The Virginia Theatre Festival began in 1974 as a University semi-professional drama program and recently returned to Charlottesville for its 52nd iteration. The festival hosts several shows each summer that feature both Broadway and Charlottesville actors, and the company is composed of over 100 people from around the country in addition to several University students, faculty members and alumni.
The festival process lasts for approximately 10 weeks during the summer from preparation to performance, with the 2026 season featuring productions of “Moriarty,” “Newsies” and “Frida… A Self Portrait.” This year’s festival concluded July 26, wrapping up another successful edition of VTF.
VTF brings together local talent and Broadway performers through a rather long and complex casting process. Jenny Wales, University drama professor and artistic director of VTF, said VTF works with a casting director based out of New York City to host auditions, then individual show-runners pick talent for their respective plays or musicals before eventually presenting the productions in the University’s drama building.
Each summer, VTF works to provide a range of shows across genre and appeal. Matthew Steffens, director and choreographer for “Newsies” and class of 1998 alumnus, emphasized the spectrum of plays performed at the festival, providing a show for every type of audience. Wales said she begins selecting the shows in the fall, soon after the previous VTF ends. Once she selects the productions, she begins hiring creative teams and auditions take place by the winter.
Steffens takes on a significant amount of responsibility in his roles for the show, as he has for three other productions at VTF in previous years. Steffens said that in January, he began going through over 1,000 tapes to find talent for this year’s companies. Despite the significant number of cast and crew members from New York City, Steffens made a concerted effort to select University students for his production of “Newsies” as well.
“We have seven U.Va. students, which is the most U.Va. students I've ever had in a production there,” Steffens said. “I'm really proud and excited about that.”
Beyond highlighting performers at the University, VTF also showcases young talent from the community. Wales noted that 13 of the 37 “Newsies” cast members are Charlottesville residents under the age of 18.
“We definitely have a really robust representation of U.Va. students, community members [and] local young artists, who are working … with those individuals who were cast out of New York,” Wales said.
Working with VTF gives University performers a chance to work in a high-end drama production with cast and crew members from across the country. Wales highlighted the benefit to University performers through working in this setting.
“[Students are] intersecting with actors who are doing this for their jobs, for their careers,” Wales said. “I think it's a really special and singular thing that we have here that we're able to provide opportunities for students to move what they're doing in the classroom into a real-life, real-world, professional theatrical rehearsal space with a realized production at the end.”
Soren Corbett, rising fourth-year Engineering student and performer in “Newsies,” said his experience with each show was unique in scope and process, having performed in VTF productions twice now. This year, in order to squeeze in extra preparation time, he and the other actors playing newsies began rehearsing a week earlier to learn choreography, with a couple of days dedicated entirely to practicing moving the large towers that were part of the set.
Character work was also a large part of the “Newsies” production for Steffens and Corbett, focusing on trust between cast and crew. Corbett said that Steffens even included additional rehearsals with the actors who were playing the newsies in order to develop strong bonds among the cast.
“We did a full newsie character work session that I think was really helpful in building those connections between us,” Corbett said. “[Steffens] also focused on making sure that all of our connections were very tight on stage.”
Wales, Steffens and Corbett all praised the professionalism, collaboration and organization of VTF. Wales described VTF as a deeply collaborative event, with artistic directors, casting directors, choreographers, costume designers, cast members, crew members and others working together on each production. Steffens said that he develops an intentional process for choreographing and directing these existing theatrical works, often requiring problem-solving and adapting to a given situation in order to truly create an adaptation, not just a copy.
“Usually the direction comes first for me, and then the choreography comes,” Steffens said. “As a director, I'm always trying to find … the truth of the situation, and choreographically, making sure that the dance is informed by the stories of these people.”
Elaborating further on the effort required for choreographing for “Newsies,” Steffens noted the cohesion and intricacies required to pull off the final production. Steffens said that he justifies as many of his choreographical choices as he can, tying the dancing into the characters and story of the play, which centers around New York City newspaper boys during their 1899 strike.
“In some productions of ‘Newsies,’ they just dance for dance's sake,” Steffens said. “We used found objects from the deli. We have a jump rope that's made of their newspaper bags. The tap shoes are actually platters that the cups are served on.”
Corbett said that these choices in the production design make for precise yet impactful choreography. While Steffen’s choreography was often challenging, Corbett said, it lent itself to an environment that demanded trust and safety.
“It's collaborative to make sure that all of us are on the same page and are doing something that's replicable every night,” Corbett said. “[Steffens] builds a community in which it feels safe to bring up those questions of ‘yes, I'm so sorry, I need to go this way,’ or ‘I need to make this particular move at this moment, are you able to go this way?’”
The collaborative efforts of VTF have contributed to theater productions that unite local communities and attract national talent in Charlottesville every year for more than half a century. Tickets to next year’s shows will be available on VTF’s website next summer.
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