I’m very excited to announce that the applications for soloNOVA 2010 are now online at www.terranovacollective.org. It’s our 7th year accepting applications for this celebration of solo artists spanning multiple genres, including music, spoken word, comedy, burlesque, monologues, storytelling, traditional solo plays, dance, performance and visual art. When we started the festival through terraNOVA Collective in the summer of 2004, our intention was to bring attention back to a form too often considered therapy, indulgent, cheap or just plain bad. Aiming to foster nascent works, we open submissions as well as scouting new shows around town and in various other festivals. In August, I saw 17 solo shows in the New York International Fringe Festival. My hope is to hit Edinburgh next year. Our intention is to make soloNOVA the place international solo artists strive to be. Part of that plan is to begin submissions earlier so artists may attain visas in a timely fashion. This past Monday night, the New York Innovative Theatre Awards recognized a 2009 soloNOVA artist, Jeff Grow, for Outstanding Solo Performance and Outstanding Performance Artist. Additionally, 5 of the 6 nominees for Solo Performer came from soloNOVA. We were very excited soloNOVA was able to facilitate the journey of these artists to being honored. This coming year we continue our search for the next fantastic solo artist along with celebrating great performers with successful careers. It is important to us to sustain and encourage solo artists in all their glorious forms. Looking forward to seeing what comes down the pipe.