Jill Anna Ponasik                        Artistic Director

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Singer-actor Jill Anna Ponasik has been hailed as “puckish and adorable” by The Washington Post, “amusing” by The New York Times, and “lovely, rending, and plaintively honest” by the St. Paul Pioneer-Press. A fearless, adventurous artist, she has maintained a commitment to new work, fresh approaches to the classics, and working with excellent, innovative companies throughout her career. As a performer, she has appeared in productions with Nautilus Music-Theater, Theatre de la Jeune Lune, St Paul Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Opera, Skylight Opera Theatre, VocalEssence, Theatre Latte Da, Skylark Opera, Ohio Light Opera, Bronx Opera, New Dramatists and Alchemist Theatre among others.

In fall 2008, Jill Anna was appointed artistic director of Milwaukee Opera Theatre and is reveling in the opportunity to direct, perform, program, and support artists and their work. Her first season (2009-10) included The Last Five Years, Winter Revenge: The Valkyries are Calling! and 26, an original work created by Ponasik, composer Nathan Wesselowski, and choreographer Kelly Anderson. Last season (2010-11), MOT presented the premiere professional reading of Jason Powell’s Superhero Operetta Fortuna the Time Bender vs. The Schoolgirls of Doom!, a special toy-theater production of Amahl and the Night Visitors, Voyage, a winter concert inspired by the impulse to travel and a double bill of Dominic Argento’s From the Diary of Virginia Woolf and Nautilus Music-Theater’s Meditations on Arion.  Now, in 2011-12, we're in the midst of our most ambitious season to date:  Maria de Buenos Aires, co-produced with Danceworks Performance Company and The Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra, The Eurydice Project, a week-long workshop to develop a new piece of lyric-theatre, The fully-staged return of Fortuna the Time Bender vs. The Schoolgirls of Doom!, Home, our annual winter concert and finally, Iolanthe, our first production of Gilbert and Sullivan.

Jill Anna has received awards from The Metropolitan National Council Auditions, The Schubert Club of St. Paul, Milwaukee's Civic Music Association and the Wisconsin and Minnesota chapters of NATS. She holds degrees from the University of Minnesota and the Rice University Shepherd School of Music.