Founded to assist recent MFA playwriting graduates, the PONY fellowship provides the recipient with one year of free housing in the theatre district; a $2,000 monthly stipend for one year; a seat in the Lark's Playwright's Workshop led by Arthur Kopit; and ongoing developmental support from the Lark, including readings and dramaturgical resources.

Sandi Goff Farkas, a Lark playwright and board member, instituted the fellowship stating, "It derived from my own experience of seeing fellow graduate-level playwrights put everything on the line financially to attend graduate school, only to leave with an overwhelming amount of loans and no way to pay them back or live in NYC, other than to squeeze playwriting in around a day job, or leave theatre altogether and write for TV and film instead. I felt we were losing these writers and their plays in that small, but oh-so important gap of time, just after graduation and before being committed to employment."

Carson Kreitzer is the 2007 inaugural recipient of the Lark's PONY fellowship. Her works include Freakshow and Dead Wait (Clubbed Thumb), Take My Breath Away (P.S. 122), The Slow Drag (American Place Theatre) and The Love Song of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Applicants for the PONY fellowship must be a graduate of a masters-level playwriting program between the years 2004-07 and obtain nomination by their department head. Writers fitting these criteria should visit www.playwrightsofnewyork.org.

Over 80 playwrights each year participate in the Lark Play Development Center's programs, including Playwrights Week, its BareBone Series, International Exchange Program and Studio Retreats. The Lark has nurtured the work of playwrights including Theresa Rebeck (Mauritius), David Henry Hwang (Yellow Face) and Sarah Ruhl (Dead Man's Cell Phone). The Center was founded in 1994 "to provide American and international playwrights with indispensable resources to develop their work." The Lark "nurtures artists at all stages in their careers, inviting them to freely express themselves in a supportive and rigorous environment. It is a home for an emerging artistic community committed to reshaping how we see and experience the world."

For further information visit www.larktheatre.org.