(ENGLEWOOD, FL) — Andy Sandberg, Artistic Director and CEO of the Hermitage Artist Retreat, announced on December 15, 2022 that composer and theater artist Imani Uzuri has been selected as the third recipient of the Hermitage Major Theater Award (HMTA). This national jury-selected prize, established by the Hermitage in 2021 with generous support from the Kutya Major Foundation, offers one of the largest non-profit theater commissions in the country. Uzuri will receive a cash prize of $35,000, as well as a residency at the Hermitage (Sarasota County, Florida) and a developmental workshop in a major arts capital such as New York, Chicago, or London in the fall of 2024. Uzuri, raised in rural North Carolina, is an award-winning composer, vocalist, experimental librettist, improviser, and lyricist.
The Hermitage is a multi-disciplinary artist retreat uniquely serving artists, the creative process, and the community. Located on a nine-acre campus in Manasota Key at the southern tip of Sarasota County, we provide accomplished diverse artists with multi-week residences to create new works of theater, music, visual art, literature, and more. All artists are selected by our Hermitage Curatorial Council, composed of visionary arts leaders from nationally and internationally renowned cultural institutions. Our Hermitage Fellows have described their experiences as “life-changing” and “transformative,” regularly noting that they accomplish more in two weeks at the Hermitage than they otherwise might do in two years. Hermitage Fellows have included fourteen Pulitzer Prize winners, multiple Tony, Oscar, Emmy, Grammy nominees and winners, Poets Laureate, MacArthur “Genius” and Guggenheim Fellows, and hundreds of extraordinary artists from around the world. The award-winning, impactful, and diverse original works created at the Hermitage are presented in renowned concert halls, theaters, museums, and galleries throughout our region and across the globe. Audiences in the greater Sarasota region are offered a ‘sneak peek’ into the works and minds of these brilliant artists through the Hermitage’s free community programs, many of which are in collaboration with fellow arts and cultural organizations throughout Sarasota and neighboring counties. In addition to the unique and invaluable experience we provide to artists, we take pride in our complementary missions of historic preservation, ecological restoration, and community engagement.