option for remote/Zoom participation.

TUITION

$25 per class. Payment is made when you register for the class. Send payment inquiries to info@theatermu.org.

ABOUT SAYMOUKDA DUANGPHOUXAY VONGSAY

SAYMOUKDA (she/her) is a Lao American playwright. CNN’s United Shades of America host W. Kamau Bell called her work “revolutionary.” Besides the impact she has made through her playwriting (with productions at Theater Mu, Mixed Blood Theatre, the Smithsonian Asian Pacific Center, and soon at InterAct Theatre Company in Philadelphia), poetry, and children’s book, Saymoukda has also provided mentorship around grant applications. Her experience pulls from awards she has applied for and received from institutions, including the Jerome Foundation, the Bush Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, the Kennedy Center REACH, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Center for Cultural Power, the Andy Warhol Foundation, the MAP Fund, and the Loft Literary Center, and dozens more. For example, in dollar terms, Saymoukda was awarded a little over $800,000 in grants and fellowships between 2018 and 2023. She also has experience on the other side of the table by working with organizations including United States Artists, the Science Museum of Minnesota, and the Knight Foundation, the City of Saint Paul Cultural STAR, the Saint Paul Foundation's Asian Endowment Fund, serving in roles such as a panelist for local and national grant programs, as an auditor of grant programs, and as a designer for new grant programs. Saymoukda is currently a Mellon Foundation playwright-in-residence at Mu, a core writer at the Playwrights' Center, a Forecast Public Art grantee, and an artist in residence in Cassis, France, through the Jerome@Camargo program (Camargo Foundation/Jerome Foundation).