Ponasik joins Skylight team
Jill Anna Ponasik is joining Skylight Music Theatre as artistic associate, the Skylight announced in a statement.
Ponasik has been producing artistic director of Milwaukee Opera Theatre since 2008 and will continue leading that group. The Skylight post will be part time.
She said she hopes not only to work wholeheartedly for both organizations but also help them enhance each other.
For example, Skylight will now collaborate with MOT on its signature Voice Labs series, which offers singers a chance to workshop in a non-judgmental atmosphere.
“She has such a deep passion and knowledge of opera and music theater and is respected and loved in this community,” said Skylight artistic director Ray Jivoff in the statement. “On a personal level, I am delighted to welcome my dear friend and colleague.”
MOT will collaborate with Skylight, and Ponasik will stage-direct a new production of Offenbach’s opera “The Tales of Hoffmann” in March. It will feature a new libretto in English by MOT’s Danny Brylow, which Ponasik will develop in collaboration with opera students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Ponasik said her deal with Skylight is for one year, to give everyone a chance to see if this arrangement works for all involved.
Ponasik is respected locally for her track record of collaboration with other groups. Under the MOT banner, she has staged collaborative performances with Danceworks, Wild Space, Present Music, In Tandem Theatre and others.
She already knows her way around the Broadway Theatre Center, where the Skylight rehearses and performs. She sang in Skylight productions of “La Boheme” and “Pirates of Penzance”; produced a Skylight cabaret show, “The One Stop Opera Shop”; and stage-directed Skylight productions of “Cinderella” (2014) and “Tosca” (2015).
She is a Waukesha native with degrees in vocal performance from Rice University and the University of Minnesota School of Music.