Nick Chase, Betty Hart join Pesha Rudnick as co-artistic directors

(Press release)

BOULDER, CO—Local Theater Company (LTC), a nationally recognized, award-winning theater based in Boulder, Colorado, announced a monumental transition in the company’s leadership structure today.

The company transitions from a single artistic director to a triumvirate artistic director model. Nick Chase and Betty Hart are now Co-Artistic Directors alongside Founding Artistic Director Pesha Rudnick. Chase, formerly LTC’s Associate Artistic Director and Co-Director of Local Lab 11, will assume the position of Co-Artistic Director of Production and Education. Betty Hart, formerly LTC’s Co-Director of Local Lab 11, will assume the position of Co-Artistic Director of New Plays and Community Engagement while Pesha Rudnick will maintain the title Founding Artistic Director and oversee LTC’s expansion programming. This new shared leadership structure is a first in the company’s 12-year history.

Rudnick said, “We experimented with the shared leadership model last season during Lab and the experience was invigorating personally and programmatically. Betty and Nick have unique styles of leadership in new play development, and they have rich, independent artistic lives.

Our hope is that this model enables Local to provide artists and audiences a dynamic experience when they participate with us, and simultaneously allow us as leaders to grow artistically. All too often leaders burn out simply because we’re asked to do it all.
But how will we share leadership? It’s a fair question. The three of us have worked hard to come up with a plan that includes our staff and board. We’ve designed the season together, and ultimately our intention is to seek collaboration, but not necessarily consensus. We each have specific programs to oversee.”

Chase added, “Over the past year, Betty, Pesha, and I have worked in concert, overseeing our expanded new play development program, Local Lab. In that time, we established the foundation of communication, problem solving, and artistic envisioning that we will continue to build upon in Season 12. Our unique perspectives coupled with our commitment to precise, honest communication are our strengths. That’s reflected in the season lineup. The plays are distinct in their points of view, yet feel unified; that’s a direct result of our collaboration, the intersection of our perspectives.”

Hart added, “I have a long history and love of new play development, so I’m elated to be able to work more closely with Pesha and Nick co-leading Local Theater Company. I believe artists are telling new and compelling stories, in part, because of experiencing all that the twin pandemics of racial strife and Covid have brought forth. I look forward to being part of the team that amplifies these writers and their unique American stories.”

Local Theater Company also announces their Season 12 lineup today. Included are multi-hyphenate GerRee Hinshaw’s story of self-discovery through the genre-spanning music and personal story of Mexican-American artist Linda Ronstadt, Raised on Ronstadt, presented in Boulder, fall 2022. In December, the 2021 True West Award-winning Local Lab selection, Shells, returns in the form of a holiday (or, anti-holiday) show, Pop the Holidays, Music with Michelle “Shells” Hoffman. This work, created by Nick Chase & Roslyn Hart, will be presented in Denver, December 2022. In March, 2023, LTC returns to Denver with The Lady M Project, penned by Hadley Kamminga-Peck, Anne Penner, and Mare Trevathan. Trevathan is set to direct, with Penner starring and Kamminga-Peck returning as dramaturg.

The company will also present their expanded new play festival featuring four new works, community events and workshops, Local Lab 12, in Boulder, spring 2023.

Misha S. Zimmerman, Executive Producer, said, “Over the past two years during the Covid-19 pandemic, we expanded our Local Lab new play development program, supporting the development of 15 new theatrical works. For Season 12, we are thrilled to return to MainStage productions where plays receive their first fully realized productions. Here, designers and technicians join the creative teams. This year, we will present our first holiday show and 50% of our programming will take place in Denver, a first for our Boulder-based organization.”

Season 12 details

Raised on Ronstadt
Written and performed by GerRee Hinshaw
October–November, 2022
Boulder, CO (venue TBA)
Where do our voices come from? Who teaches our hearts to sing? What is in the music that made you? GerRee Hinshaw explores the sounds of her childhood and how an icon’s disregard for convention and category inspired more than her taste in music.

Pop the Holidays: Music with Michelle “Shells” Hoffman
Created by Nick Chase & Roslyn Hart
Written and directed by Nick Chase

Performed by Roslyn Hart
December, 2022
Denver, CO (venue TBA)
Welcome the holidays at this True West Award-winning show where souls are bared, shots are downed and shit gets real. Hosted by “hysterically funny and wildly inappropriate” (Time Out NY) downtown NYC sensation Shells Hoffman, this show involves the whole audience in hilarious games, epic sing-alongs, and jaw-dropping revelations.

The Lady M Project
Conceived by Anne Penner & Mare Trevathan
Written by Hadley Kamminga-Peck, Anne Penner, & Mare Trevathan
Directed by Mare Trevathan
March, 2023
Denver, CO (venue TBA)
Experience Shakespeare’s Macbeth from the passionate, complex, loving, and disturbed point of view of Lady Macbeth.

Local Lab 12
April, 2023
Boulder, CO (venue TBA)
Experience the cutting-edge of new theater with Local Lab, Boulder’s premier new play festival. Enjoy three days of plays, parties, and workshops.