Independent Arts Producer Residency

In August 2026, Producer Hub will pilot a week-long Independent Arts Producers Residency at Tofte Lake Center in Ely, Minnesota, and adjacent to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

This week-long residency will be focused on creating time and space for independent producers in the performing arts to aid their work in the field in a natural retreat environment. This time will be primarily unstructured. The goal is to create time and space to relax, ideate, and be in community with others. 

Residency Dates: August 5–11, 2026

Tofte Lake Center, Ely, Minnesota

The inaugural cohort of 2026 residents includes Dria Brown, Remi Harris, Scarlett Kim, Forager Theatre Company (Iris Rodrigo & Jennie Hughes), and The Lemonade Stand (Jenny Glickman, AJ Bloomfield, & Zoë Gilmore).

Meet the Inaugural Cohort of 2026 Residents

  • Dria Brown (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist, cultural strategist, and creative doula working between New York City and Los Angeles. As the founder of The Creative Doula Studio, her work lives at the intersection of storytelling, civic imagination, collective care, and gathering. Through live performance, public programming, and cultural strategy, she creates conditions where artists, organizers, and communities leave differently than they arrived.

    During her tenure as Producing Artistic Director of the Tony Award-winning Broadway Advocacy Coalition, she led national programs, public convenings, and artist-centered initiatives that positioned creative practice as a force for justice and civic engagement.

    Her producing work spans live performance, large-scale convenings, and civic experiences. At the Aspen Art Museum, she serves as Assistant Producer for AIR 2026: Commedia dell'arte, a large-scale performance commission by Camille Henrot. At the New Museum, she is the Mainstage Talks Producer for Demo 2026. With Level Forward, she co-created and co-facilitates Storytelling Forward, a workshop for artists navigating narrative change and social impact, presented in partnership with the Tribeca Festival, the Sundance Institute, and SXSW. She also served as Facilitator for Theater of Change at Columbia Law School.

    Additional producing credits include BAC's annual culminating performances at Signature Theatre, Abrons Arts Center, MCC Theater, The Tank, and Playwrights Horizons. In 2020, she produced Broadway for Black Lives Matter, a three-day digital convening that reached more than 10,000 viewers and received a Webby Award. The project was a significant part of the work that contributed to BAC receiving a Special Tony Award in 2021.

    As a creative producer, her additional credits include Terence Nance's presentation for the Whitney Biennial, performance programming with Alethea Pace at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and live music production with Britton and the Sting at Joe's Pub, Nublu, Baby's All Right, Rockwood Music Hall, and Second Stage Theater.

    Dria uses the term creative doula to describe a care-centered, process-driven approach to creative leadership and is committed to expanding its use across the arts.

  • Remi Harris (she/her) is a NYC-based creative producer and performer. She is currently working as the Program Manager and a Co-Producer at Pioneers Go East Collective and as Co-Programs Manager for the NY State Choreographers Initiative. She has previously worked at HERE Arts Center, CPR-Center for Performance Research, and Brooklyn Studios for Dance, among others, curating artistic programs and providing developmental support for artists across various disciplines. She believes the arts have the ability to generate empathy and joy and strives to help increase arts access through her work as a producer and arts advocate. She uses her independent producing projects to curate spaces that build community through shared experiences and encourage connection.

  • Scarlett Kim (she/her) is a director and producer working across live performance and immersive media. A polymath, Scarlett creates participatory experiences through collaborative worldbuilding, drawing from theatre, XR, games, and ritual.

    Scarlett is Executive Creative Producer of Center for Unclassifiable Technologies and Experiences (C.U.T.E.). She has co-founded field initiatives including Worlds in Play and the Independent XR Distribution Coalition (MIT Open Doc Lab). She was an Interdisciplinary Fellow at Royal Shakespeare Company, Visiting Artist at Stanford Arts, and Director of Innovation & Strategy at Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

    Scarlett has collaborated with trailblazing artists and partners including Chloé Zhao, Tender Claws, REDCAT, Disney Live Entertainment, East West Players, Korea Foundation, and Chilean National Council of Culture & Arts. Scarlett is a board member and part of the interim leadership team at Los Angeles Performance Practice, mentors for NEW INC, and is Spatial Storytelling Session Chair for SIGGRAPH 2026. Honoree, XLIST 2025. MFA, CalArts. BA, University of Chicago.

  • Iris Rodrigo (she/her) is an Hispanic performer, singer, producer, and brand designer based in NYC after immigrating to the US from Barcelona five years ago. Having been a professional youth performer at major venues in Spain and a recipient of a BBA from ESADE Business School, she comfortably balances the hybrid of art and business. In her time both performing in and creating imaginative projects in the independent NY theater scene, she has built a reputation as a dedicated, resourceful leader and a passionate, courageous theater artist.

    She is the co-founder, and Managing Director of Forager Theatre Company, a nonprofit that employs its philosophy of foraging for objects, people, and perspectives to all of its theatrical and educational projects. She spearheads the company’s marketing, branding, and outreach, and artistic produces many of its concerts, readings, and shows. Iris currently works for the renowned nonprofit The Moth as a Brand Partnerships coordinator.

  • Jennie Hughes (she/they) is an NYC based award winning director, choreographer, educator and the founding director of Forager Theatre Company. She prioritizes work that is women-led and tells stories that are often overlooked in commercial theatre. Jennie believes in creating spaces where everybody feels seen, heard, and safe enough to truly challenge themselves through collaboration. Their most recent credits with Forager include: The Hand That Feeds You (Players Theatre), Flora the Red Menace (Court Square Theatre) and Tick, Tick...BOOM! (New Ohio and Kitchen Theatre). Jennie also works regionally and within NYC as a freelance director/choreographer. Notable credits include: Frizzled (director) at The PIT andThe Tank, Leading Lady Club and The Things I Did While Waiting For You To Fall Back In Love With Me (director) at 59E59 and Edinburgh Fringe Festival. @jenniemarie7 on Instagram

  • The Lemonade Stand is a performing arts company creating a home for new work and emerging artists in Philadelphia. Since its founding in 2025, TLS has produced three world premiere plays (Welp., Girlfails, and Acute Exposure), two new works reading series, and several new clown pieces. Their work has been featured on WXPN, Broad Street Review, and Midbrow. TLS is fiscally sponsored by Producer Hub and is a FringeArts-sponsored Hub for the 2026 Philadelphia Fringe Festival. TLS is a proud partner of 1319 Press, and has published the works of multiple Lemonade Stand playwrights.

    The Lemonade Stand prioritizes the development process, community, and partnership; committed to being rough around the edges, adaptive to each process, and true to the artists’ vision of every piece. The Lemonade Stand team is AJ Bloomfield, Founding Artistic Director; Jenny Glickman, Founding Managing Director; and Zoe Gilmore, Director of Community Engagement.

  • Jenny Glickman (she/her) is a theatre administrator and stage manager based in Philadelphia. She has stage managed for The Lemonade Stand (Girlfails), Inis Nua Theatre Company (Playboy of the Western World, Iphigenia in Splott), Philadelphia Artists' Collective (CATO: Remixed), Drexel University (I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change; The Lightning Thief), PlayPenn, and Philadelphia Women's Theatre Festival. She has worked in arts administration throughout Philadelphia, her hometown of Baltimore, West Virginia, and the Edinburgh Fringe. She is the Managing Director of The Lemonade Stand, and the current Management Assistant at the Walnut Street Theatre. She holds a degree in Entertainment and Arts Management from Drexel University.

  • AJ Bloomfield (he/him) is an interdisciplinary theatre designer, technician, and producer from Philadelphia. He is the founder and artistic director of The Lemonade Stand, a new works company for emerging artists. AJ is a generalist, taking pride in problem-solving and being able to serve whatever needs a production may have.

    When he is not in the theatre, he is tinkering in the garage, watching football (go birds), or planning the next Lemonade Stand show.

    Recently, he has worked with Pig Iron Theatre Company, Arden Theatre Company, Theatre Horizon, Cannonball, and, of course, The Lemonade Stand. His work has taken him to New York, Los Angeles, and Edinburgh Fringe. AJ holds a degree in Entertainment Production and Design from the Custom-Design program at Drexel University.

  • Forager Theatre Company is a nonprofit that builds spirited, joyful, holistic experiences from the objects, spaces, viewpoints, contributions, and people it can gather from any and everywhere. Founded in 2022, Forager proudly brings freaks, geeks, and drama queens together for unforgettable experiences. Through our branches: Take Root - donation based education, Unearth - new works development, Blossom - one night experiences, and Harvest - fully realized productions we create vital, urgent and compassionate theatre. We have been proud residents at Culture Lab LIC and Bechdel Project as well as produced countless shows in indie venues all around NYC. Notable productions include: Tick, Tick...BOOM! (New Ohio), Flora The Red Menace (Court Square Theatre), and apocaLIPSTICK (Players Theatre). We break oppressive precedents and create compassionate, courageous art by prioritizing our artists' creativity and wellbeing, gathering physical items and thematic context from community, and engaging audiences who share our values. Art starts with what you have!

  • Zoë Gilmore (they/she) is a freelance director, sound designer, stage manager, and the Director of Community Engagement with the Lemonade Stand. They've worked with companies such as PlayPenn, Curio Theatre, Theatre Horizon, The Wilma, EgoPo Classic Theater, Next Life Theatre Company, and Delaware Shakespeare. Zoë is passionate about using theatre as a template to dream of a world free of capitalism and systemic violence.

Residency Details

This residency provides participants with:

– Accommodations and travel to/from Tofte Lake Center
– $700 stipend for the week
– Dinners each evening of the residency. Breakfasts and lunches will be done on the resident’s own. 

You can take a look at the website to get a sense of the beautiful and natural environment for this residency here. 

Eligibility

You can apply as an individual or as a group up to 3 people who are part of a producing team or collective. Please take a look here to see what the accommodations would be for different sized groups. 

Those best suited for this inaugural residency are independent arts producers who are looking for dedicated quiet time to restore and reflect on their practice and/or looking for time to ideate and develop new ideas around their producing practice.

Application Details & Timeline

This application process will include a written application. After internal evaluation, finalists will be interviewed before selection. 

APPLICATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED.

Application Deadline: January 26, 2026 at 10am ET 

Finalist Notification: March 2026 

Residency Selection: April 2026

Residency Dates: August 5–11, 2026

Frequently Asked Questions

  • An independent producer to us is someone producing work in the performing arts outside of an institution and in the non-commercial space. If you’d like some more guidance, you can see some of the producers we fiscally sponsor here and featured on our Instagram. 

  • Nope! You can be at any experience level. It is more about articulating how you will utilize the time while partaking in the residency. 

  • A strong application has a clear articulation of how dedicated unstructured time would be beneficial to your producing practice. You don’t have to have every hour spoken for but you should be able to generally speak to the overall hope for your time while in residence. We hope to see your passion for the work that you do as a producer and why time away from the space where you mainly produce would be useful.

  • Dinners will be provided each night of the residency. Breakfasts and lunches are on your own. There will be transportation to the grocery store a couple times during the residency.

  • Flights to/from Minneapolis Airport will be covered by Producer Hub, along with ground transportation to/from the airport to Tofte Lake on the first and last day of the residency which is 5 hours from the airport. 

    If you choose to drive yourself to the residency we will cover gas/tolls (with receipts) up to twelve hours from Ely, MN. 

  • No! You just need to have independent arts producing as a meaningful part of your practice.

  • There is internet in Roadhouse (the communal building). You will not have access to the internet in your cabins so we encourage you to think about the amount of time you need to spend online during that week. One of the intentions of the retreat is to be offline as much as possible.

  • There will be limited cell service based on your carrier. You should be able to send texts and receive calls and based on your carrier we can help you find the best spot on campus for that as needed.