A Message from SPACE

June 5, 2024

Hello dear SPACE community,

We hope this finds you well. The farm is in full swing with fields of fresh produce here in Brewster. Unfortunately, we have some painful news to share amid these blooms. After thirteen years of pioneering support for artists and innovators, it is with profound sadness that the Board of Trustees for SPACE on Ryder Farm has made the difficult decision to cease its current operations.

We understand that this news may come as a shock to many of you, so we want to be clear about what’s happening now. SPACE’s current residency, the Working Farm, will be its last for the foreseeable future. Its organic farming operation will continue through the end of 2024, fulfilling a contract with the Putnam County Cornell Cooperative Extension to contribute 50,000 pounds of fresh produce to emergency food providers throughout New York state, in addition to its local farmstand members. The organization will then suspend operations - but not dissolve. The Board is investigating options for SPACE’s future beyond 2024.

The co-chairs of the current Board, Janet Olshansky and Lee Seymour, wanted to provide more information and context, in their own words.

From Lee: “Over the last few years, we’ve witnessed closures and contractions of hundreds of arts organizations, from residencies to major producing theaters. This is awful to confront, but SPACE is not alone - and we did not make this decision lightly or quickly. We spent months crunching numbers and pursuing all our possible options, but the plain truth is that we are not immune to the same funding drought that is crippling the broader arts sector. And though the board and staff worked endlessly to fill the gap, we simply couldn’t generate enough funds to support operations through the summer. If anything, I hope that SPACE can inspire others to rethink the way America supports its arts and cultural institutions, and make them more sustainable.”

From Janet: “We have worked tirelessly to keep this extraordinary organization alive, but the challenges of the last four years, including the pandemic and the loss of major funding sources, have become insurmountable. We are incredibly proud of the work done and created here, and unendingly grateful to everyone who has supported it. And while this chapter of SPACE is finished, our hope is that, with time, SPACE will grow again.”

For now, we want to thank you for being a part of SPACE’s community. While we don’t know what the future holds, the hope is this fallow period will provide for SPACE what it has always provided for others  — the gift of time and space — to determine what comes next.

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A Brief History of SPACE and its Residents

Founded in 2011 by Emily Simoness, Susan Goodwillie, and a team of artists, SPACE on Ryder Farm became one of America’s premiere residencies, guided by its mission: To create an environment singular in its ability to invigorate artists and innovators and their work, and to contribute to the sustainability and resourceful preservation of one of the oldest organic family farms on the East Coast. Under the tenures of its founding Executive Director Emily Simoness and her successor Kelly M. Burdick, SPACE has supported over 1,600 residents; mentored more than 75 young professionals through fellowship and internship programs; and helped to breathe new life into Ryder Farm through the restoration and management of the property’s many historic buildings. Ryder Farm itself dates to 1795, the oldest in Putnam County. The Ryder Family has overseen it since then, becoming an early adopter of the organic farming movement, and one of the original participating farms in NYC’s Union Square Greenmarket.


SPACE’s 1,600+ alumni span the arts industry, from theater to film, music to poetry, emerging talent to award-winning luminaries. A (very) short list of artists who developed work on the farm includes Michael R. Jackson, Branden Jacobs Jenkins, Sanaz Toossi, Samuel D. Hunter, Clare Barron, Monet Hurst-Mendoza, Deepa Purohit, Mfoniso Udofia, Celine Song, Dave Malloy, Christine Jones, Will Arbery, Young Jean Lee, David Cale, Ellen Winter, Shayok Misha Chowdhury, Danya Taymor, Arian Moayed, Sarah Ruhl, C.A. Johnson, Josh Radnor, Grace McLean, Adam Rapp, Joshua Harmon,  Bekah Brunstetter,  William Jackson Harper, Lila Neugebauer, and Shaina Taub. SPACE also supported a network of other institutions, bringing groups of their artists and staff to the farm for working residencies, such as Ars Nova, Audible, Rattlestick Theater, Roundabout Theater Company, Page 73, Playwrights Horizons, and The Kennedy Center.  In the last year alone, accomplishments and laurels of SPACE alumni included the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, a Pulitzer finalist, 10 Tony Award nominations, 3 Obie Awards, 31 new play premieres, 4 albums, 4 books, and countless concerts, readings, commissions, and performances around the globe.