Team Premiere

There’s more than a new name afoot at the Premiere Playhouse, formerly known as Sioux Empire Community Theatre—the longtime organization is premiering a handful of new faces, as well, in three recent hires to the company’s administrative staff.

This fresh burst of energy comes courtesy of the latest team members, Nadiah Abuswai, Alex Newcomb-Weiland and Jazlynne Williams. The three have all begun in their positions within the past year and are ready to have an impact that goes well beyond a name change.

“I think that we’ll be capturing audiences in the future that maybe have been outside our traditional audience demographic,” said Abuswai, who serves as the company’s administrative manager and whose background is in journalism and Arabic interpretation, “choosing productions in the future that will be more interesting to more types of audiences.”

“And thinking about what a show is teaching our audiences and showing a smaller city what’s maybe happening outside their own world,” added Williams, who has assumed the role of stage and deputy production manager.

This focus on expanding its reach is part of the Premiere Playhouse’s hopeful plan forward after launching its new brand in recent months. As part of her position as education coordinator, Newcomb-Weiland sees learning and growth for participants being a major part of the effort.

“Performance- and tech-based classes are things we have in development,” she said of her plans. “Stuff to get people more interested and give them a 101 class on certain aspects of theater while working on a show. They can be part of our productions and have the opportunity to learn how to be a stage manager or a lighting designer.”

In addition to apprenticeship-style programming, Newcomb-Weiland, who graduated in 2019 from the University of South Dakota with a degree in musical theatre performance, is pursuing additional summer-camp opportunities for area youth, including the company’s upcoming partnership with the Penguin Project, an all-abilities-theatre organization.

That spirit of inclusiveness is something all three new hires are hoping to instill in the next phase of the Premiere Playhouse, including reaching out to other organizations in the area to potentially collaborate.

“Collaboration is key,” Williams said. “I think with a community like this, collaborating with other companies, artists, visual artists—I think it’s really important and something we’re all excited about.”

And this effort toward expansion additionally applies on an internal level for the casts and crews that the community theatre has traditionally drawn in the past.

“I hope our fostering of inclusivity pulls people in that maybe wouldn’t normally be involved with us—people from any life experience can become involved,” Abuswai said.

“And not making it such an exclusive community,” Williams added, citing Lombardi, a play about football coach Vince Lombardi, as an example of an entry in the Playhouse’s current season that may draw in less likely patrons and performers. “There’s that cliché that if you’re a sports fanatic you’re not really going to the theater. But theatre can be relatable to anybody.”

The very nature of a community theatre is to do just that—draw in people from all corners of the city who may have an untapped interest in the arts and provide opportunities for them to explore that interest.

“I’m hoping we can become an outlet for all groups of people to come and seek something magical within theatre,” Newcomb-Weiland said. “To even spark an interest in people who maybe have thought about it but never committed. They might not think they fit in the theatre realm, but I want us to serve as an introductory place to spark something in them in a creative environment.”

This is an aspect of community theatre that Williams particularly appreciates, having moved to Sioux Falls after recently graduating from University of Central Florida with a degree in stage management.

“Moving to a place that may be foreign to me and finding a place for creative freedom allowed me to feel safe in a new place,” she said. “Having a place that really accepts anybody and you can audition for anything—I think that’s the great thing about community theatre. That you have people who have day jobs outside of the arts, things about them that make them so interesting that bring a unique quality to a show.”

So whether you see your dentist, your neighbor, your high school English teacher or your pastor on stage, Sioux Falls’ local community theatre is meant to be a place for that initial exploration.

“It’s about sparking a passion that might have been hidden,” Williams said. “It’s having the creative freedom to reveal another part of yourself. Theatre gives an outlet for that.”