The National Endowment for the Arts has given $23,215,000 to American arts organizations for 1,951 cultural projects. The awards include 42 fellowships to poets, including Anna George Meek and Bryan Thao Worra of Minneapolis, who received $25,000 each.

LARGEST GRANTS:

Awards to Minnesota organizations and individuals totaled $718,000. The largest grants went to the Guthrie Theater, which got $50,000 to help produce and stage the musical "Caroline, or Change" by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner and Jeannine Tesori, and Walker Art Center, which also received $50,000 to commission new performances in a program called "Fertile Ground."

Twin Cities publishers fared well, with Graywolf Press of St. Paul getting $45,000 and Milkweed Editions of Minneapolis receiving $40,000 for publications of poetry and creative nonfiction. The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra Society received $40,000 to support the 50th Anniversary American Composers Project.

Children's Theater Company and School got $35,000 to produce new work, including "Fatebook: A Cyberspace Ghost Story," by Whit MacLaughlin, and a Hmong version of "Cinderella" by Naomi Iizuka. The Minnesota Orchestral Association received $35,000 to support its Composer Institute.

ADDITIONAL AWARDS: IN MINNEAPOLIS:

Ananya Dance Theatre, $10,000; Coffee House Press, $25,000; Contemporary Dance Arts, $10,000; Flying Foot Forum, $10,000; Heart of the Beast Theatre, $20,000; Illusion Theater and School, $20,000; Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts, $30,000; Minnesota Opera Company, $22,500; Mixed Blood Theatre, $25,000; Off-Leash Area: Contemporary Performance Works, $10,000; Playwrights' Center, $25,000; Ragamala Music and Dance Theater, $10,000; Rain Taxi, $7,500; Theater Mu, $10,000; VocalEssence, $30,000.

St. Paul:

Forecast Public Artworks, $15,000; Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, $20,000; Penumbra Theatre, $30,000; Zeitgeist, $8,000.

Elsewhere in Minnesota:

Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, Red Wing, $10,000; College of Saint Benedict, St. Joseph, $15,000; Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer, $10,000.

Mary Abbe • 612-673-4431