The Williamstown, Massachusetts festival was rocked by a September 2021 L.A. Times article in which alumni alleged they experienced discrimination, a dangerous work environmental, and a lack of institutional support.
Jenny Gersten, who served as the festival’s artistic director from 2010 to 2014, stepped in again following the resignation of then-leader Mandy Greenfield shortly after the article was published.
She spoke with WAMC in 2021 about how the festival was responding.
“A lot of examination has already been done and will continue to get done here," said Gersten. "But there's more listening to be done, there's more intentional contemplation that has to happen about what the, how the festival changes, its model for production and for training to make sure that people feel safe, feel taken care of, and feel like they're learning in a positive, you know, exciting place.”
In 2022, the festival released an update on its internal work. At the time, Gersten told WAMC that it was working with the Black Theatre United company to help address some of the issues identified by former participants.
“We also started working with a third-party HR firm back in 2021," she said. "So, we had a full-time consultant in HR working with us, as well as someone BIPOC available to BIPOC members of the festival, if there were HR-type issues that we needed, that needed to be addressed, but more personally. And I'm just trying to think of. The reporting structure, just in terms of anonymous reporting, those, the report also makes room for ways to make it available and keep anonymity.”
Gersten released a farewell message for the festival community last week.
“I think that the past three years have provided so many challenges, but also so many opportunities for growth," she said. "As the interim artistic director these last three seasons, it has been so powerful to be here and watch the organization lean into evolution. That's a very hard thing to do, and the people who have helped make that evolution possible have been so committed and so powerful in their beliefs to see meaningful, great change allow for this place to keep blossoming in the future.”
This week, Kit Ingui – currently the Managing Director at New Haven’s Long Wharf Theatre – was named as WTF’s Managing Director of Operations & Advancement.
“She has a deep, a deep history in theater making, and a real success, path of success that she has taken in the various roles, whether it's working in New York on Broadway, certainly at the Long Wharf, and I think the most recent chapter where she has been at the helm, managing director at Long Wharf, shows why she's such a great fit for us,” said WTF board of trustees chair Margaret Gould Stewart.
Ingui’s ascent at Long Wharf came after the New York Times reported sexual misconduct allegations against then-executive director Gordon Edelstein, who was subsequently fired, in 2018. She stepped into the full-time managing director role following an interim period in September 2019 after joining the theater in an associate position in 2017.
“They did a bunch of transformation work themselves in figuring out the next chapter for that particular theater company who's going to be different than what the past looked like," Gould Stewart said. "And it takes a special kind of leader and leadership team to be able to explore what the possibilities are, decide what we you want the future to be, and then bring the organization, the board, the staff, the artist and the community forward.”
In a welcome message to the WTF community, Ingui identified three commitments:
“For today’s leading artists to explore new ideas in a stunning natural environment curated to support their innovation; for the stars of tomorrow to collaborate with mentors, building networks that impact the national theater landscape; [and] for audiences to thrill in the electricity created by this unique alchemy.”
Ingui, who was not available for an interview this week, is expected to join the company in November.
