CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – After nine years, Virginia Theater Festival Artistic Director Jenny Wales will step down from her position on Friday, she announced in a letter to festival supporters released by VTF.  The UVA alumna will stay with the university as a faculty member in the Department of Drama. 

Wales’ tenure has featured several of the most ambitious shows in the festival’s history, including 2018’s “The Mountaintop,” 2023’s “Cabaret,” and 2026’s production of Disney’s “Newsies.”  Wales was also responsible for the Spotlight on Service program, which furnished area non-profits with complimentary tickets, as well as the Artist-In-Residence series, that brought professionals working at some of the highest levels in theater to the university to impart their expertise onto the students that work alongside them for the festival. 

 “Jenny has displayed extraordinary vision and an uncompromising commitment to the art of theatre and has been an outstanding ambassador for the VTF, and for the arts writ large across the University and in our community,” Jody Kielbasa, Vice Provost for the Arts at UVA, said in the festival’s release.

Wales’ final season featured productions of Disney’s “Newsies,” as well as a successful run of Ken Ludwig’s Sherlock Holmes-inspired play, “Moriarty.”

“I could never have imagined when I was a first-year student at UVA, a place where I began to discover who I was as an artist, that years later I would return and find myself leading the Virginia Theatre Festival. I’m so proud of the work we have accomplished,” Wales wrote in her letter.