World Premiere Wisconsin
An origin story by Artistic Director Jen Uphoff Gray
Buckle in, friends. This is going to be a long post, but I hope you’ll take a few minutes to read it because I have a LOT of folks to shout out!
Wednesday, March 1st, 2023, is the starting date for World Premiere Wisconsin (WPW). It was a long road that brought us here! The journey began on October 6, 2018. Our friends at Renaissance Theaterworks hosted the Statera Conference in Milwaukee, a gathering focused on women in theater. I was fortunate to be able to attend, alongside Julie Swenson, who had joined me in leading Forward Theater Company earlier that year.
One of the panels I attended was led by Nan Barnett, head of the National New Play Network. She was there to speak about her role as the producer of the 2015 and 2018 DC Women’s Voices Theatre Festivals, which brought together companies all over the DC area to produce plays written by women. She talked about the benefits to those companies and their community, as well as the challenges and lessons learned. As I listened to her speak, I thought about the needs of our theater ecosystem here in Wisconsin, and about the different ways I and others had tried over the years to bring our many companies together. My brain was working on two tracks simultaneously: one half was listening to Nan and taking notes. The other half was already envisioning a Wisconsin festival. By the time the session ended, I turned to Julie, sitting next to me, and said, “World Premiere Wisconsin.”
Right out of the gate, I targeted three key goals for this project: to bring awareness around the state and around the country to the incredible work being done by our theaters, to build relationships between theater organizations across Wisconsin so that we could better support each other, and to promote and facilitate the creation of new works. I’ll forever be grateful to Julie, the very best partner in crime, for her immediate buy-in.
Later that month, I had dinner with Brent Hazelton, who was at that time on staff at the Milwaukee Rep. I knew we’d want that flagship theater to be a part of this undertaking if it was truly going to succeed. Brent was excited by the idea, and by February 2019 he had connected me with his wonderful colleagues Deanie Vallone and May Adrales, who helped me to brainstorm next steps. They had the brilliant idea that we should next bring in someone from one of Door County’s theaters so that we had representation and input from all three of the state’s largest theater communities. We reached out in March 2019 to the inimitable Molly Rhode, Associate Artistic Director of Northern Sky Theater. Molly jumped in enthusiastically and we were off to the races!
From the beginning, the vision was to include theater companies of all kinds in WPW: professional companies, semi-professional companies, community theaters, youth theaters, academic theaters, etc. For organizational purposes, we developed different categories for the festival: Lead Producers (FTC, Milwaukee Rep, and Northern Sky) who committed a significant amount of staff time towards organizing WPW; Festival Theaters (professional companies committed to a full production of a new play or musical during WPW) who would be involved in planning, marketing, and development decisions; and Participating Theaters (open to any theater or theatermaker in Wisconsin) who would mount a production, workshop, or staged reading during the festival.
It was around this same time that I met with George Tzougros, head of the Wisconsin Arts Board, to solicit his advice and counsel on this project. George’s enthusiasm put a lot of wind in our sails, and I returned to him for input many times thereafter.
By April 2019 our leadership team (me, Julie, Deanie, May, Molly) was really up and running, and between us we reached out to each of the other professional theaters in the state to float our idea. I remember having great conversations personally with Brenda DeVita from American Players Theatre, Andy Abrams from Capital City Theatre, and Jeff Frank from First Stage. I also, on the advice of friend Dierdre Garton, met with Randy Bryant from Ten Chimneys Foundation. All were intrigued, and eager to explore this further. (My fellow team members has similarly terrific conversations with leaders from Door Shakespeare, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, Next Act Theatre, Peninsula Players, Renaissance Theaterworks, Skylight Music Theatre, and Third Avenue Playworks.)
In August 2019 I had a great phone conversation with Nan Barnett to let her know what we were up to here, and to thank her for planting the seed. She was quick to offer advice, and pledged further support from NNPN. If this festival succeeded, she thought, it could be a great model for other regions to use to promote new works. Nan connected me with Jess Hutchinson, a new NNPN employee, who was a great cheerleader for our early efforts.
On September 9th, 2019, Ten Chimneys hosted an in-person event to bring representatives of Wisconsin’s 13 professional theater companies together to take this idea and further flesh it out. We set a timeline, with a goal of mounting the festival in Spring 2023. And Randy Bryant threw down a gauntlet, encouraging us to contribute starter funds to enable WPW to cover early costs (creating a logo, designing a website, writing grant applications….). He offered to contribute $1000 from the Ten Chimneys Foundation if the rest of us could come up with $6000 between us. Randy also volunteered to have the Foundation act as WPW’s fiscal receiver so there’d be a place to hold those funds. With this offer spurring us to action, the Festival Theaters sent in contributions (most of us out of our operating budgets) to meet that match.
By October 2019, Brent Hazelton had moved into a new role as Artistic Director of Milwaukee Chamber Theatre. On behalf of MCT he made an invaluable contribution to WPW, by allocating some of their Associate Artistic Director’s staff hours to administrative support for WPW. This brought the incredible Marcella Kearns into our planning process, and she quickly became a crucial part of our team.
In early 2020 we were really on a roll, and organizing meetings of the marketing and development staff members of the Festival Theaters. Everything was on track and very exciting! There were frequent email communications amongst the leadership of all these theaters, and relationships were already being forged and strengthened.
We all know what happened next. By mid-March 2020 everything had shut down. Our WPW leadership team reached out to the Festival Theater leaders and let them know that we would pause WPW planning until we had a sense of how this unprecedented situation was going to unfold. We also offered to host a zoom conversation of the group to talk about what was happening. By early April we had established regular monthly zoom calls for this group (which continue to this day) to share information, strategies, and support with each other as we all fought to keep our companies going and our artists employed (and safe). In early Fall of 2020, we asked the Festival Theaters whether they wanted to move ahead with planning for WPW to take place in Spring 2023, and every one of them said ‘yes.’ So we added a fourth goal for our festival: telling a positive story about Wisconsin’s theaters during a time of recovery and rebuilding.
For the next year, Festival planning was slow and steady, with each theater already working on their own premiere productions. Here at Forward, I’d known from the moment I dreamt up WPW that our ideal premiere would be a Lauren Gunderson commission. We’d already brought Lauren to Madison twice, when I directed Silent Sky in 2016 and again for I and You in 2018. I loved her work, I loved her characters, and I loved how her plays enthralled and activated our audience. I actually started talking with Lauren and her agent about a commission for WPW in December 2018 (I was really all-in!), though we weren’t sure whether Lauren would have capacity to take this on. By Fall 2020 we had a signed commission agreement, and a subject for our play: artist Artemisia Gentileschi.
In 2021 our leadership team evolved a bit, as May Adrales left Milwaukee to lead The Lark in NYC. (She took over from John Eisner, who is a Madison native and who was an early WPW enthusiast.) With support from WPW’s marketing committee, we solicited bids for a firm to design a logo and website for us, and then hired Madison’s Distillery design firm in September 2021. At this point, Create Wisconsin (thank you, Anne Katz!) joined us as our new fiscal receiver so that we could apply for grant funding opportunities. That began a busier time for the leadership team, as we pushed to get materials together for a public announcement in early 2022.
On January 4, 2022, we sent an email to theater companies all over the state inviting them to join the festival. The Wisconsin Arts Board was especially helpful in connecting us with scores of community and educational theaters. Jeanne Leap and Kirk Stantis also helped me add to the outreach list. And on January 31, 2022 we publicly announced World Premiere Wisconsin with a press release, announcement video, and social media campaign.
By this point, we knew we absolutely needed to hire a part-time producer for the festival who could take some of the coordination work off the shoulders of the leadership team. But in order to announce that position and solicit applicants, we’d need to have money on hand to pay that person. We once again asked the Festival Theaters to help us out, and they stepped up. We set a goal of $15,000 amongst our 13 companies. I went to Forward Theater’s board and asked them to consider personally making donations to this cause. I hoped to come up with $5,000. Every single board member wrote a check, totaling over $10,000 between them. I will always be grateful to Rozan Anderson, Dave Chaimson, Charles Ford, Amy Gilman, Marci Henderson, Roth Judd, Hallie Kuenning, Donna Moreland, Susan Pigorsch, Sandi Reinardy, Orange Schroeder, Jason Stephenson, Steve Suleski, Ted Waskowski, Andy White, and Jennifer Winding for their belief in this undertaking!
During the summer of 2022, while we worked on hiring a producer for WPW, Deanie Vallone took the lead on organizing some online informational sessions to support producers and playwrights who might be interested in participating in the festival. And she brought in the brilliant dramaturg Anne Morgan to co-host an initial “Ask Me Anything” session.
In late June 2022, we made an offer to Michael Cotey to come on as WPW’s producer. Best decision we ever made! Michael built his career as a theater artist in Milwaukee, and went on to create and run the incredible ENOUGH: Plays to End Gun Violence project. We knew he’d have the passion and know-how to help us get our festival over the finish line. One of Michael’s major early contributions was bringing the Dramatists Guild on board as a partner. We’d always planned to host some kind of playwrights’ symposium as part of WPW, and having the DG join us made that possible.
In November 2022 Laura Braza, Associate Artistic Director at Milwaukee Rep, joined our leadership team. On December 5, 2022, thanks in large part to the incredible grant-writing skill and marketing know-how of Julia Nicholas, WPW was awarded a JEM grant from the Wisconsin Tourism Board, giving us much-needed resources for promoting our festival across the region. We hired Mike Fischer, an early and ardent WPW supporter, to write a series of pieces that will shine a spotlight on the festival’s plays, musicals, and artists.
And now here we are. Nearly 50 productions are planned in more than 20 communities across the state. Last night, we officially kicked off World Premiere Wisconsin with a party generously hosted by Ten Chimneys Foundation. Several WPW productions are already open, and there are many more to come between now and June 30th. There will be additional opportunities for theater artists to gather together in celebration, and a two-day playwrights’ symposium later this spring. And tomorrow, March 1st, 2023, has been proclaimed “World Premiere Wisconsin Day” by Governor Tony Evers.
If you’ve made it this far in this epic tale, I congratulate you for your fortitude! And I want to close by expressing my deepest gratitude to the Forward Theater staff who absolutely threw down on this project for the past four and a half years. Scott Haden, Celia Klehr, Marcy Kearns, Sarah Milestone, Karen Moeller, Alex Moskoff, Julia Nicholas, Samara Safarik, Julie Swenson, – I adore each and every one of you. Onward, upward, forward.
To every person and every organization named in this post, I am so grateful to you. (And for anyone I may have inadvertently left out of this tale, I apologize in advance for the omission!)
My heart is so, so full.
Jen Uphoff Gray
Artistic Director
