This playwright just bailed out Berkeley Rep after its NEA cancellation

San Francisco Chronicle​

15-05-2025

As theaters across the Bay Area and the country reel from canceled National Endowment for the Arts grants, one local company is getting relief from an unlikely source: an artist.
Tony Award-winning playwright John Logan is donating $40,000 to Berkeley Repertory Theatre — the same amount the company was set to receive from the federal agency to support the Ground Floor, its new play development program.
'Without the support of regional theatres like Berkeley Rep I wouldn't be a writer today,' Logan said in a statement. 'Young writers, singers, actors, poets, musicians, filmmakers, composers, and painters all across America benefit from not-for-profit arts institutions.'
Confusingly, Berkeley Rep had already received the government grant before it received a 'notice of termination' on May 2. Managing Director Tom Parrish told the Chronicle via email on Wednesday, May 14, he worries this means the NEA will seek to 'rescind' the grant in the future, so the company is currently appealing the termination decision, even though it still has the funds in hand.
Amid all the uncertainty, Logan's gift is both a relief and a 'morale boost' for everyone at the company, according to Berkeley Rep Artistic Director Johanna Pfaelzer.
'It was truly amazing, in the midst of such a dark and demoralizing week of news from and about the NEA, to get an email out of the blue from the incredible John Logan,' she said in a statement.
Logan has a long history with the heavyweight downtown Berkeley company. His musical 'Swept Away,' featuring the music of the Avett Brothers, had its world premiere there in 2022 before heading to Broadway two years later. 'Red,' a drama about Mark Rothko that garnered Logan his Tony Award, ran at the company in 2012.
His other theater work includes 'The Last Ship' and 'Moulin Rouge,' and he wrote or co-wrote the screenplays for 'The Aviator,' 'Gladiator,' 'Alien: Covenant' and 'Any Given Sunday,' among others.
The Ground Floor, created in 2012, counts among its alums the cool kids of the theater world locally and nationwide: Madeleine George and Dan Hoyle, Denmo Ibrahim and Jeffrey Lo, David Adjmi and Lila Neugebauer, Erika Chong Shuch and Baruch Porras-Hernandez.
Itamar Moses workshopped 'The Ally' here before it became a finalist for this year's Pulitzer Prize in Drama; Ashley Smiley, Margo Hall, Sean San José and Joan Osato developed 'Dirty White Teslas Make Me Sad' here before its world premiere at Magic Theatre.
This year's Ground Floor lineup, to be announced at a later date, includes 23 projects by more than 100 artists.