{"id":2017,"date":"2015-09-30T15:14:50","date_gmt":"2015-09-30T19:14:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/?p=2017"},"modified":"2015-10-28T13:38:45","modified_gmt":"2015-10-28T17:38:45","slug":"news-in-the-arts-2015-macarthur-foundation-genius-grant-recipients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/2015\/09\/30\/news-in-the-arts-2015-macarthur-foundation-genius-grant-recipients\/","title":{"rendered":"News in the Arts: 2015 MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant Recipients"},"content":{"rendered":"<script>fsg_json['fsg_post_2017'] = [\n{id: 2019, image: 'http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/files\/2015\/09\/imgres-1.jpg', extlink: '', thumb: 'https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/files\/2015\/09\/imgres-1.jpg', permalink: '<div class=\"galleria-layeritem\"><a title=\"Permalink\" href=\"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/2015\/09\/30\/news-in-the-arts-2015-macarthur-foundation-genius-grant-recipients\/imgres-1\/#0\"><div class=\"galleria-link-bookmark\"><\/div><\/a><\/div>', layer: '<div class=\"galleria-infolayer\"><div class=\"galleria-layeritem\" style=\"padding-right: 20px;\"><h1>imgres-1<\/h1><\/div><div class=\"galleria-layeritem\"><a title=\"Permalink\" href=\"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/2015\/09\/30\/news-in-the-arts-2015-macarthur-foundation-genius-grant-recipients\/imgres-1\/#0\"><div class=\"galleria-link-bookmark\"><\/div><\/a><\/div><div class=\"galleria-layeritem\" style=\"padding-right: 20px;\"><\/div>'}\n];<\/script>\n<div id=\"attachment_2019\" style=\"width: 195px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a data-postid=\"fsg_post_2017\" data-imgid=\"2019\" href=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/files\/2015\/09\/imgres-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2019\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2019\" src=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/files\/2015\/09\/imgres-1.jpg\" alt=\"Source: pbs.org\" width=\"185\" height=\"152\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2019\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: pbs.org<\/p><\/div>\n<p>2015 has proved to be a big year for theater;\u00a0as the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.americantheatre.org\/2015\/09\/29\/2015-macarthur-genius-grant-recipients-announced\/\"><em>American Theater<\/em> <\/a>website highlights,\u00a0three recipients of the MacArthur Fellowship, also known as the &#8220;Genius Grant,&#8221; are theatrical artists. Recipients are recognized as up-and-coming artists, and are granted a stipend of $625,000 over five years to assist their artistic endeavors. The first, Mimi Lien, is &#8220;a\u00a0\u00a0set designer whose work includes the kinetic design for\u00a0Soho Rep\u2019s 2014 production of\u00a0<em>An Octoroon\u00a0<\/em>and the knick-knack-laden environment for Annie Baker\u2019s <em>John<\/em> at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.signaturetheatre.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Signature Theatre<\/a> in 2015, has earned praise from the foundation for her\u00a0\u201cbold, immersive designs [that] shape and extend a dramatic text\u2019s narrative and emotional dynamics.\u201d The second, Basil Twist, is recognized for his &#8220;pioneering work in the field of puppetry\u00a0(<em>Symphonie Fantastique; La Bella Dormente nel Bosco<\/em>) [which] extends to a number of a theatrical fields.&#8221; His most recent work is titled\u00a0<em>Sister&#8217;s Follies: Between Two Worlds<\/em> and will run in the Abrons Arts Center\u00a0throughout October.\u00a0<em>American Theater<\/em> claims that the third recipient, Lin-Manuel Miranda, &#8220;is quickly on his way to household-name status with his Broadway smash hit\u00a0<em>Hamilton,<\/em>\u00a0and he<em>\u00a0<\/em>was recently featured\u00a0on the cover of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.americantheatre.org\/2015\/07\/27\/how-hamilton-found-its-groove\/\">this magazine<\/a>. The foundation credits him for his expansion of the American musical idiom to include a wider range of styles and voices.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Work in theater is not the only thing that these three artists have in common, however; as\u00a0pointed out by Dylan Matthews in an article for\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vox.com\/2014\/9\/17\/6334187\/the-macarthur-fellowships-dont-know-what-theyre-supposed-to-be\">Vox<\/a><\/em>, these three artists, as well as the majority of the recipients for 2015, are already relatively well-established in their field. All three artists have already seen their work featured\u00a0in well-known theaters in New York City. Matthews\u00a0mentions Miranda in particular, claiming that his &#8220;musical\u00a0<em>Hamilton<\/em> is generating more buzz than any Broadway production in years.&#8221; He contrasts the relative success of Miranda and other 2015 recipients to that of the recipients in 1981, the year the grant first started. He makes a distinction between these recipients, such as Cormac McCarthy, and more recent recipients by emphasizing the fact that, although McCarthy is a famous novelist today, in 1981, he had only written four novels, none of which made him the well-known author he is today.<\/p>\n<p>So all of this begs the question: Has the MacArthur Foundation strayed too far from the original intention of the grant? Where does one draw the line between &#8220;emerging&#8221; and &#8220;established&#8221;? How much success can one achieve and still be recognized for his or her &#8220;potential&#8221;?<\/p>\n<p>We would love to hear what readers think about this issue! Please comment and weigh in with your questions and opinions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2015 has proved to be a big year for theater;\u00a0as the\u00a0American Theater website highlights,\u00a0three recipients of the MacArthur Fellowship, also known as the &#8220;Genius Grant,&#8221; are theatrical artists. Recipients are <a href=\"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/2015\/09\/30\/news-in-the-arts-2015-macarthur-foundation-genius-grant-recipients\/\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"sr-only\">Read more about News in the Arts: 2015 MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant Recipients<\/span>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3743,"featured_media":2019,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[68866,68864,68868,68867,68863,68865,68869],"class_list":["post-2017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-basil-twist","tag-genius-grant","tag-hamilton","tag-lin-manuel-miranda","tag-macarthur-foundation","tag-mimi-lien","tag-theater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3743"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2017"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2023,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2017\/revisions\/2023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}