With the Beacon Commission, Colt Coeur is excited to commission plays by women and nonbinary artists that combat the erasure of history.
A beacon can be defined as a light or other visible object that serves as a signal, warning, or celebration. In times of political turbulence, we often turn to theater as a beacon. The stories we see onstage serve both as a warning of what history has taught us, as well as a celebration of what the world could be. With theater, we shed a light on voices too often marginalized by history, forging a path paved in empathy, discovery, and artistry through the darkness.
In addition to the traditional artist fee, the Beacon Commission will offer the artist two workshops, the second of which will culminate in a public reading, and support collaboration with a director, actors, and a designer.
The Beacon Commission is made possible through a partnership with Shea Theatricals.
This year, Colt Coeur is thrilled to announce our inaugural Beacon Commission awardee: Alex Lin!
Alex is an alum of the Colt Coeur Residency program. Her plays Laowang: A Chinatown King Lear (Primary Stages at 59E59) and Chinese Republicans (Roundabout Theatre) premiere this year off-Broadway.
Alex Lin's The Translator is inspired by the story of Tye Leung–the first Chinese-American woman to vote in a U.S. election. The play is a meditation on freedom and its limits, told through the eyes of a woman caught between two cultures, two generations, and two definitions of duty. By interrogating who gets to define liberation–and at what cost–we can finally reckon with the complexity of cultural inheritance in the All-American promise of self-determination. Alex will be collaborating with director Cara Hinh on The Translator.
The Beacon Commission was inspired, in part, by an Executive Order released by the current administration on March 27, 2025 entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” In the order, the President condemned several American museums for addressing the nation’s history of racism and sexism, deeming this history “a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth,” and specifically criticizing exhibits from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum. The President made provisions to “remove improper ideology” from Smithsonian properties, as well as to identify and restore any public monuments, memorials, statues, and markers that have been removed or changed “to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history.”
The current administration’s attempt to distort history and control national discourse has made terrifying waves throughout the arts world, as evidenced by Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center, their slashing of NEA funding, and the pressure tactics they’ve exerted upon entities as varied as universities and media conglomerates.
At such a pivotal moment in our nation’s history, Colt Coeur maintains a steadfast commitment to telling stories that illuminate and uplift our complex history, rather than burying it under layers of fear, prejudice, and discrimination. With the Beacon Commission, Colt Coeur is excited to commission plays by women and nonbinary artists that combat the erasure of history.
Alex Lin (Playwright) Alex Lin is just a girl from Jersey. Plays at: Roundabout, 2ST, NYTW, MTC, O'Neill, South Coast Rep, New Harmony, Two River, Playwrights Realm, Atlantic Theater Company, and many more. As an actor: NYTW, Actors Theatre of Louisville, New Victory, HVSF, Ma-Yi, Fault Line, Two River, and Commonwealth Shakespeare. Blackburn finalist, Stavis Award winner, two-time Kennedy Center Paul Stephen Lim Award winner. Colt Coeur, Rattlestick, Working Theater, and BMI residencies. TV: The Audacity on AMC. Forbes 30 under 30. Juilliard.
Colt Coeur is a Brooklyn-based theatre company founded in 2010. Our original, story-driven, visceral theatre embraces the power of intimate live performance—it pulls you close and doesn’t let go. Our community of artists nurtures and invests in diverse perspectives to produce work that challenges the boundaries between tradition and experimentation. We embrace the ambivalence, terror and exhilaration of our time with theatre that is an antidote to the pervasive cultural illness of loneliness. We explore themes of coming-of-age, individual and collective identity, nostalgia and history, public versus private, love, lust, and loss.
Through our unique collective process, every theatre artist—actor, playwright, designer—takes part in shared invention and collaborative creation; creating heart- and mind-opening audience experiences unlike any other. We nurture the next generation of theatre artists by providing access, education and a professional pipeline, while amplifying voices and perspectives that have historically been sidelined.
Our 41-member ensemble of actors, designers, playwrights, and directors incubates the next generation of theatre artists through the development and production of new plays—which we create from scratch. Over 15 years, Colt Coeur has produced 19 world premieres, two New York premieres, developed over 50 plays, and provided free arts intensives for over 250 students. We pride ourselves on being a laboratory for exploration while also nurturing the work of emerging artists and providing them a launch pad for their visions. Highlights from the past 15 years include Dry Land by Ruby Rae Spiegel, Empathitrax by Ana Nogueira, Eureka Day by Jonathan Spector and most recently, The Surgeon and Her Daughters by Chris Gabo.
Shea Theatricals is dedicated to fostering stories that authentically amplify the voices of traditionally ignored communities. Utilizing years of experience and a deep understanding of the climate of the entertainment industry, Shea Theatricals produces, co-produces and invests in compelling musicals, plays and films that are exciting additions to the current zeitgeist and that drive social change. Prioritizing radical producing models and championing artists who think out-of-the-box, Shea Theatricals aims to democratize the industry and challenge norms.
Recent/current includes Little Dancer (West End), All of Me (West End, upcoming), Every Brilliant Thing (Broadway), Merrily We Roll Along (Broadway), Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (Off-Broadway), How to Dance in Ohio (Broadway), and Strange Loop (Broadway).
Shea Theatricals was founded by Jana Shea who co-founded Seaview Productions (All In/All Out, Romeo + Juliet,Once Upon a Mattress, The Last Five Years, Good Night and Good Luck, Stereophonic, An Enemy of the People, Slave Play, POTUS, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder). In the film space, she is a producer on the upcoming feature film "The Coldest Winter Ever" as well as the new Whitney Houston biopic, "I Wanna Dance With Somebody". Other credits include the upcoming film adaptation of "Our Dear Dead Drug Lord", the documentary "She Started It" about young women tech entrepreneurs, and the Peabody Award-winning documentary "India’s Daughter". Jana is Vice-President of Legacy Theatre in Branford, Connecticut, which is a premier professional repertory venue on the Connecticut shoreline. She currently serves on the board- of The New Group Off-Broadway nonprofit theater and was a previous board member of Women Moving Millions.. She is also co-owner of Aware Recovery Care, an in-home addiction rehabilitation program located in 9 states that boasts a 60% success rate for clients after one year.
