Making Theatre with Studio 42

In 2001, a group of ambitious young theatre-makers founded Studio 42, a company dedicated to showcasing emerging artists and adventurous new work. The small nonprofit took on different forms with different leaders over the 15 years of its existence. Devon was one of the founding ensemble and later filled the role of Producing Director, finally moving to the Board until Studio 42 sentimentally and triumphantly closed its doors. In those 15 years, Studio 42 gained a reputation as a mighty force of downtown theatre, launching the well-known Starving Artists Ball as a multidisciplinary festival, and — under the artistic directorship of Tony Award nominee Moritz von Stuelpnagel — taking on a revised mission to produce the “unproducible” works of burgeoning playwrights, many of whom have since been scooped up by television and streaming services, like Bekah Brunstetter (This Is Us), Rachel Shukert (GLOW, The Babysitters Club), Nick Jones (Orange is the New Black), Dorothy Fortenberry (The Handmaid’s Tale), and Charise Castro Smith (Encanto). Studio 42 is where Devon learned to make theatre from soup to nuts, where she learned to produce groundbreaking events, and where some of her most meaningful partnerships were born.