2024 PGPG Apps Open!
December is here, and with it, the launch of the 2025 PGPG Fellowship application!
Welcoming artists of all disciplines to submit works-in-process that would thrive in an environment of shares, feedback, and development within an intimate cohort.
This year, FGP will host presentations of these first drafts in early summer 2025. For more details visit our apply page.
Applications close Monday, December 23 at 11:59pm.
Can't wait to see what you're working on!
2024 Card Making Gathering!
in partnership with Letters Against Isolation and Playwrights Horizons Theater School
Wednesday, December 4th
4PM – 7PM
Playwrights Downtown
440 Lafayette Street
4th Floor, Studio 4G
NY, NY 10003
Share goodwill by creating cards of hope and encouragement for local seniors. Come for 20 minutes or 2 hours and create artful cards that will be delivered to isolated seniors throughout the New York area. Letters Against Isolation fights senior loneliness one letter at a time. Through handwritten messages of love, hope, and joy, their volunteer community brings seniors connection and improves their mental and physical health. Instructions, craft supplies and light snacks will be provided. All are welcome.
Please RSVP HERE if you plan on attending but drop-ins are also encouraged.
FGP ZINE is available!
Get yours today and find out more about what’s inside at : https://www.freshgroundpeppernyc.com/fgpzine
BRB Starts Today!
FGP’s first in-person programming in a year and a half! — and we could not be more excited! to welcome our 2021 Artists in Residence. See what some of them had to say about coming up to Little Pond.
2021 PlayGround PlayGroup Announced!
Welcome to our 2021 PGPG Cohort!
Visit www.freshgroundpeppernyc.com/pgpg to learn more about the group.
PGPG 2021 Applications Open
UPDATE: Applications for PGPG have extended to February 19th at 11:59pm.
FGP is opening applications for the 12th season of its working group, called PlayGround PlayGroup. This six-month iteration of PGPG will be held virtually from the Spring to the Fall of 2021. Applications close on February 15th, 2021 at 11:59 pm.
The PlayGround PlayGroup is a small, process-focused collective of makers gathered to celebrate the creation of new work. The group welcomes artists of all disciplines to develop a new artistic project within the structure of an engaged, curious, and supportive group of colleagues. This year, the group will specifically find ways to continue encouraging its members in their creative practices during the pandemic.
We are seeking a group of intrepid creatives who are ready and interested in not only embarking on a new creative project, but also ready and willing to give time and attention to the work of the others in the cohort. The group nature is important to us, and we find that those who are able to give energy to the group, get the most out of it.
We will be meeting on Zoom every other Monday evening for about 2-3 hours from April 12th through October. We are able to offer a $300 stipend this year for PGPG members.
Spend six months working on whatever piece you are excited to start! Tell us a little about yourself and the process you hope to embark on. We are excited to read.
Accompanying Persistent Troubles: Resources and Resilience (APT RnR)
Join us for our second FREE community-led workshops through FGP's Creative Leadership Lab. Come and support artists as they hone their facilitation skills and gain new insights into your own practice as we head into a new year.
About this workshop:
This workshop is for curious adults who are willing to share some digital space by writing, thinking, playing together in pursuit of our humanity.
It's for makers, thinkers, be-ers! For writers, dancers, painters, teachers, friends, lovers!
Led by your curious collaborator and erstwhile theatermaker Claire Moodey who is there to take the workshop with you. You can expect to bring your needs to the table and collaborate with fellow workshop participants to invent solutions and cultivate skills for survival through a composition style workshop.
In APT RnR, we will consider deeply basic questions that can be overlooked in the frenzy of living. Then we will practice ideating, creating, and sharing. Participants should be prepared to be vulnerable, share ideas, gather resources, and expect to receive those things from others in kind.
from Claire Moodey
Do you hate the forced shift to digital life? Are you resistant to plugging into it? But, do you want to learn how to engage with what it can do rather than its limits? ME TOO!! Let's try it together!!
I want to understand what it's strengths are and hone in on what needs the digi-sphere is not meeting. I want to do that with other folks through collaborative creative need solving.
What world do you want to be living in? What can we make with the things lying around-ideas, materials, etc.? How can we move toward that world together?
Sunday December 20, 1:00pm-4:00pm
Body of an Artist: Ways to Pay Attention and Care
Join us for our first in a series of FREE community-led workshops through FGP's Creative Leadership Lab. Come and support artists as they hone their facilitation skills and gain new insights into your own practice as we head into a new year.
About this workshop:
Belief lives in the body. We are constantly weaving modalities into our songs, shows, dances, costume, and classes be it lived experience or theory. How do we identify, source, and thereby embody personal pedagogy?
Come play with us. I love working with performers, directors, and folks who keep live arts going. We need you. As Rev. Micah Bucey of Judson Memorial Church says, “Artists are prophets”. How can we support the greater creative vision?
This is a free workshop is for artists, educators, and anyone strengthening the connection between the creative body and healing body.
Wednesday November 25, 5pm-7pm
New Programs Announced!
Applications for two new programs are now open through November 1st.
PROCESS ACCOUNTABILITY LAB
CREATIVE LEADERSHIP COMMUNITY WORKSHOPS.
Apply today at :
www.freshgroundpeppernyc.com/apply
Read more at:
https://mailchi.mp/c86ed87bf640/xq9mc5wwqi-3259674?e=29243c76e7
Elinor T Vanderburg in the New York Times
FGP Co-Creative Director Elinor T Vanderburg featured in spectacular company in “20 Theater Figures on How to ‘Revolutionize’ Their World”— including Playground Playgroup and BRB Retreat alum Jay Stull!
Read the full article at : https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/11/theater/how-to-revolutionize-theater.html
2020 Festival Pause
A message from the FGP Creative Directors:
We sincerely hope you all are staying healthy, creative, and hopeful. These are challenging times. In the face of such overwhelming health, societal, national, and financial uncertainty, we hold a newfound appreciation for centering the joys of art-making in community.
With hopeful hearts and cooperation from our space, the CSV Center, back in March we re-programmed the 2020 Festival, originally slated for May, to late-September of 2020. But, following months of conversations with our artists, volunteers, and venues, and with the reality that COVID-19 still poses its threat and restriction to our day-to-day lives, Fresh Ground Pepper has made the difficult decision to pause hosting our 2020 Festival as previously planned.
For our complete statement, visit: https://www.fgpfestival.com
To join the conversation, visit: https://forms.gle/UAWbry2ibkxGPcET6
BRB Retreat Update
This year, we’ve unfortunately had to cancel the entirety of the FGP BRB Retreat, including our Undergraduate Apprentice program. The Covid-19 pandemic hit just as we were about to open applications - and as the severity of the circumstances unfolded, we realized that it would be an impossibility to offer our residents a communal retreat in 2020. We hope, with the emergence of a vaccine and more information about measures of care, that we will be able to resume our retreat program in 2021 - which will be its 9th year!
Creative Leadership Lab Open!
A Social Hour Experiment
Every Friday in May starting the 8th!
8pm ET/5pm PT
ON THE INTERNET
We tested out this new program last Friday, and trust us, it's a whole lotta fun.
Feel like you haven’t met anyone new in a month? Itching to make a new acquaintance? Want to nurture your creative spirit? FGP is opening RSVPs for a free digital mixer geared toward meeting other current and aspiring Creative Leaders. Grab your drink of choice and join FGP for an Icebreaker session! Icebreaker is a video platform designed to bring together community in a playful and interactive way. There are two parts to an Icebreaker. The first is the event room where the host (FGP Creative Director Andrew Scoville!) can establish a shared context and guide the tone of the event. The second is a series of “games” in which participants break out for one-on-one curated conversations. Each participant should expect to have between 4 and 5 one-on-one conversations over the course of the hour. The platform requires a Google email address to sign in, and each participant must have their own computer with webcam. Space is limited.
Please reach out to jenny@freshgroundpeppernyc.com with any questions. \
Registration will open Saturday and close every Tuesday night.
For participation Friday May 8th, RSVP HERE by Tuesday 5/5 at 11:59pm
We did it! Thanks to you.
On December 16, 2019 with 451 backers— Fresh Ground Pepper raised $31,385 for our 2020 Festival! Thank you for your support.
FGP in the NYTimes
On September 2, 2019 Fresh Ground Pepper’s BRB Retreat and one of our Artists in Residence LM Feldman was featured in a series about summer retreats for theater makers.
Read more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/02/theater/summer-residency-playwrights-theater.html