Stephen Sondheim.
NEW YORK CITY: As established under the will of the revered composer-lyricist, the Stephen Sondheim Foundation has announced the Horowitz-Sondheim Clinic at the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (NYPSI) in honor of Stephen Sondheim’s psychoanalyst Dr. Milton Horowitz. The foundation will provide ongoing financial support to the clinic, offering affordable mental health support to playwrights, composers, and lyricists for the theatre. It also announced an inaugural round of grants for cultural institutions. The inaugural recipients are Playwrights’ Center of Minneapolis, the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Millay Arts, and Rhinebeck Writers Retreat.
“Stephen Sondheim’s bequest is notable not only for the direct support it provides—allowing NYPSI to offer affordable treatment to theatre artists—but also because it sends a message destigmatizing the mental health challenges that many people face,” said Dr. Tehela Nimroody, clinical director of the Treatment Center at NYPSI and director of the Horowitz-Sondheim Clinic, in a statement. “Playwrights, composers, and lyricists are not unique in benefitting from psychotherapy or psychoanalysis, but Sondheim’s incomparable stature and the visibility of the Sondheim Foundation will magnify NYPSI’s efforts to provide highly skilled therapy as part of its clinical and training activities.” She encouraged students and professionals in groups specified by Sondheim to seek affordable treatment through NYPSI.
Oscar Hammerstein II and Stephen Sondheim.
These efforts reflect the foundation’s commitment to continuing Sondheim’s legacy of supporting and mentoring future generations of emerging playwrights, composers, and lyricists—like his mentor Oscar Hammerstein II. The annual grants will benefit organizations with the time, space, collaboration, feedback, and mental health support required to create new works that will expand the art form and “give us more to see.” The cultural institution grantees were selected by the founding board of directors, close collaborators, and confidantes, who were appointed in Sondheim’s will.
For Playwrights’ Center, the grant will support and expand their Core Writer Fellowships that nurture and sustain playwrights with three-year terms of artistic and professional support, including development opportunities like customized workshops and collaborative opportunities. The program annually gives 25-30 exciting playwrights from across the country the time and tools to develop new work for the stage.
“Playwrights’ Center is honored to be one of the inaugural recipients of this award. Stephen Sondheim’s legacy and commitment to the American theatre is unparalleled, and he was passionate about mentoring new writers,” said Playwrights Center producing artistic director Nicole A. Watson in a statement. “This cohort represents the living soul of the American theatre, and it is both a great honor and a natural fit to be given resources to support them in Stephen Sondheim’s name.”
Steppenwolf’s grant will help re-launch their SCOUT new play development program, which offered developmental workshops and public readings to support new American plays, including La Ruta by Isaac Gómez and Bald Sisters by Vichet Chum. According to artistic directors Glenn Davis and Audrey Francis and executive director Brooke Flanagan, the program had been paused “due to the adverse impacts of the pandemic on the company’s operating model,” and reviving the initiative in the 2026-27 season is thanks to this “extraordinary support.”
Steppenwolf will commission an emerging playwright to draft a new play that leverages the acting style and strength of the Steppenwolf ensemble and theatre’s tradition of developing bold and provocative plays. Through developmental workshops and public readings, SCOUT will support Steppenwolf’s work to launch new American plays by a diverse group of emerging playwrights.
Millay Arts’s grant will support their longstanding Core Residency program and the newly created “Artist in Residency” program, which allows the chosen multidisciplinary artists to dive deep into their creative process and projects. Works made possible in part by this gift can enrich lives and communities globally. Alumni are consistently recognized with national honors, including the Pulitzer, PEN America, Lambda Literary, Gotham Book Prizes, the National Book and MacArthur “Genius” Awards, and the Guggenheim and the American Academy in Rome Fellowships.
“Millay Arts is honored and thrilled to be the recipient of a generous grant from the Stephen Sondheim Foundation,” Millay Arts executive director Monika Burczyk said in a statement. “Our exceptional alumni repeatedly offer that their time in residence was transformative to their process and practice. Our radical mission of providing talented, multidisciplinary artists with time and space to create remains essential and we are proud to join with the Stephen Sondheim Foundation to continue to realize this vital vision for the future.”
For Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, this grant supports its summer Writing Residency program, providing resources for uninterrupted collaboration and financial support in the form of a stipend for writing teams. Every summer, the program offers space and time for musical theatre writing teams to focus solely on their craft, free from all financial burden.
“Sondheim’s legacy is alive in every writing team that we support at Rhinebeck Writers Retreat—not only in the art itself, but in his approach to collaboration,” said Rhinebeck executive director Erica Rotstein in a statement. “Sondheim modeled that writers need time to wrestle with character and story together. RWR exists to provide and protect that time, so the next great works can be born. It is a profound honor, and a beautiful alignment, to partner with the Sondheim Foundation in sustaining his legacy for generations of writers to come.”
Prior to his passing, Sondheim also directed the board to give a one-time gift to the Entertainment Community Fund, which was granted by the Foundation last year. The Stephen Sondheim Foundation is dedicated to supporting playwrights, composers and lyricists for the theatre, particularly those who are in early career stages, with funds generated from the royalty income earned by his works posthumously.
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