Asolo Repertory Theatre Awarded $100,000 Grant by the Charles and Margery Barancik Foundation

(SARASOTA, September 23, 2015) —  Asolo Repertory Theatre, Florida’s premier professional theatre, is proud to announce that it is the recipient of a $100,000 grant from the Charles and Margery Barancik Foundation. The grant will provide core support for Asolo Rep’s highly anticipated 2015-16 season. It will also further enrich the theatre’s partnership with the FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training, helping underwrite the costs of 12 second-year students to travel to London for an invaluable six-week training session.

Through the generosity of the Barancik Foundation, Asolo Rep is able to bring renowned actors, designers, and directors to Sarasota. Many of these world-class artists travel straight from Broadway, Chicago and Los Angeles to create Asolo Rep’s thrilling productions. The excellence of these artistic teams has elevated Asolo Rep’s reputation in the theatre community, allowing the theatre to obtain the rights to projects like this season’s All The Way and Disgraced and to develop new Broadway-bound works like Josephine. The grant will also help support the production of world-class sets, props, costumes, and more.

Additionally, the grant strengthens Asolo Rep’s partnership with the FSU/Asolo Conservatory, one of the many benefits of which is providing a corps of talented actors for large cast productions that would be cost-prohibitive at many of the country’s regional theatres. Third-year students will form a large part of the cast for Asolo Rep’s 2015-16 season’s production of Ah, Wilderness!

“The grant recognizes the unique, mutually beneficial relationship that Asolo Rep and the Conservatory share,” said Linda DiGabriele, Managing Director of Asolo Rep. “It’s enlightened donors like the Barancik Foundation that see how supporting this partnership benefits the community through the audiences we reach and the artists we attract, and our overall economic impact and tourist appeal.”

Through the foundation’s support, Conservatory students build upon their second-year focus on the classic repertoire in an intensive theatrical training session in London where they work with venerated artists. Upon returning from London, the students become the acting company for Asolo Rep’s annual New Stages Tour of an FSU/Asolo Conservatory production, which tours throughout October and November each season. The New Stages Tour takes fresh, accessible 45-minute adaptations of William Shakespeare’s beloved classics into schools and community venues throughout Florida over a two-month period, serving nearly 15,000 young people and adults. Following the tour, the third-year Conservatory students join the theatre’s professional company of actors, refining their skills on Asolo Rep’s mainstage.

“We are thrilled to support the strategic partnership between Asolo Repertory Theatre and the FSU/Asolo Conservatory, reflecting the Barancik Foundation’s interest in arts and education,” said Teri A Hansen, President and CEO of the Barancik Foundation.

For more information about Asolo Rep and its 2015-16 season, visit www.asolorep.org.

                                               About the Charles and Margery Barancik Foundation

The Charles and Margery Barancik Foundation was founded in 2014 to promote meaningful change in the areas of humanities and the arts, education and science, humanitarian causes, the environment, and medical research. Although it funds national and international efforts, the Barancik Foundation has a special focus on the Sarasota, Florida, community. The Barancik Foundation does not accept unsolicited requests for funding.