Jill Anna Ponasik is a stage and opera director who spends most of her time as the Producing Artistic Director of Milwaukee Opera Theatre (MOT). Over seventeen seasons, she has shaped MOT into an experimental, community-rooted company known for imaginative reinterpretations of classics and the development of new work. She holds degrees in vocal performance from the University of Minnesota and the Rice University Shepherd School of Music.

Ponasik joined MOT as a performer and transitioned into leadership, eventually becoming its Producing Artistic Director in 2009. She oversees between three and five original productions annually while running three free educational initiatives: Script & Score, The Supreme Creativity Studio, and Voice Lab.  Both MOT productions and educational initiatives prioritize artist empowerment and creative expression.  Since its beginning in Jill Anna’s living room, Voice Lab in particular has served as a guide for over 1,600 singer-actors in Milwaukee and has incubated more than 15 new productions.  Ponasik’s caring leadership has transformed MOT into a creative platform where artists take the lead, seasons emerge organically from local interests, and performances might unfold across lobbies, gardens, bookstores, churches or parking lots.

MOT productions under Jill Anna’s leadership have included 26, a dance-theatre fantasia inspired by Italian arias, Jason Powell’s comic opera Fortuna the Time Bender vs. The Schoolgirls of Doom, The art song / rock song mash-up Guns N’ Rosenkavalier, an a cappella production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Ruddigore, and a period instrument presentation of Handel’s Alcina adapted for performance in a vintage furniture store.

Beyond MOT, she collaborates widely across Milwaukee’s arts scene and has worked closely with The Florentine Opera (Viva la Mamma, Songbird, Cosi?, L’enfant e les Sortilèges, Cinderella, and Little Mahagony), and Skylight Music Theater (Ernest Shackleton Loves Me, Oklahoma!, Carmina Burana, Tales of Hoffmann, Tosca, and Cinderella).  She has also had the great good fortune to develop work with Renaissance Theatreworks, Milwaukee Chamber Theater, First Stage, Danceworks Performance MKE, WildSpace Dance Company, Vanguard MKE, The Alchemist, The Milwaukee Symphony, Aperi Animam, Present Music, and Early Music Now.

Under Ponasik’s leadership, MOT prioritizes bold, locally grounded work, genre‑crossing collaborations, and site specific productions that roam the city; creating a vibrant and inclusive future for contemporary opera in the Midwest.