Howard Foundation Fellowships 2027–2028: Ten $40,000 Unrestricted Awards for Early Mid-Career Playwrights, Choreographers and Performance Studies Scholars, Closing 1 November 2026

Howard Foundation Fellowships 2027–2028: Ten $40,000 Unrestricted Awards for Early Mid-Career Playwrights, Choreographers and Performance Studies Scholars, Closing 1 November 2026

The George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation, administered at Brown University, has opened its 2026 application round. Applications opened on 1 July 2026 and close on 1 November 2026. Ten fellowships of $40,000 each will be announced in April 2027, with funds awarded for use beginning 1 July 2027.

Two fields are open this round, and only two:

• Writing for Performance or Choreography — the creative track.
• Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies — the scholarly track.

The Howard Foundation runs a rotating sequence of fields rather than an open annual call. That structure is the single most important thing to understand about it. If your work sits in one of this year’s two fields, this is the year to apply, and the competition is unusually well matched to you. If it does not, no amount of framing will help, and you should instead note the year your field returns.

Key Details

What the Fellowship Actually Buys

The award is $40,000, unrestricted, paid to the individual for “the sole purpose of aiding the intellectual and artistic development of the recipients.” The Foundation is explicit that the money is meant to purchase time. It will not fund publication costs, advertising, or promotional expenses, and it pays no indirect costs to a host institution.

That framing shapes what a strong application looks like. For an academic applicant, the natural use is topping up or extending a sabbatical — turning a half-paid semester into a full paid year, or a single term into two. For an independent artist, the natural use is stepping back from teaching, gig work, or commissions long enough to finish a script or build a new dance. The Foundation states that the fellowship must give the recipient meaningful time away from other commitments, so an application that reads as “this will supplement my normal working year” is weaker than one that reads as “this clears eight months I would not otherwise have.”

Because the award is unrestricted, there is no budget form, no line-item justification, and no cost-share negotiation. There is also no institutional shelter: if you are on a university payroll, decisions about how the award interacts with salary and benefits are between you and your institution, and the Foundation will not adjudicate them. Sort that out with your grants office before April 2027 rather than after.

Recipients may postpone their award to fit personal or institutional schedules, which matters if a sabbatical is already locked to a particular year.

Who Fits: the Early Mid-Career Definition

The Foundation is deliberately narrow about career stage, and this is where most ineligible applications come from.

The target is someone who completed formal studies five to fifteen years ago and has already finished at least one major project beyond degree requirements — work of a calibre that would support tenure at a higher education institution, or that has earned comparable peer recognition in a creative field. In practice: a published first book, a produced body of work, a substantial choreographic catalogue.

For artists without traditional training, the equivalent measure is five to fifteen years as an active professional in their generative practice. Age and formal credentials are explicitly irrelevant. The Foundation is measuring professional trajectory, not degrees.

The ceiling is as real as the floor. Candidates already promoted to full professor, or already established as nationally and internationally recognised leaders in their field, are not normally eligible. Choreographers with substantial recognition and lengthy careers are likewise outside the target. This is not a lifetime achievement award; it is a bet on people who have proven they can finish something serious and are positioned to do something larger next.

Residence, not citizenship, is the gate: you must be currently living and working in the United States or a US Territory. Nationality does not matter.

Field One: Writing for Performance or Choreography

This is the creative track, and it is for solo generative artists.

Writing for Performance covers playwriting, monologues, performance poetry, screenplays, and other writing intended for live or recorded performance, in any genre or style.

Choreography covers all forms of composition and creation of new choreography for dance or stage performance, with notation, again in any genre or style.

The exclusions are sharp and worth reading twice:

• Work that is solely performed, developed, or produced by others — you must be the generative artist.
• Remounts, revivals, or reinterpretations of existing material.
• Applications from choreographic collaborators — dancers, producers, directors — who are not themselves professional choreographers.
• Self-presented work as the basis of a portfolio.
• Collectives and companies. Individual creators only.

That last pair matters for the work sample specifically: samples must have been produced, presented, published, exhibited, screened, or premiered by an independent organization or producer. Self-produced showings do not count as evidence. If your strongest recent work was self-presented, you need to build the sample around whatever was picked up by an outside producer, even if you personally rate it lower.

Field Two: Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies

This is the scholarly track. The Foundation will consider proposals for projects that examine and interpret theatre, dance, and performance studies from a critical point of view — in any genre, place, language, time period, or format, whether manuscript, print, or digital. Philological, historical, theoretical, and comparative approaches are all in scope.

What is out of scope:

• Creative work of any kind — fiction, poetry, or writing for performance. That belongs in the other track.
• Choreography. Same reason.
• Film studies scholarship. Film Studies is its own field in the Howard rotation and appears in the 2028 application cycle, not this one.

The line between the two open fields is the line between making and interpreting. A scholar writing critically about a choreographic tradition applies to Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies. A choreographer making new work applies to Writing for Performance or Choreography. Applying to the wrong track wastes the cycle.

The Application: Five Components

Everything runs through the Foundation’s SurveyMonkey Apply portal at howardfoundation.smapply.org. Create a profile, then assemble:

1. Biographical information and eligibility confirmation. You attest to your career stage against the five-to-fifteen-year standard.
2. Project description — three double-spaced pages, roughly 800–900 words. A bibliography is optional and does not count against the limit.
3. Curriculum vitae or resume — two pages maximum.
4. Work sample — up to 20 pages of written work, or up to 15 minutes of audio or video of previously produced work. Format limits vary by category.
5. Two recommenders — you supply names and email addresses; the Foundation solicits the letters. Both letters must arrive by the deadline for the application to count as complete.

An instructional video is posted on the Foundation’s application page. Watch it before you start building the profile rather than after you hit a formatting question.

How Applications Are Judged

Review is multi-stage. Expert panels are convened for each field and screen the pool; the strongest proposals advance to the Foundation’s Board of Administration, which makes final selections. Reviewer identities are kept confidential, so there is no panel roster to write toward.

The practical implication of the two-stage structure is that your project description has to survive readers who are deep specialists in your field and then persuade a board that is not. The 800–900 words need to work on both audiences: precise enough that a specialist sees genuine command of the material, legible enough that a generalist can state what you will make and why it matters. Openings dense with unglossed theory tend to fail the second test.

The Foundation states a commitment to diversity and welcomes applications from underrepresented backgrounds.

Preparing a Competitive Application

Lead with the project, not the biography. Ten awards across two fields means the panel is choosing between many people who all clear the bar. The CV is capped at two pages precisely because it is not the deciding document.

Be concrete about the time. Name the months, name what they replace, name what will exist at the end. “I will use the fellowship to advance my research” is filler. “This releases me from a 3-3 teaching load in academic year 2027–28 and produces a complete first draft of the manuscript” is an argument.

Make the 800–900 words earn their length. This is a very short proposal by fellowship standards. There is no room for a literature review. Most successful short proposals spend roughly a third on the question or the artistic problem, a third on approach and method or process, and a third on the concrete deliverable and why you specifically can produce it.

Choose the work sample for evidence, not affection. For scholars, pick the excerpt that best demonstrates the analytical voice the new project will use. For artists, remember the independent-production requirement and choose accordingly.

Brief your recommenders on career stage. Letters that describe you as an emerging artist or, at the other extreme, as a field-defining senior figure both work against you. Ask your referees to speak to the completed major project and to the trajectory that makes the next one plausible.

Common Mistakes

• Applying in an off-year field. The rotation is published; check it before writing anything.
• Crossing the making/interpreting line. Creative work submitted to the scholarly track, or scholarship submitted to the creative track, is out of scope regardless of quality.
• Misreading career stage. Applicants who finished their studies two years ago, and full professors, are both outside the window.
• A self-presented work sample in the creative track.
• Letting a recommender miss 1 November. The application is incomplete without both letters, and completeness is a hard requirement.
• Budgeting the award as project costs. It funds time, not publication, advertising, or promotion.
• Ignoring the page limits. Two pages of CV and three double-spaced pages of project description are firm.

Timeline

Future Rounds

If your field is not open this year, the published rotation tells you when to prepare:

• Applications 1 July – 1 November 2027 (award year 2028–2029): Creative Nonfiction and History.
• Applications 1 July – 1 November 2028 (award year 2029–2030): Photography and Film Studies.

The Foundation reserves the right to adjust the sequence as resources allow, so confirm before building a plan around a future year. Still, a two-year runway is a genuine advantage: it is time to finish the major project the eligibility rules require, and to place a work sample with an independent producer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a university appointment? No. Creative practitioners are explicitly not required to hold academic appointments.

Do I need to be a US citizen? No. You must be living and working in the United States or a US Territory at the time of application. Citizenship is not a criterion.

Can a company, ensemble, or collective apply? No. The creative track is for solo artists and individual creators.

Can the award pay for publishing my book? No. Fellowship funds support time for scholarly or artistic work, not publication, advertising, or promotional costs.

Will my institution receive overhead? No indirect costs are paid. How the award interacts with salary and benefits is a matter for you and your institution.

Can I defer the award? Successful candidates have the option to postpone their awards to accommodate personal or institutional schedules.

Is film studies eligible this round? No. Film Studies scholarship is handled as a separate field in the rotation and appears in the 2028 application cycle.

Note on the award-year label: the Foundation’s own pages label this round inconsistently in places. The dates that matter are unambiguous across all of them — apply by 1 November 2026, decisions in April 2027, funds for use beginning 1 July 2027.

Official Links and Contact

• Foundation home page and current announcement: https://howard-foundation.brown.edu/
• Application instructions: https://howard-foundation.brown.edu/apply
• Eligibility and review process: https://howard-foundation.brown.edu/eligibility-and-review-process
• Sequence of fields: https://howard-foundation.brown.edu/sequence-fields
• Application portal: https://howardfoundation.smapply.org/
• Email: [email protected]
• Phone: 401-863-2429
• Post: The George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation, Brown University, Box A, 10 Prospect St., Providence, RI 02912

Verify every date and requirement against the Foundation’s own pages before submitting. Details on this page were checked on 6 August 2026.