Theater Mu to receive $100,000 from the American Rescue Plan

Some of the team of Man of GodFrom above left, clockwise: Jane Peña (dramaturg), Suzie Juul (Samantha), Dexieng “Dae” Yang (Mimi), Rich Remedios (pastor), Louisa Darr (Jen), Sterling Miller (COVID-19 safety coordinator), Lyndsey R. Harter (stage manager), Katie Bradley (director), Janet Scanlon (Kyung-Hwa), Sunny Thao (assistant stage manager).

From the very beginning of Man of God’s production, Theater Mu has strived to make its return to in-person theater as safe as possible: strict testing and cohorting rules for the company, understudies for not only the cast but the production crew, reduced theater capacity and additional audience requirements… And, of course, a COVID-19 safety coordinator to oversee every rehearsal and performance to make sure that all guidelines were being followed.

All of these protocols were in place, but when the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced that it had approved Theater Mu to receive a grant for $100,000 as part of the American Rescue Plan on Jan 27, the finances of it all got a lot easier.

Theater Mu was one of only 567 arts organizations in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Washington, D.C., to be approved as a beneficiary for this third installment of the American Rescue Plan. Totaling $57,750,000, this latest round can be used for anything related to wages, operation and facility funding, health and safety supplies, or marketing—a flexibility created to acknowledge the various states of arts organizations during the pandemic.

“We are so grateful for this grant,” says Managing Director Anh Thu Pham. “We have been looking into the health and safety protocols to see whether we could safely produce an in-person production with the Omicron variant surge. Not only will this allow us to find the safety measures we need, but it will allow us to continue to pay our artists despite the reduced house [capacity] and not worry about ticket sales.”

Theater Mu has done a lot virtually since COVID-19—think more than 200 artists hired in the past year alone—but as we transition to more in-person programming, please know that we’re doing as much as we can to make people feel safe and comfortable to gather with us. Our COVID-19 guidelines evolve as the public health situation does, so make sure to check them before attending our events. We hope to see you at Man of God, which runs from Feb 16 through Mar 6!