PLAINFIELD, Vt. – Rogelio Martinez, a faculty member in Goddard College’s MFA in Creative Writing Program, has been named a 2017 Drama and Performing Art Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
Appointed on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise, the 173 Guggenheim Fellows were chosen from a group of almost 3,000 applicants in the Foundation’s ninety-third competition.
In all, 49 scholarly disciplines and artistic fields, sixty-four different academic institutions, twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia, and three Canadian provinces are represented in this year’s class of Fellows, who range in age from twenty-seven to seventy-nine. Sixty-eight Fellows have no academic affiliation or hold adjunct or part-time positions at universities. In addition, the Dorothy Tapper Goldman Foundation is once again underwriting the Fellowship in Constitutional Studies.
Edward Hirsch, president of the Foundation, is enthusiastic about the Fellows in the class of 2017: “It’s exciting to name 173 new Guggenheim Fellows. These artists and writers, scholars and scientists, represent the best of the best. Each year since 1925, the Guggenheim Foundation has bet everything on the individual, and we’re thrilled to continue to do so with this wonderfully talented and diverse group. It’s an honor to be able to support these individuals to do the work they were meant to do.”
Martinez is the winner of the first ever Mid-Career Fellowship at the Lark Theater Company. He has just been commissioned by the Denver Center to write a new play about Reagan and the 1980s. Ping Pong, his play about Nixon, Mao, and the hippie that brought the two together, is part of this season’s Public Studio series at The Public. His new play, Born in East Berlin, will be given a workshop at the Atlantic in October. Some of his plays include Wanamaker’s Pursuit (Arden Theater), When Tang Met Laika (Sloan Grant/ Denver Center/ Perry Mansfield), All Eyes and Ears (INTAR at Theater Row), Fizz (NEA/ TCG Grant/ Besch Solinger Productions at the Ohio Theatre; New Theater Miami), Learning Curve (Smith and Krauss New Playwrights: Best Plays of 2005/ Besch Solinger Productions at Theater Row), I Regret She’s Made of Sugar (winner of the 2001 Princess Grace Award), Arrivals and Departures (Summer Play Festival), Union City (E.S.T., winner of the James Hammerstein Award), and Displaced (Marin Theater Co.). In addition, his work has been developed and presented at the Public Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Mark Taper Forum, South Coast Repertory, the Magic Theater, and Ojai Theater Company.
Since its establishment in 1925, the Foundation has granted more than $350 million in Fellowships to over 18,000 individuals, among whom are scores of Nobel laureates, Fields Medalists, Turing Award winners, poets laureate, members of the various national academies, winners of the Pulitzer Prize, and other important, internationally recognized honors. The Guggenheim Fellowship program remains a significant source of support for artists, scholars in the humanities and social sciences, and scientific researchers. New and continuing donations from friends, Trustees, former Fellows, and other foundations have ensured that the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation will be able to continue its historic mission. For more information on the Fellows and their projects, please visit the Foundation’s website at http://www.gf.org.
ABOUT GODDARD COLLEGE
Goddard College is a liberal arts institution offering low-residency bachelor’s and master’s degrees from its campus in Plainfield, Vermont, and its educational sites in Port Townsend and Seattle, Washington. At Goddard, students decide their areas of study, determine which resources they will use, and devise how they will measure and demonstrate what they learn. The College was founded in 1863 and moved to its Plainfield campus in 1938. It is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, Inc., through the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education.
