We recently connected with Suzan Fete and have shared our conversation below.

Suzan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

I’ve been Artistic Director and Co-founder of Renaissance Theaterworks (RTW) since our inception in 1993. RTW is a professional theater company in Milwaukee with a focus on gender equity.

Theater is hard. It is a constant struggle of too much work and never enough money. Even the best people fail way more often than they succeed. Sometimes It can feel hopeless. And, theater is the most thrilling, craziest adventure you get to share with other people. There is nothing else like it.

Theater is a risk at the best of times. You work hard to chose a season that is bold and compelling. You program to please and challenge your existing audience and hopefully reach new people too. But, even with the most thoughtful planning things can go wrong. The COVID pandemic is an extreme example, but even situations like elections or your city’s home team being in the play-offs can seriously impact ticket sales. But, you do your best and hope and pray everything goes well. It’s heartbreaking when you have a wonderful show that’s poorly attended!

I can think of two recent examples where RTW took pretty big risks with our programming. In 2024 we produced The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe. The Wolves is an amazing Pulitzer Prize Finalist play about a high school girls’ soccer team. We decided the most compelling way to produce it was to cast real high school-age girls in the show. Fortunately, we were able to partner with First Stage an acclaimed local youth theater that has a robust acting academy. While the kids at First Stage are talented, it was a big risk to cast nine nonprofessionals in one of our three shows.

But it paid off big time! The Wolves will live in my heart for the rest of my life. It was a triumph with audiences and critics alike. It was one of our most successful shows ever. I will never forget all of the girls smiling faces, their teamwork throughout the rehearsal process while they juggled many other obligations and, of course, the happy jubilation of opening night.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

VISION STATEMENT:
Renaissance Theaterworks (RTW) aspires to achieve local and national recognition for our provocative, courageous theater, our commitment to gender equity and redefining Milwaukee’s artistic landscape.
MISSION STATEMENT:
Dedicated to promoting the work of women onstage and off, Renaissance Theaterworks creates courageous theater that connects with our shared sense of being human.
CORE VALUES:
● Artistic Excellence
● The Collaborative Process
● Respect and Trust
● Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
● Exceptional Service
● Time for Celebration and Reflection
GOALS:
● Create Great Work
● Promote a Gender-Balanced Theater Culture
● Maintain a Financially Strong Company
● Attract and Cultivate a Larger, More Diverse Audience
● Provide a Great Creative Workplace
● Offer an exceptional place to Experience Theater

Every Season, RTW produce’s 3 main-stage offerings and our Br!NK New Play Festival.
RTW performs at the most accessible theater in town.
We are proud of our mission and tagline “Theater by Women for Everyone.”

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Theater is most the most thrilling, craziest adventure you get to share with other people. There is nothing else like it.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

MISSION and CORE VALUES
Renaissance Theaterworks is Milwaukee’s only women-run, women- founded professional theater company.
Mission: Dedicated to promoting the work of women onstage and off, Renaissance Theaterworks creates moving theater that connects with our shared sense of being human.

Core Values
Artistic Excellence
Demonstrated by:
• Choosing, hiring and producing the best.
• Doing more with less.

The Collaborative Process
Demonstrated by:
• Holding the good of the company before the good of the individual.
• Encouraging an open and collaborative work environment.

Respect and Trust
Demonstrated by:
• Encouraging respectful, honest communication.
• Providing a culture that fosters success.
• Resolving conflicts in a timely manner.
• Honoring individual differences.

Human Diversity
Demonstrated by:
• Promoting and producing the work of women, BIPOC, artists of varying physical and cognitive abilities and LGBTQIA.
• Prioritizing diverse hiring in all areas
• Maintain and increase board, staff and artist diversity
• Acknowledging that RTW operates from the ancestral and unseated lands of the Kickapoo, Peoria, Potawatomi, Ottawa, Menominee, Miami and Sioux peoples.

Exceptional Service
Demonstrated by:
• Treasuring our audience.
• Providing the best environment for experiencing theater.

Time for Celebration and Reflection
Demonstrated by:
• Acknowledging and evaluating our failures.
• Holding fun as an essential part of Renaissance work.
• Saying, “Everything goes better with food.”
• Celebrating our achievements with a loud, “Yay us!”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://rtwmke.org
• Instagram: renaissance.theaterworks
• Facebook: https://Facebook.com/renaissance.theaterworks
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/company/renaissance-theaterworks
• Youtube: renaissance theaterworks6232

Image Credits

Pictured: Elyse Edelman, Mary MacDonald Kerr, Cassandra Bissell, Bryant Bentley, Regan Linton, Zoah Hirano, Steve Koehler, Madison Jones, Natalie Ottman, Sarah Sokolovic, Kaylene Howard, Marti Gobel and Neil Brookshire. Photos by Ross Zentner