There’s a lot of alarmist talk about theater making the rounds and we’re not cockeyed optimists, we get it: Things are really rough out. Peter wrote a big article about it, and it’s titled “Theater Is in Freefall, and the Pandemic Isn’t the Only Thing to Blame.”

But there are also lots of initiatives that give us hope. After Colorado’s Creede Rep on our previous episode, we head over to the Badger State to talk about World Premiere Wisconsin, a project that wrapped up at the end of June. Our guests were the festival producer Michael Cotey and Jen Uphoff Gray, who came up with the idea for WPW and is the artistic director of Forward Theater Company in Madison.

An ambitious project like this one was not a given in Wisconsin, which ranks last among the 50 states in public arts funding. But maybe that’s what spurred a few brave souls to jump into action, and World Premiere Wisconsin brought together institutions across the state for a full slate of premieres and events. It even hired a theater writer, Mike Fischer, to cover it all — Michael and Jen talk about what Mike did, and frankly, we were blown away. Of course there is a lot more to the festival but as journalists covering theater, well, we were excited.

We’re convinced other states could learn from the Wisconsin experience. Let us know if you hear of other interesting initiatives!

Thanks to Christian Huygen for our theme music.

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