By HWM
Harlem Stage is taking aim at one of the arts world’s biggest inequities with the launch of Good Ground: The Next Generation of Women+ Leaders in the Arts, a sweeping new initiative designed to support and elevate emerging women leaders across the global cultural sector.
Announced May 6, the program arrives at a time when many arts organizations are grappling with questions around diversity, leadership, and long-term sustainability. While women make up a large portion of the nonprofit arts workforce, leadership positions continue to be dominated by white men, leaving women of color underrepresented in executive and decision-making roles.
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Harlem Stage’s new fellowship hopes to help change that.
The 12-month pilot program will bring together early-career women+ leaders from performing arts organizations and Historically Black Colleges and Universities for immersive leadership training, mentorship, and cultural exchange. Partner institutions behind the inaugural 2026 fellowship class include Howard University, Spelman College, The Billie Holiday Theatre in Brooklyn, The Ensemble Theatre in Houston, The Theater Offensive in Boston, North Carolina A&T State University, and UK-based theater company tiata fahodzi.
Participants will take part in residencies, masterclasses, site visits, leadership labs, and one-on-one mentorship opportunities with prominent leaders in the arts and beyond. The initiative also includes a two-week summer intensive beginning at the Mary Schmidt Campbell Center for Innovation & the Arts at Spelman College before moving to New York City for meetings with cultural leaders and a public forum scheduled for July 30.
Tony Award-nominated actress LaTanya Richardson Jackson, who chairs the Good Ground Circle and is a Spelman alumna, said the program is focused on creating support systems that have historically been unavailable to many women leaders of color.
“Mentorship, networks, and knowledge are not luxuries, they are lifelines,” Jackson said in a statement.
Dr. Indira Etwaroo, Harlem Stage’s CEO and artistic director, described the initiative as a response to systems that have often forced women of color to navigate institutions not built with them in mind.
The fellowship is fully funded, covering travel, housing, and stipends for all participants in an effort to remove financial barriers that often prevent emerging arts leaders from advancing professionally.
Founded in 1983, Harlem Stage has spent more than four decades championing groundbreaking artistic voices and multicultural storytelling from its historic West Harlem home. With Good Ground, the organization is now looking beyond performance and toward reshaping who gets to lead the future of the arts.
Image: Harlem Stage
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