Fellowship Spotlight: Tira Adams, Conjure

When we asked Tira Adams, one of GP’s 2024 Fellowship recipients, how the award helped her artistically, she didn’t hesitate: “I finally got to make the thing! This award was exactly what I needed to move Conjure from idea to a real, living, breathing pilot.”

Conjure, a supernatural audio drama set in Brooklyn, has been living with Tira in one form or another for nearly twenty years. The Fellowship helped her clear one of the biggest creative hurdles artists face, funding, by allowing her to move the project out of development limbo and into production.

“In New York there’s always that can-do attitude of ‘come on, guys, let’s put on a show!’” she explains. “But there are very real costs that come with storytelling. Especially when you’re making a full season of 13 thirty-minute audio episodes. That’s like saying you’re going to make 13 short films.”

With Fellowship support, Tira entered the studio, heard actors speak lines she had written and rewritten, and released a fully produced 30-minute pilot. “To put my baby out into the world makes me giddy with excitement,” she says. “I have such confidence now that I can create this story on my terms and that it not only works, but other people want to hear it.”

The project also marked a major professional shift. “This was a real leveling-up moment for me,” Tira shares. Beyond the creative work, she stepped into leadership by managing production, contracts, meetings, and community-building. “No one tells you in drama school how much of this work is emails and meetings,” she laughs. “The creative part is often the cherry on top.”

Through Conjure, Tira expanded her network, connected with the New York audio community, and secured fiscal sponsorship through AIR Media, gaining critical infrastructure to support the project’s future.

While the journey didn’t unfold exactly as planned, it reshaped the work for the better. After submitting the pilot to the Tribeca Festival audio division, Tira realized the scope of the project required a pivot of more time, more care, and long-term sustainability. She restructured Season One into Volumes I and II, making space for both artistic integrity and personal realities, including navigating the loss of her father.

In Conjure, Tira’s characters live by a family symbol: the turtle, with the motto “the race doesn’t belong to the swift nor the strong, but to those who endure till the end.” As she puts it, “Yeah — sometimes your work comes back to bite ya.”

Next up: Volume I of Conjure will be produced as a live radio play under a SAG New Media contract, with rehearsals beginning in early 2026. The pilot will be exhibited this fall at the Urban Action Showcase in Times Square, with additional festival appearances and a virtual premiere to follow.

“The turtle still won,” Tira says.

We’re proud to have supported Tira Adams through the Great Performances Artist Fellowship and we are excited to see Conjure and Tira continue to grow.