Amount
$500 - $2,500
Overview
Funding awarded to nonprofits to support dramatic productions, projects and programs or publications that reflect the life’s work and values of Paul Green.
Introduction
The Paul Green Foundation, named for the famed North Carolina author, humanitarian and civil rights activist, seeks grant proposals from North Carolina 501(c)(3) organizations to support Dramatic Productions, Projects and Programs or Publications that reflect the life’s work and values of Paul Green.
Proposals should focus on efforts to uphold basic human rights and racial equality; dramatic art; and literary projects, which could include the promotion and preservation of Green’s own literary works.
Proposals to fund projects that combine any of the three above would be welcomed. For example, Green’s plays and stories typically supported his social conscience. A proposal in which an art form is made to serve the cause of human rights would be particularly appropriate.
Green’s Accomplishments and Values
Paul Green (1894-1981), born and raised on a North Carolina Harnett County cotton farm, learned the value of hard work and the love of music and literature in his family home. With these skills and passions he went to the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 1916 to study philosophy and drama and began what would become a long life of service to others less fortunate than he, and a life devoted to literature and music.
In 1927, Green received the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for his Broadway play, In Abraham’s Bosom that depicted the tragic life of a struggling Black man who wanted his people to have access to education. In 1941, he wrote the Broadway play for Richard Wright’s powerful novel Native Son, dramatizing the oppressive effect of racism on the Black population in 1930’s America.
Paul Green lived his long life with compassion and action for the people whose lives were rife with inequality. He used his powerful pen to affect social change with the writing of a one-act play, “Hymn to the Rising Sun” that challenged the right of the State to continue the inhuman and cruel chain gangs. He was firmly opposed to the death penalty and stood as a “Lone Vigil” on nights of executions.
Green may be perhaps best known for founding the American Outdoor Historical Drama movement in 1937 when he wrote The Lost Colony. This epic play – still in production – brilliantly dramatizes the courage, the depth of integrity, and the devotion to freedom that are the hallmarks of the American character. Green went on to write sixteen more such dramas for large outdoor venues from Texas to Virginia, dramatizing significant events in the life of the nation, performed in amphitheatres on or near the sites where the events actually occurred.
A former professor of Philosophy and Drama at UNC-Chapel Hill, Green was the author of Broadway plays, Hollywood feature films, novels, poems, short stories and scholarly essays. His writing, more often than not, combined his literary genius with the stories of people who had experienced great hardship and loss in their lives.
Eligibility:
North Carolina 501(c)(3)
Level of Support:
Ranging from $500 – $2,500
Schedule and submission requirements:
Postmark deadline by October 1; grants announced in November for use in the next calendar year.
Proposals should include these initial materials (finalists will be asked for additional information):
One-page cover letter briefly stating the project title, description, and grant amount requested. This page does not count against the page limit.
Organization’s tax I.D. letter or that of an appropriate fiscal agent
In six pages or fewer (12 point standard font):
Project description and explanation for how the proposal fits the criteria
Project time table
Project budget’s proposed expenses and sources of income
List of Board of Directors and staff
Submissions:
By email only to Grants Committee, paulgreenfdn@gmail.com
To learn more, click here.