Dear Friends of Drama,

Without question, we are experiencing tumultuous times, and hope our Winter School of Drama newsletter finds you and your loved ones safe and well. In my brief time so far as Executive Director, coinciding with our own anxious moment in history, I have felt proud and encouraged to see our students, faculty, and staff using theatre and performance to take the world head-on with new and with classic stories, and to engage with fundamental questions about how to be human with one another.

I see this engaged work in our season’s productions like Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, directed by MFA student Sebastián Bravo Montenegro, which just closed after two successful weekends of performances and post-show discussions. I see it in our upcoming production of Hannah Moscovitch’s Bunny directed by MFA student Ren Langer, the first rehearsal of which I had the privilege of attending in January . I see it in our School’s collaboration with the UW Neurology program, where some of our undergraduate actors have been performing as simulated patients and caregivers in scenarios at the WISH Lab at Harborview Medical Center that help train resident neurologists to be excellent and conscientious medical professionals. (Link?). And I see it in our graduating PATP class of 2026, who are launching the next part of their careers as courageous artists invested in creating a more just, equitable, and empathetic society.

You’ll read about some of these items in this winter’s newsletter. I hope you can join us for some of our upcoming events like Bunny, opening in March, as well as our IGNITE New Works Festival in April, and our last show of season, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ EVERYBODY, directed by Assistant Professor Chi-wang Yang and featuring a cast, crew, and artistic team of our BA students. In the meantime, I hope you’ll find ways to continue to be engaged in our world and to be human with one another.

Scott Magelssen
Executive Director