An Evening With Monique Martin

15th Annual Visionary Leadership Award

Join us for our 15th annual Visionary Leadership Award, honoring Monique Martin, propagator of art, culture, and ideas. The evening will consist of a moderated conversation with Monique, followed by a reception.

Tickets are $75. Online/Phone fees may apply. Ticket holders are then welcome to join us for a reception immediately following the event.

All donations and sponsorships given in honor of this event will go towards The Jean Handley Fund, supporting the 2025 Festival presentations of SQUONK: Brouhaha and Minty Fresh Circus. Donations to The Jean Handley Fund can be made when purchasing tickets or you can donate online HERE.


*NOTE: The moderated conversation and presentation will be held at Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School, 177 College Street. The reception will be held at The Ballroom at LoRicco Tower, 216 Crown Street.

Monique Martin

Monique Martin brings her passion and experience in community building through the arts to elevate and instigate. An independent creative producer, artist, curator, and marketing consultant, she has partnered with and produced for Joe’s Pub, Disney Theatricals, Apollo Theater, New Victory Theater, Southbank Centre/UK, The MET Museum, The Bronx Museum, The Shed, Park Avenue Armory, NJPAC, Symphony Space, Bryant Park and HBO. As Programming Director for the River2River Festival, SummerStage and Harlem Stage, she expanded the programming by including contemporary circus and international artists which resulted in audience growth and increased funding. She is an experienced commissioner of new work, working closely with artists from ideation to successful premier. She is an ardent facilitator of collaborations across cultures, sectors and genres, and has partnered with cultural consulates and embassies across the globe.

Martin is an artist and cultural worker creating projects at the intersection of imagination, sovereignty and joy. Her play ‘Cracked’ was produced by Brava Theater’s new playwright series in San Francisco during the height of the crack epidemic in the early 1990’s. She has created two highly successful series for Joe’s Pub: Urban Griots and Soul Erotica where she collaborated with some of New York City’s most ground-breaking and disruptive artists in spoken word, music and dance. Her Soul Erotica series toured nationally.

She is thrilled and humbled to make her first circus show Minty Fresh Circus; which premiered in January 2025!! Deep gratitude to my creative collaborators who caught the vision and brought incredible creativity and JOY! Appreciation to Lillian Faye Bell Bartlow, Paul Bartlow, Freddy Martin and Alassane Keita for inspiration and encouragement. https://moniquemartin.net/

Jennifer Harrison Newman

Moderator

New York based theater artist Jennifer Harrison Newman works extensively with artists across disciplines pushing the boundaries of dance, opera, and theater. She has worked with, Michael Jackson, Julie Taymor, Franco Dragone, Donald Byrd, David Rousseve, Ronald K. Brown, Charlotte Brathwaite, Michael Joseph McQuilken, The Radio City Rockettes, and has performed on Broadway in Saturday Night Fever and Disney’s The Lion King.

Recent site-specific and theatrical work includes: Gallathea (SCSU); Once on This Island (SCSU); The Code (ACT | Young Conservatory); Black Lodge (Opera Philadelphia); topologies (Gibney Dance NY); We Were Everywhere (Princeton University); The Infinite Hotel (Prototype Festival); Angel’s Bone (Hong Kong New Visions Festival); Place(BAM/Next Wave Festival); If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must be a Motherfucker (Yale School of Drama); an installation/walking tour of Seneca Village in Central Park (Bard Graduate Center for Material Culture’s Focus Festival: Ritual and Capital); la ronde (International Festival of Arts & Ideas); Bread of Heaven (LABA Live); The Children (Yale School of Drama);Three Women (Ojai Playwrights Conference); The Geneva Project (Yale University, Central Arts Festival in Seoul, Korea, JACK NYC, and Bronx Academy of Art and Dance); Bulrusher (New Georges).

Jennifer has been an artist in residence at MIT, The Juilliard School, Princeton University, Yale University, Central Connecticut State University, The Field, Mabou Mines, Baryshnikov Arts Center, 651 Arts, and Sisters Academy Inkost and has led workshops across the United States, Sweden, South Africa, China, and Mexico. Currently the Associate Artistic Director of Yale Schwarzman Center, Jennifer serves as a general management consultant to theater company Compagnia de’ Colombari and sits on the board of advisors of Performance Space 21, The New Haven Ballet, Creative and Independent Producers Alliance (CIPA), and The David Geffen School of Drama at Yale. Jennifer received her BA from UCLA and her MFA from Yale School of Drama.

Sponsors & Partners