Support for The Arts

The MacDowell Colony (excellent web-site, by the way) in Peterborough, New Hampshire has been in the news recently, after having won a court battle to keep its tax-exempt status as a charitable organization. The colony, founded in 1907, offers 2-month retreats to selected applicants.

I was ignorant of this organization until reading about it in the news. The colony now has a back-list of support to over 5,500 artists who have been in residence. Here are some of the more prominent:

Thornton Wilder worked on Our Town at the Colony. His Grover’s Corners is modeled after Peterborough

Leonard Bernstein completed his Mass there

Aaron Copland did much of his work on the ballet Billy the Kid

Dorothy and DuBose Heyward worked on their Porgy (of Porgy and Bess fame) there

James Baldwin worked on both Notes of a Native Son and Giovanni’s Room

Spalding Gray worked on Impossible Vacation and his time there later inspired his Monster in a Box

Some contemporary authors who have acknowledged the help of The MacDowell Colony: Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay), Jonathan Franzen (The Corrections), and Alice Sebold (The Lovely Bones)

Library of Congress Exhibition