For Immediate Release - July 06, 2022 - (New York, NY) - The BMP: Producer Academy is now accepting applications through August 1 for its 8-week course that begins the week of October 18 and ends the week of December 17th, with a week off in November. Each week will include a lecture and Q&A session, early evening happy hours, and networking sessions. Additional mentorship sessions will be scheduled after the 8-week program, after the New Year.

The BMP: Producer Academy was born out of a need to nurture, develop, and support rising Producers and Arts Administrators in the live performance industry. The next generation of Producers must be flexible, agile, resourceful, and ready to act as a support system for an entire production at a moment’s notice. BMP wants to be a part of that journey.

BMP: Producer Academy identifies and mentors the next generation of creative producers and administrators, and has served over 900 students in 17 different countries in its first season.

BMP has been awarded a $485,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation to support the development of the BMP: Producer Academy for the next three years.

BMP: Producer Academy will demystify the entire production process and teach the students concrete skills to develop and produce new performance works. This 8-week course starting October 18 includes the following:

25 applicants will be selected for the Academy at no cost thanks to the generosity of the Mellon Foundation. 

In addition to the Academy course, 3 BMP Fellowships will be created for 2023 (1) and 2024 (2) that will be open to any individual who completes or has completed an 8-week session of BMP: Producer Academy. The 1-year, salaried Fellowships ($50,000 plus health insurance) will fill the role of an Associate Producer, assisting in the areas of:

At the conclusion of the 1-year fellowship, BMP is committed to helping the Fellow find sustained, gainful employment in producing for the performing arts. The Fellows will be selected through a separate application and interview process with qualified alumni.

BMP strives to foster an equitable & inclusive creative, educational, and work environment. With a focus on the cultivation of the next generation, we highly encourage applicants of all gender identities, racial & ethnic backgrounds, socioeconomic statuses, and mental & physical abilities to apply.

Learn more at bethmorrisonprojects.org
Apply here: https://airtable.com/shr9jf8iF54SZzMfj

Kim Whitener is an independent creative producer, working in the contemporary opera-theatre, music-theatre, and other multi-genre landscapes through her company, KiWi Productions. In 2020-21 she worked with Beth Morrison Projects to help develop the curriculum for and co-teach two 8-week courses of the BMP: Producer Academy and subsequent shorter intensives. Ms. Whitener was the Producing/Executive Director at HERE in NYC for 12 years, and was a founding co-director of the PROTOTYPE opera-theatre festival, along with partners at Beth Morrison Projects, collaboratively directing eight festivals through January 2020. Prior to joining HERE, Ms. Whitener spent six years as an independent producer, working with a range of US artists in the contemporary theatre, opera- & music-theatre, dance-theatre, and multimedia worlds, including The Builders Association, Big Dance Theater, Toni Dove, Martha Clarke, Richard Foreman’s Ontological-Hysteric Theater, 33 Fainting Spells, among others. She was Managing Director of The Wooster Group for four years, and held other theatre management and producing positions in NY, Boston, and Philadelphia with a specialty in new music-theatre. She has served on many grant panels and taught seminars nationally and internationally on production, management, and development of projects for touring. kiwi-productions.com

Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) is one of the foremost creators and producers of new opera-theatre and music theatre, with a fierce commitment to leading the industry into the future, cultivating a new generation of talent, and telling the stories of our time. 

Founded by “contemporary opera mastermind” (LA Times) Beth Morrison, who was honored as one of Musical America’s Artists of the Year/Agents of Change in 2020, BMP has grown into “a driving force behind America’s thriving opera scene” (Financial Times), with Opera News declaring that the company, “more than any other… has helped propel the art form into the twenty-first century.” 

Operating across the US and internationally, with offices in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, BMP’s unique model offers living composers the support, guidance, and freedom to experiment, allowing them to create singularly innovative and impactful projects. Since forming in 2006, the company has commissioned, developed, produced and toured over 50 works in 14 countries around the world, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning chamber operas Angel’s Bone and p r i s m. 
 

In 2013, BMP co-founded the PROTOTYPE Festival with HERE Arts Center, which has been called “utterly essential” (The New York Times), “indispensable” (The New Yorker), and “one of the world’s top festivals of contemporary opera and theater” (Associated Press).

The Mellon Foundation is the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the Foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. The Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom that can be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. Learn more at mellon.org.