Festival Theatre | St. Croix Falls, WI

Welcome to Festival Theatre
St. Croix Falls, WI
Professional Entertainment and Arts Education in the Franklin Square Black Box.

Massive thank you to our 2020 season sponsors: Luhrs/Bjornson Artworks, First Resource Bank, and Amery Hospital/Clinic!

A Fall 2020 update from Jason Richards,
our Executive Artistic Director
Jason shares updates to our 2020 season in the video below!

St. Croix Festival Theatre stands in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and our First Amendment right to free speech and peaceful protest. Part of our mission statement is, "...to make the professional performing arts welcoming to ALL people..." We have a responsibility as artists and as an institution to continually examine ourselves to help create a culture of inclusion and empathy.

We are united with all civil activists who, peacefully yet fervently, continue to cry for long overdue social justice and change. We see you. We hear you. We stand with you.

Hello everyone. All of us here at Festival Theatre hope you and your loved ones are healthy and well. We want to update you about difficult but necessary changes that we have made to our 2020 season. I’ve been having ongoing discussions with the staff and our Board of Directors concerning our 2020 summer season, because we want to do the right thing as to not endanger the health of anyone, including our staff, our visiting artists, our volunteers, and, of course, our patrons.

Even though Wisconsin’s “shelter-in-place” order has been lifted Festival Theatre will still remain closed. As you can imagine, it is almost impossible to wear a mask or practice social distancing during the rehearsal process. This, of course, puts our cast and crew as well as our staff in harm’s way. If one person among us gets sick then, because of how this virus works, we all get sick. That would mean we would all have to be quarantined and rehearsals would come to a standstill or shows would have to be canceled. A scenario like this would make it almost impossible for us to recover financially. Also, it would be terrible if one (or several) of our patrons got sick because they came to one of our shows. We certainly don't want to risk the health of our community.

So, unfortunately, we have made the difficult decision to cancel our summer season, which includes Into the Woods, Pride and and Prejudice, and Picasso at the Lapin Agile and also canceling our fall show, The Crucible. As of now, we are still planning to stage Stuart Little in October and The Gift of the Magi in November and December.

As we said, Festival Theatre will remain closed for the time being. This means that our Box Office is closed as well and we have temporarily suspended ticket sales. We do not take this decision lightly, but we are trying to avoid confusion and headache for you and our box office staff. I’m sure you can understand the difficulty in having to contact each person with every change. All further 2020 season updates will be posted on our website, so continue to check back in with us.

Until we can be back together again in our beloved Black Box, I hope that you will visit our website and Facebook page for our “Festiv@l Home” online series. We have posted a variety of videos already and have many more online events (for all ages) in the works. So, please check back often.

We miss you! We miss seeing you! But the health and safety of all involved must come first. We know that brighter days are ahead and that we will soon be together again and that thought is what motivates us and keeps our spirits up. So, until we see you again, we wish you health, happiness, and peace.

Be well, my friends

Jason Richards
Executive Artistic Director

The Princess and the Players Cast/Crew
Written by Jason Richards
Isaac Bont - King/Tooley/High-hat
Megan Hanks - Princess Penelope
Jaclyn June Johnson - Pie-Pan/Kafka/King Caldwell
Scott Murdock - Sly/Captain/King Hector/Ranzbert/Prince John
Ben Qualley - William/Narrator/Dr. Philpot/Osric
Matthew Simpson - Burbage/Sir Edgar
Brooke Smith - Queen/Augustina/Princess Isabel

Update regarding COVID-19

To Our St. Croix Festival Theatre Patrons:

Today we made the difficult but necessary decision to rework our March, April, May schedule due to COVID-19. This includes the postponement of Charlotte's Web, and cancelling Hiroya Tsukamoto, Silent Sky, and Flying & Falling. We are rearranging our season and working with our artists to best work with schedules as well as keep ethical during this difficult time with COVID-19. We will provide more information on the rescheduled dates as soon as we are able.

The health and safety of our patrons, staff, and artists is an extremely important matter and one that we take very seriously. Like you all, we are monitoring the development of the COVID-19 situation closely and following all CDC and HHS guidelines, as well as those from local authorities and the Wisconsin Department of Health.

We deeply value you as a member of the Festival Theatre family and are so grateful for your ongoing commitment to the theatre. As a nonprofit arts organization, Festival Theatre relies heavily on the support of donors and ticket buyers. If you are able to exchange or donate your tickets, rather than request a refund, it would help sustain Festival Theatre during this uncertain time and would be extremely appreciated. If you have any questions please contact our box office at (715) 483-3387 or email festivaltheatreboxoffice@gmail.com.

Though the risk of contracting COVID-19 is currently low in St. Croix Falls, we are taking extra precautions to keep our theatre clean, including frequent disinfecting and cleaning all hard surfaces, as well as handrails, seat rails, and doors, on top of our regular routine. We also have multiple hand sanitizing stations throughout the theatre, as well as antibacterial soap in our restrooms.

We encourage our patrons, staff, and artists to have a look at and follow the CDC guidelines for hygiene regarding hand washing, covering sneezes and coughs, and other common sense precautions. These include:
● Wash your hands regularly and thoroughly
● Avoid touching your face
● Where possible, practice social distancing and avoid handshakes
● Sneeze or cough into your sleeve or a tissue
● Remain at home if you feel sick

We do not see this as a time to panic or worry and want to assure our patrons that we are taking extra precautions to keep everyone healthy.

We appreciate your continued support and hope to see you at the theatre soon.

Sincerely,

St. Croix Festival Theatre Staff