After thoughtful consideration, the Travis Bogard Artist in Residence Committee has awarded the following fellowships in 2025:

Kristin Leahey, PHD, Assistant Professor, Boston University

To complete her book:  A History of the WP (Women’s Project) Theater with Cambridge University Press.  Hopes to work on the final section of the WP Lab and edit the entire book.

Sandra Jackson-Opoku, Teacher of writing and literature, Chicago, Illinois

Project “Never in Georgia”, a metafictional imaging of what would have happened if James Baldwin and Flannery O’Connor met at a fictional artist community.  They both inherited traditions of realism, naturalism, and investigations into human behavior.

Nancy Arbuthnot, Current employment, Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, former Professor of English U.S. Naval Academy

To complete her play “Bequest of Wings: An American Journey” which follows the journey of a Vietnamese family to a new life in America.  She has worked with poet, Le Pham Le, who lives in Pittsburg, CA, and would work with him for final revisions.  A staged reading is possible.

Ann Folino White, Associate Professor, Michigan State University

A theatre project:  Working Equity: A Century of Labor Disputes that Defined the Actors’ Job.  Her time at Tao House will be spent reviewing revisions to her manuscript: ”revising the book’s prose for elegance and accessibility.”

Anne Potter, Current Theater Director, The Athenian School adjunct professor at Saint Mary’s College. 

A project to examine a range of musicals to understand how and why the features that make a musical are used to tell history.  She would continue her research on this issue to present a conference paper at the Song Stage and Screen, an annual conference hosted by the International Society for the Study of Musicals.