We at Crowded Fire recognize it is essential to cultivate a thriving theater ecosystem by investing in and uplifting theatre-makers and administrators of all kinds, at all points in their careers. CFT is honored to offer the following Initiatives to support the sustainability and growth of individual artists and future leaders. 

Launched in 2016, Crowded Fire’s Ignite Fund seeks to support the growth of and enhance the working lives of theater designers and technicians in the Bay Area with an eye towards supporting the plurality of race, culture, class, gender, and age in our local design and technical community.

Just as Crowded Fire’s artistic programming supports a plurality of voices, the Ignite Fund is distributed with an awareness towards supporting a diversity of race, culture, class, gender, age and sexual orientation in our local design and technical community. The Ignite Fund provides grants for professional development workshops and training opportunities, to purchase design tools and equipment, and to strengthen the economic sustainability of an arts practice.

“It is so important to prioritize theater art makers of all kinds,” shares Leader of Production & Community Riley Alyson. “The Ignite Fund was created to invest in the sustainability and growth of individual artists who have very few opportunities for funding via grants and awards. Past and future recipients work throughout the Bay Area in a variety of disciplines, and therefore impact the sustainability of the greater Bay Area theater community.”

Crowded Fire believes in the development of all artists and technicians, yet there are a limited number of grants for theater designers and technicians. We understand that growth in and innovation of design comes from designer’s and technician’s investment in tools and training. We believe in your, the designer’s and technician’s, vision and want to support the richness you bring to our local theater ecology.

Each year a total of up to $7,500 will be granted through the Ignite Fund. In 2024, grants will be awarded between $750 to $1,500. Applications are reviewed by a panel composed of Crowded Fire staff members, Bay Area theater designers and/or technicians, and other leaders in the theater community.

Past Ignite Fund recipients include Miaccuicatl Alexander, Alexa Burrell, Brooke L Jennings, Kevin Lo, Sara Witsch, Kenan Arun, Nathaniel J. Bice, Chibueze Crouch, Mitchell Jakubka, Gabriel Nuñez de Arco, and Grisel (GG) Torres.

We are no longer accepting applications for the 2024 Ignite Fund—recipients will be announced soon,
and please stay tuned for our 2025 announcement!

Crowded Fire is pleased to offer annual Audition and Solo Performance Intensives designed to provide a constructive path for actors to bolster their audition skills and creators to generate an original monologue for performance as an extension of CFT’s core values of expanding access to Bay Area stages for all and creating art with fierce love. The Intensives typically happen in Summer & Fall, now in-person at our office and rehearsal space in Potrero Hill.

The 2024 Audition and Solo Performance Intensives have concluded, please stay tuned for our 2025 announcement!

Founded in 2017, the Resilience & Development (R&D) Lab was first envisioned by former Artistic Director Mina Morita and Resident Artist emerita Lisa Marie Rollins as a playwright-centered artistic incubator, focusing not only on the development of new plays, but on cultivating playwrights as holistic and interdisciplinary artists. Previous cohorts of the lab ran for 18 months. To provide a more expansive new play development process, the fourth cohort will run for two full years.

Crowded Fire Theater  is thrilled to announce the fourth cohort of the Resilience & Development (R&D) Lab, supporting four playwrights in the development of new works. The playwrights selected for the 2024-26 cohort are Aidaa Peerzada, Anthony Doan, Ashley Smiley, and Leigh M. Marshall. Over the next two years, CFT is committed to supporting these four visionary writers, bolstering the development of new and original pieces.

As part of Crowded Fire’s revolutionary shared leadership model, the 2024-26 R&D Lab cohort will be co-facilitated by Leader of Artistic Curation & Producing Nailah Harper-Malveaux and Leader of Artistic Producing Caro Asercion.

Previous playwrights supported by the R&D Lab include Denmo Ibrahim, Nick Mwaluko, Star Finch, Julius Rea, A-lan Holt, Linda Maria Girón, Eugenie Chan, Maria Jenson, and Lisa Marie Rollins. Pieces developed through the Lab have gone on to receive further development with Town Hall Theatre Company, San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company (SFBATCO), and through Crowded Fire’s own Matchbox Reading Series.

Read the full Press Release here!