Partnerships

The Hermitage partners with organizations of all kinds to support residencies and to create meaningful arts programming for the community. Local, national, and international partnerships have included:

Alliance of Artists Communities

American Opera Projects
Brooklyn, NY

Art Center Sarasota
Sarasota, FL

Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County
Sarasota, FL

Asolo Repertory Theatre
Sarasota, FL

Aspen Music Festival and School
Aspen CO

Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation
Sarasota, FL

The Bay Park
Sarasota, FL

Black Theatre United
New York, NY

Booker High School Visual and Performing Arts (VPA)
Sarasota, FL

Bookstore1
Sarasota, FL

Camargo Foundation
Cassis, France

Charlotte County Public Schools
Port Charlotte, FL

City of Antwerp
Belgium

Community Foundation of Sarasota County
Sarasota, FL

Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast
Osprey, FL

ensembleNEWSRQ
Sarasota, FL

Florida Alliance for Arts Education
Orlando, FL

Florida Humanities Council
St. Petersburg, FL

Florida Studio Theatre
Sarasota, FL

Greenfield Foundation
Philadelphia, PA

Gulf Coast Community Foundation
Sarasota, FL

John & Mable Ringing Museum of Art
Sarasota, FL

Manasota ASALH
Sarasota, FL

Manatee County School District
Bradenton, FL

Nantucket Screenwriters Colony
Nantucket, MA

New College of Florida
Sarasota, FL

Observer Media Group
Sarasota, FL

The Players Centre
Sarasota, FL

Resilient Retreat
Sarasota, FL

Ringling College of Art & Design
Sarasota, FL

SaraSolo Festival
Sarasota, FL

Sarasota Contemporary Dance
Sarasota, FL

Sarasota County Schools
Sarasota, FL

Sarasota Film Festival
Sarasota, FL

Sarasota Museum of Art
Sarasota, FL

Sarasota Opera
Sarasota, FL

Sarasota Orchestra
Sarasota, FL

Selby Foundation
Sarasota, FL

Selby Gardens
Sarasota, FL

State College of Florida
Bradenton, FL

Urbanite Theatre
Sarasota, FL

Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe
Sarasota, FL

Van Wezel Foundation
Sarasota, FL

Venice Theatre
Venice, FL

The Hermitage property is owned by Sarasota County and is leased to the Hermitage Artist Retreat, Inc.
The property is maintained by the Hermitage Artist Retreat, Inc. and the Sarasota County Department of Parks and Recreation.

website managed by The Internet Adept

Feb

Fri

Artists and Thinkers: “The Art of Producing” with Tony Award Winner Tom Kirdahy @ Longboat Key's Bayfront Park

Tickets

Feb 3 @ 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Hermitage Artists and Thinkers Series
“The Art of Producing”
with Tony and Olivier Award-winning Producer Tom Kirdahy

Presented in partnership with the Town of Longboat Key and Asolo Repertory Theatre

Friday, February 3 at 5pm

Longboat Key’s Bayfront Park (entrance at 4052 Gulf of Mexico Drive, Longboat Key, FL 34228)

Register here.
Registration is required. $5 per person.

Tony and Olivier Award-winning producer Tom Kirdahy is a champion of new work as well as reimagining classics to make them vital for today’s audience. Immersed in the world of Broadway, Off-Broadway, London’s West End, and the touring market, Kirdahy is also immersed in Sarasota where he finds inspiration from the beach between projects. Join Hermitage Artistic Director and fellow Tony winner Andy Sandberg for the next installment of this candid conversation series that takes an in-depth look at the forces shaping the theater as we know it.

Tom Kirdahy is a Tony and Olivier Award-winning producer whose projects have spanned Broadway, Off-Broadway, and the West End, as well as national and international tours. Select New York and London credits include: Hadestown (8 Tony Awards, including Best New Musical), The Inheritance (Tony Award for Best Play; 11 Tony nominations), The Piano Lesson, Little Shop of Horrors (Drama Desk Award, Best Musical Revival), Terrence McNally’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (2 Tony nominations, including Best Revival). Additional Tony nominations: The Visit, Mothers and Sons, After Midnight, Ragtime, and Master Class. He is the recipient of the Robert Whitehead Award for Outstanding Achievement in Commercial Theater Producing. Kirdahy serves on the Broadway League Board of Governors and the Board of Trustees of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. As an attorney, he spent nearly two decades providing free legal services to people living with HIV/AIDS and served for many years on the Executive Committee of the NYC LGBT Center. Graduate Studies: New York University School of Law, NYU CAS. For more information: TomKirdahyProductions.com

Feb

Fri

“The Creative Language of Accessibility” @ Hermitage Palm House (Indoors)

Tickets

Feb 10 @ 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm

“The Creative Language of Accessibility”
with Hermitage Fellows Shannon Finnegan and Chella Man

Friday, February 10 at 5:30pm

Hermitage Palm House (Parking at 6660 Manasota Key Rd, Englewood, FL 34223)

Register here.
Registration is required. $5 per person.

From alternative text to technological advancements, artists across mediums are elevating solutions designed to provide accessibility for all. Join two cutting-edge thinkers and practitioners in this field: Hermitage Fellows Shannon Finnegan and Chella Man. Both multidisciplinary artists defy genre and call attention to facets of daily life unexamined by many through their visual, performative, film, and written works. Shannon Finnegan explores how “Alt Text,” a tool designed to improve internet accessibility, can become poetry and Chella Man shares his experiences directing, writing, and co-producing, “The Device That Turned Me Into A Cyborg Was Born The Same Year I Was,” set to premiere internationally this spring in collaboration with Powerhouse Museum and Nowness. Come see, hear, and connect with what you might be missing as these creators share work and insight.

Hermitage Fellow Shannon Finnegan is a multidisciplinary artist. Some of their recent work includes Anti-Stairs Club Lounge, an ongoing project that gathers people together who share an aversion to stairs; Alt-Text as Poetry, a collaboration with Bojana Coklyat that explores the expressive potential of image description; and Do You Want Us Here or Not, a series of benches designed for exhibition spaces. They have done projects with Banff Centre, ARGOS Centre for Audiovisual Arts, the High Line, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Nook Gallery. Their work has been supported by a 2018 Wynn Newhouse Award, a 2019 residency at Eyebeam, and a 2020 grant from Art Matters Foundation.

Hermitage Fellow Chella Man is a 22-year-old, Deaf, genderqueer, trans-masculine, Jewish, and Chinese artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Lacking representation where he grew up in central Pennsylvania, he decided to be his own. The motto: “Be your own representation” would become a pillar of his teachings. Before accessing the language and resources to express his experiences, art was a loophole, as language was never a prerequisite when creating visuals. He now uses a wide variety of mediums, gravitating towards whatever will best translate the message he is centering. In addition to his art, he has published his first book, Continuum, with Penguin Random House, stepped into the film industry as a director and executive producer for projects such as Trans in Trumpland and The Beauty of Being Deaf, holds talks internationally on the intersections of art, disability, queerness, race, and healing, launched his own clothing with Opening Ceremony, signed on as a columnist for Condé Naste’s first queer publication Them, signed as the first Deaf and trans-masculine model with IMG Models, and was cast as a superhero within Warner Brother’s DC Universe, Titans. He hopes to continue pushing the boundaries of what it means to be accessible, inclusive, and equal in this world.

Feb

Fri

“Mastering the Monologue” @ New College of Florida, Black Box Theater

Tickets

Feb 17 @ 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm

“Mastering the Monologue”
Featuring Hermitage Fellow Don Nguyen

Presented in partnership with New College of Florida

Friday, February 17 at 5pm

New College of Florida, Black Box Theater (5845 General Dougher Pl, Sarasota, FL 34243)

Register here.
Registration is required. $5 per person.

One of the trickiest formats to get ‘right’ in performance or on the page, the monologue reveals individual character in an immediate and intimate manner. Come experience the process from the creative and audience sides, as celebrated playwright and theater-maker Don Nguyen discusses the process of writing and shares examples of the form. A recipient of the New York Stage and Film Founder’s Award, Don is a multidisciplinary artist whose plays are intriguing and empathetic with a genuine sweetness.

Hermitage Fellow and playwright Don Nguyen was born in Vietnam, grew up in Nebraska, and currently lives in NYC. Full-length plays include The Supreme Leader (Dallas Theater Center), Hello, from the Children of Earth (The Playwrights Realm), Red Flamboyant (Firebone Theatre), Sound (Azeotrope/ACT), The Commencement of William Tan (Yale Cabaret), The Man from Saigon (A.C.T New Strands Festival), and The World is not Silent (Alley All New Festival / NYSAF 2022). Recipient of the 2015 GAP Prize from the Aurora Theatre and a NYSAF Founder’s Award. Finalist for The O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, The Princess Grace Award, and The Woodward International Playwriting Prize. Nominations include: the Laurents/Hatcher Award and the L. Arnold Weissberger Award. Don was a member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, the Public Theater’s inaugural Emerging Writers Group, The Civilians inaugural R&D Group, and a frequent volunteer at the 52nd Street Project. For more information: TheNuge.com

Feb

Thu

“Jazz and Theater: Keeping the Beat” @ Fogartyville Community Media and Arts Center

Tickets

Feb 23 @ 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm

“Jazz and Theater: Keeping the Beat”
with Hermitage Fellows Stacey Rose and Fay Victor

Presented in partnership with Manasota ASALH at Fogartyville Community Media and Arts Cetner

Thursday, February 23 at 5:00pm

Fogartyville Community Media and Arts Center (525 Kumquat Court, Sarasota, FL 34236)

Register here.
Registration is required. $5 per person.

Known for her improvisational prowess, jazz vocalist and spoken-word storyteller Fay Victor joins playwright Stacey Rose’s biting wit and keen observation in this musical and theatrical experience, presented in partnership with ASALH. Rose is a provocative voice at the forefront of celebrating and exploring the Black experience.Victor is considered a pioneer in her field, with The New York Times describing her unique hybrid of spoken word and singing as the “scat style for today’s avant-garde.” Hear work from these innovative Hermitage Fellows and gain insight into their creative process.

Playwright and Hermitage Fellow Stacey Rose is a Charlotte-based, award-winning, nationally produced playwright. Her work celebrates and explores Blackness, Black identity, body politics, and the dilemma of life as the “other.” Stacey has held fellowships/residencies with the Arts & Science Council, Dramatists Guild,Playwrights’ Center, Sundance Theatre Lab, The Goodman Theatre, The Civilians, Tofte Lake Center, and now the Hermitage Artist Retreat. Her work has been presented at the Fire This Time Festival, The Lark, The Amoralists Theatre Company, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, National Black Theatre, Pillsbury House Theater, Barrington Stage, and Kansas City Rep. Stacey’s plays America v. 2.1, As Is, and Legacy Land were featured on the Kilroy’s List. Stacey is a recipient of a 2019 Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation Women’s Commissioning Grant in partnership with Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre and an Alfred P. Sloan foundation commission in partnership with Manhattan Theatre Club. She currently writes for 9-1-1 on Fox. Along with director Martin Damien Wilkins, Stacey co-founded the Queen City New Play Initiative to support local and southern playwrights in the creation of new work for the stage.

Hermitage Fellow, jazz vocalist, and spoken word storyteller Fay Victor is a sound artist, composer, educator. “She’s essentially invented her own hybrid of song and spoken word, a scat style for today’s avant-garde,” – The New York Times. Fay Victor uses performance, improvisation, and composition to examine representations of modern life and blackness. Based in Brooklyn, NY, Fay’s ‘everything is everything’ creative aesthetic permeates her working approach to the vocal instrument. Having released eleven critically acclaimed albums as a leader, including her latest release,“We’ve Had Enough!” with her improvising quartet SoundNoiseFUNK (ESP-Disk) in October 2020 and having performed with luminaries such as Gary Bartz, Archie Schepp, Nicole Mitchell, Randy Weston, Roswell Rudd and Moor Mother, Victor has shown the through line of her unique vocal force and expansion. An innovative educator, Victor is on the faculty of the College of Performing Arts at the New School, where she teaches interdisciplinary practices and Vocal Performance, and at the ROC Nation School for Sports, Music and Entertainment at Long Island University, where she runs a private vocal studio. Website: FayVictor.comm Follow Fay Victor @freesongsinger on IG, FB,Twitter

Mar

Thu

“Tell and Show: Art and Performance Expressing Identity” @ Hermitage Beach

Tickets

Mar 2 @ 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm

“Tell and Show: Art and Performance Expressing Identity”
Featuring Hermitage Fellows Tamara Anderson, Lesley Mok, and B. Ingrid Olson

Thursday, March 2 at 5:30pm

Hermitage Beach (6660 Manasota Key Road, Englewood, Florida 34223)

Register here.
Registration is required. $5 per person.

For any artist, their lived experience forms an integral part of the work they create; from childhood exploits to difficult decisions as an adult to the culture we breathe in everyday, these threads weave their way into the fabric of work. Sometimes subtly and sometimes overtly, these three incredible artists use their skills to transform everyday experiences into moving and thought provoking works of art. Tamara Anderson has been seen on stage and screen winning accolades with “intoxicating charm, infectious humor, and a fabulous voice.” Lesley Mok’s innovative and dynamic compositions have been performed by such leading ensembles as the International Contemporary Ensemble, Metropolis Ensemble, and JACK Quartet. B. Ingrid Olson’s works have been exhibited around the world including the MoMa in New York, Harvard’s Carpenter Center, the Aspen Art Museum, and i8 Gallery in Reykjavík. Hear from these two artists as they talk process and share work on the Hermitage beach.

Hermitage Fellow Tamara Della Anderson is a multi-faceted actor, singer, writer, and producer. She has been featured in musicals and plays across the United States and on television and film in The Blacklist and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, among others. She is on the advisory committee of the National Teaching Artists Guild, and her production company, the Gumbo Lab, is a space for BIPOC artists to work on new projects. Check out her latest film Not Okay on Hulu!

A Hermitage Fellow, B. Ingrid Olson was born in Denver, Colorado and currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. In 2022, Olson had concurrent solo exhibitions, “History Mother” and “Little Sister,” at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include “Fingered Eyed,” i8 Gallery, Reykjavík (2019); “Forehead and Brain,” Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York (2018); “Klein / Olson, The Renaissance Society,” Chicago, Illinois (2017). Select group exhibitions include “The Inconstant World,” Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California (2021); “Dependent Objects,” The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois (2021); “Being: New Photography 2018,” The Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York (2018); and “Lost Without Your Rhythm,” Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, Colorado (2018). Olson graduated with a BFA in 2010 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Hermitage Fellow Lesley Mok is a drummer, composer, and improviser based in Brooklyn, NY. Interested in the ways social conditions shape our beings, Lesley’s work focuses on transposing, augmenting, and overacting humanness to explore ideas about normalcy, alienness, and privilege. She likes to write in a way that considers the whole expressive range of each instrument, often utilizing extreme ranges and dynamic timbres in her writing as a framework for individuality and personal expression. Her ongoing explorations with composition and improvisation are most notably documented in her nine-piece improvising chamber ensemble, The Living Collection. Lesley’s work has been recognized by the ASCAP Foundation and the Asian American Arts Alliance, and has been performed by International Contemporary Ensemble, Metropolis Ensemble, and JACK Quartet. She has collaborated with Tomeka Reid, Fay Victor, William Parker, Cory Smythe, Jen Shyu, Sara Serpa, Elias Stemeseder, David Leon, Anna Webber, Adam’ O’Farrill, and Edi Kwon.

Mar

Fri

“Comedy and Community” with Hermitage Major Theater Award Winner Madeleine George @ Hermitage Beach

Tickets

Mar 10 @ 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm

“Comedy and Community”
with Hermitage Major Theater Award Winner Madeleine George

The Hermitage Major Theater Award is made possible with generous support from the Flora Major and the Kutya Major Foundation.

Friday, March 10 at 5:30pm

Hermitage Beach (entrance at 6660 Manasota Key Road, Englewood, Florida 34223)

Register here.
Registration is required. $5 per person.

Madeleine George is one of the first recipients of the Hermitage Major Theater Award, a $35,000 national commission presented by the Hermitage to create an original work of theater. A writer for Hulu’s hit series “Only Murders in the Building” (starring Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez), Madeleine is working on her newest play at the Hermitage as a result of her HMTA commission. A Pulitzer Prize finalist for her work The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence, her award-winning works of theater are funny and infinitely human, formally inventive and smartly observed. Sometimes absurd and always deeply felt, works like the New York Theater Workshop production of Hurricane Diane bring the Greek goddess to modern day New Jersey while skewering passivity towards climate change. Come hear what is next for this brilliant writer and what she has planned for her Hermitage Major Theater Award commission.

Madeleine George is the recipient of the Hermitage Major Theater Award. Her plays include Hurricane Diane (Obie Award), The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence (Pulitzer Prize finalist; Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Award), Seven Homeless Mammoths Wander New England (Susan Smith Blackburn finalist), Precious Little, and The Zero Hour (Jane Chambers Award, Lambda Literary Award finalist). Her work hasbeen performed in New York at Clubbed Thumb, Playwrights Horizons and New York Theatre Workshop, and around the country at Perseverance Theater in Juneau, the Huntington in Boston, the Old Globe in San Diego, Shotgun Players in Berkeley, City Theater in Pittsburgh, Theater Wit in Chicago, and Two River Theater in New Jersey, among many other places. She has been a Banff Arts Centre Resident Artist, a two-time Hedgebrook Writer in Residence, a three-time resident at SPACE on Ryder Farm, and a four-time MacDowell Fellow. She’s a member of New Dramatists’ Class of 2017, a Clubbed Thumb Writers Group member, and an alum of the Lark Playwrights Workshop, the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, and the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab. Honors include the Princess Grace Award, a Manhattan Theater Club Playwriting Fellowship, a Lilly Award, and a Whiting Award for Drama. Madeleine holds a BA from Cornell University and an MFA from NYU. She has taught writing in various forms at Barnard College, Bard College, NYU, Rutgers, the Universities of Michigan, Maryland, Arkansas, Indiana, and Minnesota, and Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Cornell, and Brown. For many years she led free writing workshops around New York City, including at Queensboro Correctional Facility; Hopper House, an alternative-to-incarceration program for women; a pre-trial intervention program run by the Brooklyn DA; Island Academy, the public school on Rikers Island; a senior citizens group in Fort Greene Park; and the Ali Forney Center, a shelter for homeless LGBTQ youth. Since 2006, she has worked with the Bard Prison Initiative at Bard College, a degree-granting liberal arts program operating in seven New York State prisons. She currently serves as BPI’s Director of Admissions. In 2022, Madeleine’s translation of Chekhov’s Three Sisters premiered at Two River Theater, where she recently completed a six-year stint as the Mellon Playwright in Residence. Her ten-episode audio adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For is forthcoming in 2023 from Audible Originals. Madeleine is a founding member of the Obie-Award-winning playwrights’ collective 13P (www.13p.org). She’s written on shows for FX and HBO, and she is currently a writer/producer on the Hulu mystery-comedy Only Murders in the Building, nominated for WGA and Emmy Awards for Best Comedy.

Mar

Thu

“Sofía Rocha: Making Musical Waves” @ Marie Selby Botanical Gardens

Tickets

Mar 16 @ 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

“Sofía Rocha: Making Musical Waves”
Featuring the winner of the 2022 Hermitage Prize in Composition presented at the Aspen Music Festival and School, Sofía Rocha

Presented in partnership with The Venice Symphony and The Pops Orchestra

Thursday, March 16 at 6:30pm

Marie Selby Botanical Gardens (1534 Mound Street Sarasota, FL 34236)

Register here.
Registration is required. $5 per person.

Now in its tenth year, the Hermitage Prize in Composition is presented annually in collaboration with the Aspen Music Festival and School. This distinguished honor awards the gift of time, space, and support to an exceptional student in Aspen’s world renowned composition program. This year’s winner, Sofía Rocha, has deep ties to the Gulf Coast of Florida, having grown up in Naples, and writes music of uncompromising emotional intensity. Join us for a “Hermitage Sunsets @ Selby Gardens” to hear from this inventive next-generation composer as she contextualizes selections of her work being performed by the Pops Orchestra of Bradenton and Sarasota.

Sofía Rocha, originally from Boulder, Colorado and having grown up in Naples, Florida, is the 2022 recipient of the Hermitage Prize in Composition at the Aspen Music Festival and School. Rocha writes music of uncompromising emotional intensity while exploring cognition, randomness, rhythm, and counterpoint within post-tonal frameworks. She writes for all manner of performing forces: instrumental, vocal, and electronic. Upcoming projects include newly commissioned works for the 2022 Aspen Music Festival as a Composition Fellow, the International Contemporary Ensemble, and the Fifth House Ensemble as a Fromm Foundation Fellow at the 2020 Fresh Inc. Festival. Rocha’s first orchestral work, Replier, was chosen as the winner of the 2020 New England Philharmonic annual call-for-scores and will be premiered in May of 2022. Rocha has also received honors from ASCAP, OM/NI Composition Competition, and Tenebrae New Music Ensemble. She has worked with numerous ensembles including the Arditti Quartet, JACK Quartet, DeCoda, loadbang, Brentano String Quartet, Castle of our Skins, Transient Canvas, Hypercube, arx duo, and Duo Entre-Nous, as well as numerous solo performers. Rocha received her master’s degree in composition from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory as a Chancellor’s Scholar and recipient of Elsberry & Gonder Family and Conservatory Scholarships. There, she studied with Chen Yi, Yotam Haber, Paul Rudy and Zhou Long. Rocha was also the 2019 Composer-in-Residence for the Graduate Fellowship String Quartet. She completed her undergraduate work at the Sunderman Conservatory of Music at Gettysburg College in 2019, receiving a BA in Music with Honors as a Wagnild Scholar and studying composition with Avner Dorman. She has attended June in Buffalo, Fresh Inc. Festival, the Atlantic Music Festival, Divergent Studio, and the Hypercube Composition Lab as a composer, studying and taking master classes with composers such as Augusta Read Thomas, Hannah Lash, Hilda Paredes, Jeffrey Mumford, Alex Temple, Richard Danielpour, Aaron Helgeson, Amy Beth Kirsten, and David Serkin Ludwig, among others. Besides composing, Rocha is also an avid trombonist and conductor, having performed with numerous symphony orchestras, wind ensembles, and jazz groups. SofiaRochaMusic.com

February – March 2023 Feb – Mar 2023

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