A Conversation with the Nashville Rep’s New Artistic Director Jessica Fichter
Jessica Fichter is the upcoming new artistic director for the Nashville Repertory Theatre. A director, playwright, and teaching artist, she has worked in professional and educational theater across the East Coast, from New York City to her current home in South Carolina, where she is finishing the season as artistic director with Trustus Theatre before she officially begins her new role at the Nashville Rep in May. We were delighted to get to speak with her over the phone.
Grace Krenz (GK): Welcome to Nashville! What got you interested in the Nashville Rep and the area in general?
Jessica Fichter (JF): My sister lives in Nashville. She is a songwriter and we actually write musicals together as well. And so I’ve been to Nashville quite a bit since she lives there. So that’s sort of my familiarity with the Nashville area. I saw the job come up and I thought this could be really great. I could get to be close to my sister, and Nashville is such a thriving artistic community. I’m really excited to work in a place that has such support and vibrancy in its arts community.
GK: That’s great. You said you have written musicals together. Are you talking about Dandelion?
JF: Yes, I did the book and she did music and lyrics.
GK: Do you have any future projects you’re planning on doing together?
JF: Yep, we are starting a couple more. We are in the early processes of developing our next big one. We have three ideas that we really like. We’re focused on the next one, which is a holiday musical. That’s where we are focusing right now. And then after that I want to go back to a more dramatic, set in time piece. Dandelion is very funny, but also very serious. And so we wanted to move into something a little bit more fun.
GK: You’ve also written a YA book?
JF: I did. I wrote a YA book called Yellow Bird. It’s really a trilogy and I really need to get the second one out there into the universe, so I am working on it. Hoping to get the second book released in the next year or two but we’ll see how it goes.
GK: Tell me about your theater background. What got you into theater and what you have experienced professionally and in education?
JF: I fell in love with theater when I was five. I think I was in a production of the best Christmas pageant ever at a community theater, and that was kind of it for me. I continued to do that through middle school into high school. When I went to college my degree was in theater education. And I then taught at a middle and a high school for a combo of eight years. And I, from there, decided that I really wanted to move into the professional world,so I applied to MFA programs and I ended up deciding to go to the Actors Studio MFA program in New York City, out of Pace University, and so I got my MFA in directing. From there I directed in New York, some off-off-Broadway and some Off-Broadway titles and some new work, developed some new shows.
And then COVID happened. I ended up coming back to South Carolina. I had two children at the time (I now have three), and I was like, we need a backyard. We can’t be in an apartment, you know? And so I came back here. And the job at Trustus, where I currently am, opened up in 2022 and I applied for it, thinking it could be a good fit. And the universe was kind to me. I’ve been at Trustus for four years now. It’s been such a gift. I have loved every minute of running this organization.
Primarily, theatrically, I’m a director, doing a combo of large-scale musicals, new work, and what I call avant-garde edgy straight plays. So, those are sort of the spaces I live in, artistically, as a director. And then obviously I write as well, and I’m a producer as I run organizations, and artistic directors are obviously producing folks. Occasionally I act, maybe once almost every three to four years, if it makes sense.
GK: What do you mean by “if it makes sense?”
JF: I think casting is such an interesting tricky thing. And so for me, if a role fits me really well and a director thinks I would be a really good fit, then I will step into it, but I generally stay in my directing artistic director space because of time and all of that. Although if I get to act, it’s the most fun.
GK: What’s your favorite aspect of theater culture?
JF: I would say my favorite thing about theater culture is it’s an art form based on collaboration. And it works at its best when you have a team of minds working on a story and coming up with the best storytelling mechanisms to pull the audience into the story. And that collaborative piece of the equation, it just feeds my heart and soul. It’s also, in so many ways, a collision of all of the art forms: you have visual artists on the design side, you have musicians, playwrights, writers, actors, so you’re getting a collision of all these different types of artists as well.
GK: Do you have any specific or general goals for the Nashville Rep in the future?
JF: I think that building partnerships with school districts, colleges, educational institutions always serve the not only greater good, but the theater institution itself. And so my hope would just be to continue outreaching to find these places where perhaps there are gaps and needs in the education community and see how we can help fill those needs for the students, the teachers, the parents.
GK: As you move from being artistic director from one theater company to another, do you feel that your goals or techniques of directing are changed in any way?
JF: I think one of the beautiful things about directing is each show is its own beast, with its own personality, so my approach to directing is always pretty show specific. The more you meet the show, the space and the people where they are, the better the production is. I think it will just be continuing to have that approach to directing, looking at each show as its own specific entity and what serves it best and the people in it. But I also think there’s a learning curve and learning spaces, spaces also have personalities. So it will be fun and interesting to learn the current TPAC spaces and what the best ways are to use them for storytelling.
GK: Tell me about Evolving Door Company.
JF: Evolving Door is a theater company that I created when I was in New York. It primarily is a company we have used to help in the development of new work, really early development of new work, so it helped with fundraising and producing Dandelion. We also have done several readings of new plays, and then we did another new work called Pouf by a local South Carolina artist that we ended up taking to SheFest in New York and performed at the Connelly. So that organization is really focused on how to help develop work as it’s coming up from the ground.
GK: Amos Glass mentioned that you have a knack for finding excellent unknown and sometimes obscure plays. How do you go about finding these plays?
JF: I read a lot, from TCG or Playbill or more obscure publications about theater on what’s happening regionally around the country and in New York. And I also try to travel to New York several times a year, especially if there’s an Off-Broadway, something that I am super excited to see or that I’ve heard about. It just helps me keep a pulse on what is happening in the regional and Off-Broadway sector. I think most of us know what’s happening in the Broadway world, but those more niche markets, I really try to keep a pulse on. I also just talk to a lot of theater people who also often say, have you read this? And then I go try to track down a copy of that play and read it because if someone is taking the time to tell me I should read it, I want to make space for that because I do love to see new work, especially things that are of our time.
GK: Do you have a favorite type of play to direct?
JF: I love to direct a musical. I do. There’s just something magic about what music does to a play, and those are often large scale. Then when I’m looking at straight plays, it’s really just like, does the story speak to me and do I feel like I am the best person to tell this story to the world? I can be kind of picky about what I am directing because if there’s a better person to tell that story, I want them to tell it. So I really think it’s kind of a show by show basis in terms of whether I think I’m the right fit.
GK: If you were queen of the world, what would your ideal season’s programming look like?
JF: Man, that’s a tricky question. I think that programming is so much of the community that you are in as well. So you’re trying to choose shows that serve your immediate surrounding and community. So if I was queen of the world, I would just want to be doing the plays I want. But I think as an artistic director, I would really be trying to see what makes the most sense for the community. For me, though, I think that good programming is a balance of large scale musicals that perhaps have a larger reach. In terms of audience, they’re a little bit more universal. And then plays that speak to the community you’re in, perhaps smaller pockets of that community. When you have two spaces, like TPAC does, there’s a lot of opportunity to do that because you have a smaller space with 250 seats, and then you have a larger space with 600. So you’re able to have a lot of programming flexibility. But I think good programming is all about that balance, of who are you telling the story to, who is your audience and how you can challenge your audiences and also entertain your audiences.
GK: Do you feel like you have a glimpse of what the Nashville theater community is like?
JF: You know, I said in my interview process, I think these jobs take a year to really understand the ins and outs of the organization itself, the operations, and the community, to understand what is thriving about it, where are the gaps? How can I best serve it? So I really plan in my first year to do a lot of listening and a lot of meeting folks to get a sense of where everyone is, to get a sense of the community, to get a sense of the art.
GK: You will be coming back and forth between Trustus and Nashville Rep as you transition away from one theater company and into the next. You also have three children. How are you doing that transition?
JF: Yes, we are in flux right now. It is a little bit of a juggling act to make it all happen, but I think it’s really important for the organization I’m at to help the next person get situated, and have me as a resource for them. And then the Rep has been so great at giving me space and Amos has been an incredible resource for me as I’m trying to transition and learn what’s happening there. I’m a big fan of the slow transition because I think it helps both organizations with stability.
I am helping with some decision making for next season because I will be there next season. I think some of it is just logistics and looking at some of the admin pieces of the upcoming year. And then I also just want to be a support system in place for the shows that are going up for the end of this season. And then have the opportunity to watch how things are working, be in the room, and be able to ask questions. I think it’s going to be so invaluable to me as I move into next season, taking on a larger role.
I’m so excited to be moving into the Nashville community and I’m so excited for the ways that I can serve the theatrical community at large.
We will have to wait a few months until Jessica Fichter joins us full time as the Nashville Repertory Theatre’s new artistic director, but in the meantime you can check out her YA book Yellow Bird and her musical Dandelion: An Original Musical. The Nashville Repertory Theatre season continues, and performances of Fat Ham start this weekend.
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A Nashville native and MTSU graduate, Grace Krenz is a reader, a writer, and an arts enthusiast. She lives in Nashville with her husband and two children.
