News from University of Iowa Theatre Arts

Department of Theatre Arts

A theatrical production shot of Uncle Vanya showing three performers on a warmly lit stage. Center, a man in a rumpled white shirt and loose trousers stands with arms raised and open, mid-speech. To the left, a performer in a wide-brimmed hat sits playing an acoustic guitar. To the right, another performer sits in a chair looking at a phone. The set depicts a lived-in interior with floral wallpaper, vintage furniture, potted plants, and a curved staircase leading to an upper balcony, all framed by a large wooden doorframe in the foreground.

Dear Iowa Theatre Alumni and Friends:

As we close out the academic year, we find ourselves reflecting on what it means to be part of this community, the relationships we build, the work we make together, and the ways we show up for one another. This issue is full of that: students, faculty, and alumni doing meaningful, ambitious work on stages and in rooms near and far, and we are proud to share it with you.

At the same time, we write to you during a difficult moment. As many of you may already know, on Sunday, April 19, a shooting in downtown Iowa City injured five people, including three University of Iowa students. Two of the five victims remain hospitalized. We hold all those affected close, and we are grateful for the care this community continues to extend to one another. More complete information and updates are available on the City of Iowa City website.

This issue also includes an In Memoriam section honoring two alumni whose lives and careers left a lasting mark on the American theatre. We invite you to take a moment with their stories.

We are glad you are here, and we are glad to be in community with you, near and far, in difficult moments and celebratory ones alike. Speaking of news … We are always eager to hear your updates! If you have news to share about your accomplishments or the work of a fellow Iowa Theatre grad, please let us know.

Warmly,

Mary Beth Easley

Chair of the Department of Theatre Arts

Associate Professor, Head of Directing

Find Department of Theatre Arts news and updates any time HERE.

UPCOMING EVENTS right arrow

Departmental News:

We have new items in our Performing Arts At Iowa merch store—including a new crewneck sweatshirt featuring the Department of Theatre Arts! Check it out at: https://performingarts.uiowa.edu/merch-store
Last month the UI community came together for One Day for Iowa, a 24-hour engagement effort dedicated to bringing in resources for the people and programs that shape life on campus. Together, UI alumni and friends donated nearly $10,000 to support Performing Arts At Iowa. Thank you to all who took part in this collective effort supporting our students!
New Work City is under way again! Each spring at the University of Iowa, this initiative highlights new works being premiered all over campus as our graduate students in the performing arts present their creative projects to the public--often for the first time ever. Our beloved annual New Play Festival is now part of New Work City, too. Learn more at https://performingarts.uiowa.edu/new-work-city.
Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Martyna Majok visited campus at the end of March to work with students in the Department of Theatre Arts. During her visit, she engaged with student playwrights and participated in a Q&A session with MFA students, offering insight into her writing process and career in new play development. She was joined by Broadway actor Marin Ireland, who read excerpts of Majok’s work for the students. PHOTOS
Faculty and students represented UI Theatre Arts at the USITT (United States Institute for Theatre Technology) Conference in Los Angeles over spring break. The annual conference brings together students, educators, and industry professionals for sessions, workshops, and networking in theatre and live entertainment production.

Student News + Accomplishments:

Meredith G. Healy, Directing MFA candidate, has been awarded an Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award from the University Council on Teaching. The award recognizes teaching assistants who have demonstrated outstanding abilities at the University of Iowa.
Cianon Jones, a third-year Iowa Playwrights Workshop student, wrote Barberman: The Alexander Clark Story, a play about the 19^th-century Muscatine civil rights leader who successfully sued to desegregate Iowa schools in 1868, 86 years before Brown v. Board of Education. Commissioned by UI Arts Share, the Muscatine Art Center, and the Stanley Center, the play received a staged reading in February 2025 and is now moving to a full production, June 12-14 at Muscatine Community College Black Box Theatre. Performances are free and open to the public, with post-show Q&A sessions featuring the cast and creative team.

Alumni News + Accomplishments:

Brian Quijada (BA 2011) received nine Lucille Lortel Award nominations, including Outstanding Musical, for Mexodus. The awards honor Off and Off-Off Broadway theatre. Written with collaborator Nigel D. Robinson, the play is a hip-hop musical tracing the stories of those who used the Underground Railroad to escape to Mexico, centering Black and Brown solidarity. The nominations keep coming: Mexodus also received four Drama League Award nominations, ten Drama Desk Award nominations, and ten Outer Critics Circle nominations. Quijada and Robinson previewed songs from the show in an acoustic concert at Club Hancher in fall 2024.
Set in a post-pandemic world, Kirsten Greenidge's (2001 MFA) Morning, Noon, and Night, an exploration of teens, family, and surveillance, received its Midwest premiere at Chicago's Shattered Globe Theatre in February. Read more about it HERE.
The History Theatre (St. Paul, MN) commissioned Peter Gil-Sheridan (2004 MFA) to write Marielitos, a musical about the Mariel Boatlift created in collaboration with Cristina Luzurraga and Julián Mesri. The work will receive a staged reading at the theatre's Raw Stages Festival in October.
Two new projects mark a busy season for Jen Silverman (2011 MFA). Her musical Black Swan, based on the film of that name with music and lyrics by Dave Malloy, will premiere at American Repertory Theatre in May. Her adaptation of August Strindberg's Creditors has been released as an Audible Original and was a New York Times Streaming Pick. Read more HERE..
First produced at the Iowa New Play Festival 2025, The Word of Ants by Xiaoyan Kang (2025 MFA) earned its playwright a finalist spot in the Alliance Theatre’s Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition and a staged reading at the Alliance in March.
Little Bear Ridge Road, Samuel D. Hunter's (2007 MFA) Broadway debut, ran from October to December 2025 with Laurie Metcalf in the lead role. The play received Drama League nominations for Outstanding Play, Outstanding Direction, and Distinguished Performance for Metcalf, as well as an Outer Critics Circle nomination for Outstanding New Broadway Play. It was also named Best Play of the 2025-2026 season by the New York Drama Critics Circle.

SUBMIT YOUR NEWS HERE

Faculty News + Accomplishments:

Assistant Professor of Playwriting Tony Meneses’s play The Hombres will be produced at The Old Globe in San Diego as part of its 2025–26 season. The comedy follows a group of construction workers whose catcalling sparks complaints from a nearby yoga studio, leading the instructor to invite them to try a class themselves. What begins as a clash between two worlds evolves into a humorous and thoughtful exploration of masculinity, friendship, and vulnerability. For UI alumni in the San Diego area, May 30 is Iowa night at The Hombres! Iowa alumni who attend will have the opportunity to meet Tony (also a 2010 Iowa Playwrights Workshop graduate) in the lobby that night and take an Iowa photo. Please email vanholsteijn@foriowa.org if you plan to attend.
Ryan Adelsheim, Assistant Professor of Theater History and Performance Studies, is co-planning this year's Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas retreat, hosted in June at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale in New Haven, CT. The retreat, sponsored in part by the UI Theatre Arts Department, will feature panels and working groups. Fellow faculty member Associate Professor Art Borreca and alumna Christine Scarfuto (MFA 2011) are among the participants.
Associate Professor Megan Gogerty (1997 BA) will perform her play FAIR STATE at the Provincetown Theatre Four Stars Solo Festival this June. The show follows Gogerty as she unearths her family's ancestral ties to the founding of Iowa interrogating what it means to inherit a complicated history and the relatives that come with it. Learn more about the 2026 season at the Provincetown Theater HERE.

In Memoriam:

Sharon Aleta Haskell (1981 BA), known professionally as Aleta Mitchell, passed away on April 14, 2026, at the age of 74. As Aleta Mitchell, she built a distinguished career spanning Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional theatre, film, and television, with credits including August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and films directed by Spike Lee, Clint Eastwood, and Milos Forman. She is survived by her husband of 41 years, Thomas Haskell. We are humbly grateful that a memorial scholarship has been created in her name to support UI Theatre Arts students. If you would like to make a gift in her memory, the UI Center for Advancement welcomes contributions from fellow alumni to the new Aleta Mitchell Advancement Fund. Read more HERE.
Mary Beth Hurt (1968 BA), an Iowa native who began her acting career in our department, died in Jersey City, NJ, at the age of 79. Her family remembered her as an actress, wife, sister, mother, aunt, and friend who took on all those roles with grace and kind ferocity. Read her obituary in The New York Times.

Coming Soon to Hancher:

BEETLEJUICE

May 1-3, 2026

Hancher Auditorium / Hadley Stage