WHY GIVE?

When you become a contributor to Woolly Mammoth, you join a smart and engaged family of adventurers, iconoclasts, and mavericks who understand that the future of the American theatre lies with institutions like Woolly—a company which, since its founding in 1980, has remained fiercely committed to exploring and exploding life’s big questions in new plays by America’s most promising writers. What’s most vital about Woolly is that we don’t just produce the occasional new play; everything we produce is fresh and new. It is precisely because we consistently take big risks on new plays that we require a strong base of contributed support, stronger than other theatres that program more conventional and recognizable fare. To achieve success at Woolly Mammoth, we must have the latitude to fail; and a robust annual fund drive each season ensures that we are free to be as “Woolly” as we want to be.

Now while we won’t hesitate to jump off cliffs with new writers and provocative new plays, we leave little else up to chance. So we surround each new play with world-class directors, major designers, a resident acting Company with three decades of new work experience, a state-of-the-art facility, and a sophisticated audience that has cultivated a taste for challenging new work—all in an effort to launch it into the world with the best possible production. The results? 160 Helen Hayes Award nominations and 29 Helen Hayes Awards over the past 28 seasons, including six awards for Outstanding New Play. Meanwhile, plays premiered at Woolly have gone on to productions at more than 200 other theatres across America and the world; members of Woolly’s acting Company have emerged as the stars of the D.C. theatre scene; and we have played a catalytic role in the careers of provocative playwrights such as Sarah Ruhl, David Lindsay-Abaire, Nicky Silver, Craig Wright, Robert Alexander, Amy Freed, and many others.

These resources that we are able to shower on new plays have become the envy of our peers—and are only available thanks to the generosity of supporters LIKE YOU. In short, your support ensures that we can continue to Defy Convention in everything we do.

To find out about our various levels of giving,
please visit our Donor Levels & Benefits page.

To make a gift now, please visit our How to contribute page.

To see our family of generous donors click here.

Woolly Mammoth was featured in the 2007/08:

Rick Foucheux in Cooking with Elvis (2003)

Dori Legg in Recent Tragic Events (2002)