TAPER SHARES IN WALLACE GRANTS

The Mark Taper Forum is one of 49 dance and theater organizations from across the nation awarded a total of $3 million from the newly established Reader’s Digest Dance and Theater Program.

The organizations, mostly large, top-rung companies, will receive from $2,500 to $150,000 each to create and produce new works under the program sponsored by the Wallace Funds, a private foundation established by the co-founders of Reader’s Digest magazine, DeWitt and Lila Acheson Wallace.

“This is the largest Wallace Funds grant-awarding program of this kind,” said Arlene Shuler, deputy director of the Wallace Funds. An ongoing endowed scholarship fund supplies about $500,000 annually to middle-income children, she said, but “we’ve never announced a $3-million program--earmarked for a specific purpose--all at once.”

Among the groups awarded $150,000 (to be given over three years) are the American Ballet Theatre, the Joffrey Ballet, the American Repertory Theater and the New York Shakespeare Festival. The Mark Taper Forum will receive $75,000 over three years.

The Reader’s Digest program grants were awarded in three categories: established companies, smaller companies and special projects.

Thirty-two established dance and theater companies will receive three-year grants ranging from $15,000 to $50,000 given each year; five smaller organizations will receive one-year grants of either $2,500 or $5,000; 12 groups will receive one- or two-year special project grants ranging from $5,000 to $25,000, given each year.

Shuler said dance and theater groups rather than museums or other visual arts organizations were awarded grants because Wallace Funds trustees “were specifically looking for companies developing new works, new visions, new forms.”

She said the majority of Reader’s Digest grants were given to larger, more prominent companies because “that’s where a lot of new work is being done.”

Among organizations to receive special project grants are New York’s Dance Theater Workshop (given $15,000), which presents performances by several small companies annually, and the Fund for New American Plays (awarded $25,000), which supports the work of American playwrights.

Besides the Mark Taper Forum, two other California companies were selected for grants: La Jolla Playhouse, awarded $150,000 over three years, and the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company of San Francisco, given $5,000 for one year. Thirty-four companies from New York were selected for grants; the rest were from 12 other cities.