Penobscot Theatre granted $27,000 for community projects

Penobscot Theatre Company, Bangor’s only professional playhouse, has received four grants, including a matching grant, totaling nearly $27,000 to continue its mission and to support two new projects during coming months, the theater announced Monday. The grants are administered by the Maine Community Foundation, an organization that manages and distributes philanthropic funds.

“These grants will really help move forward some of the programs I have been trying to initiate,” said Scott R.C. Levy, PTC producing artistic director. “We want to tour work to rural venues, increase new in-school educational programs and launch our annual new play festival. This also means that the work we’re doing is recognized by funders who look at hundreds and hundreds of organizations and say that ours is worthy of support.”

Contributions of $3,000 from the Maine Theater Fund and $5,000 from the Margaret Burnham Charitable Trust will support the company’s first annual “Northern Writes,” a new play festival showcasing readings and workshop productions of original theatrical work in development. The two weeks of 10-minute plays, one-acts, full-length plays and a 24-hour festival will run May 9-25 at the Bangor Opera House.

The Maine Equity Fund grant will support a touring production of “I Am My Own Wife,” a drama in which one actor plays more than 40 roles based on Charlotte Von Mahlsdorf, a real-life German transvestite who survived the Nazi onslaught and the repressive East German communist regime. Winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for drama, the play will be produced March 14-25 at the Bangor Opera House, and then go on tour throughout the state.

The $5,000 H. King & Jean Cummings Charitable Fund grant will support the theater’s in-school storytelling workshops and residencies based on the mainstage season.

Because of the MCF grants, the theater will also receive $10,000 in matching money from the Bangor Commission on Cultural Development, which promotes the city as a regional arts center.

“The continued support allows our work to be ever more professional and of the highest-quality possible,” said Levy. “We look forward to reaching as many people as possible through the projects these grants will support and all we do.”

The theater has an annual budget of $650,000, including in-kind contributions. Half of the budget comes from earned income. The other half comes from contributions. Forty percent comes from ticket sales, according to Levy. Last year, the theater received $25,000 from both the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation in Bangor and the Shubert Foundation in New York City.