Interview: Coburn Goss And Jeremy Williams lead Argenta Contemporary Theatre into 2026

Big changes are underway at Argenta Contemporary Theatre, with new leadership returning home after building impressive careers beyond the Natural State. Guiding ACT into 2026 are newly appointed Artistic Director Coburn Goss and Executive Director Jeremy Williams, whose combined experience and deep Arkansas roots signal an exciting new chapter for the company. 

Born and raised in North Little Rock, Coburn began his theatre career as an intern at Arkansas Repertory Theatre before spending the last 30 years based in Chicago, working across theatre, film, and television. His stage credits include Steppenwolf, Goodman, Writers, Timeline, American Blues, Next Theatre, Off-Broadway’s 59E59, and regional work with Asolo Rep and Seattle Rep. A founding member of the Jeff Award–winning Irish Theatre Company of Chicago, he produced, directed, and performed in numerous productions, including his award-winning play Marked Tree. Notable roles include C.S. Lewis in Freud’s Last Session, John Proctor in The Crucible, and world premieres at The Goodman Theatre. His film and television credits span major studio films and series such as Chicago Med, Empire, Prison Break, and The Chi, and he wrote and produced the film All Happy Families. Coburn is also a prolific commercial and voiceover actor and an experienced educator who has taught at the Acting Studio of Chicago, Roosevelt University, Northwestern University, DePaul University, and beyond. 

Jeremy Williams, a North Little Rock native, is a multi-disciplinary artist, producer, and nonprofit leader with more than 30 years of experience in professional theatre, education, and community-based arts. His work as a director, choreographer, playwright, and educator has been presented Off-Broadway, regionally, internationally, and on tour, and he is the founder and producing director of Convergences Theatre Collective, known for its innovative performances, artist residencies, and community engagement. Widely respected for guiding organizations through periods of transition and growth, Williams has led large-scale community initiatives, forged long-term partnerships with cultural institutions and foundations, and served in senior leadership and consulting roles where he developed curricula, facilitated strategic planning, and built sustainable systems rooted in collaboration, equity, and cultural relevance. As Executive Director of Argenta Contemporary Theatre, he brings a people-centered approach grounded in hospitality, transparency, shared leadership, and a lifelong belief in the transformative power of storytelling. 

Broadway World was fortunate to sit down with this power duo to see what was in store for the coming year at ACT.  

BWW: So, this is exciting! This is a new era for ACT. Tell us what brought you here. 

Coburn Goss: We’re both from North Little Rock, and we’ve been out of Arkansas for awhile and doing professional work and theatre and entertainment, so coming back here has been interesting for both of us. I moved away to Chicago about 30 years ago to be an actor. I did theater, movies, TV, film, and I also have written plays and screenplays and produced. Recently, I've been coming back here more and more the last few years to be with family and have been just keeping an eye on the community here and getting really excited about it. And this opportunity came up, and I just wanted to go for it.  

BWW: Tell me about this new role. 

Coburn: So I'm the Artistic Director, so I'm in charge. Well, I guess what you'd say is the artistic vision of the organization. I pick the shows and oversee the forward direction artistically of the theater.  

BWW: And you picked this season?  

Coburn: I did, yeah, the next season. So this show currently that we're doing right now, A CHRISTMAS STORY THE MUSICAL, is the last show of the last season. But I love it.  

BWW: It's a good show. I saw it last year. I love the caliber of talent that y'all bring. 

Coburn: There's so many good actors here. And a lot of good singers. It's just been really kind of great to see the talent level.  

Jeremy Williams: Similar to Coby, I left about 25 years ago and have lived all over the U.S. and most recently been based in southern Mexico for the past seven years. 

BWW: Southern Mexico? Like, the country?  

Jeremy: Yeah 

BWW: Wow  

Jeremy: But fortunately, I've been able to come back and do professional projects over the years at different theaters here, different companies. And so I've been able to maintain relationships here, professional relationships. I'm always so happy to be able to come back home and work with other Arkansans. And so the opportunity to come and be here full time is just an unexpected dream come true. Like Coby said there's just so much talent here, and the community support is remarkable. 

BWW: The Argenta has a lot of impressive support. They are so loyal.  

Coburn: yeah, the support that we have seen from everyone, volunteers... 

Jeremy: neighbors, businesses, the city of North Little Rock.... we've just been really welcomed in some incredible ways. At the season launch a week and a half ago, two weeks ago, we knew it would be a fun event, but it was just so exciting. The level of excitement in the room was just so strong. And so it's really nice to be showing up at a place where there is so much excitement, where there is so much to build from. This is a gift to be coming into a 15-year history. 

Coburn: I think too, in addition to the talent level, is the audience level. There's a lot of people. There's a big hunger here for theater. And without audiences, it doesn't matter how good the talent is.  

BWW: Seriously though, if y'all don't sell out, y'all always get super close.  

Coburn: This is what I hear. 

BWW: And besides the wonderful shows and great community support, the educational offerings have been wonderful.  

Jeremy: And that's something we're really excited about as well. We are about to announce our spring classes. We'll continue classes for youth in great ways, but we're also expanding our classes for adults. That's something that has been surprising for Kobe and I in the best possible way, that adults are wanting more and more opportunities to maybe explore something new or try something or deepen their training. And so we're really excited to start offering even more opportunities for artists of all ages to come in and play. And we'll be adding some new production specifically for the students in the academy outside of our main stage season. So we want to make sure that we're providing lots of opportunities for folks to get on stage at every stage of the game. 

BWW: That'll be fun. You need to do the beginner's class too, like adults like me who's never taken a dance class ever. 

Jeremy: Exactly, exactly.  

BWW: Bring those people in.  

Coburn: We're also finding that in addition to performance classes, that adults are drawn to writing classes as well down here, and we want to really lean into that as well.  

BWW: Write our own plays.  

Coburn: Right 

Jeremy: Absolutely. Coby and I, a lot of our careers have been about developing new work. He's a playwright. I've written several plays. I've led the development of multiple new works of theater and dance and music. And so that's really exciting to see the strong hunger for musical theater and plays, but also for new work, writing their own work.  

Coburn: I think eventually too, Jeremy and I have talked a lot about this idea of, because in Arkansas, Arkansans love Arkansas material, and we'd love to look at the possibility of maybe even a season full of Arkansas shows. 

Jeremy: Either about Arkansas, written by Arkansas playwrights, featuring Arkansas culture somehow. Just think about a whole year of Arkansas on stage.  

BWW: Because that's what we identify with. So are we going to get to see any of y'all's original work?  

Coburn: At some point, maybe. I'm going to be in one of the shows next season as an actor, in addition to directing one. Jeremy's going to direct two shows next season. I've got a few things that I have written, that I would like to eventually do when it fits the season. 

BWW: So what is the vision for this coming up season?  

Coburn: Community. One of the things that we're finding here, and it's something that you said too, is that there is such community support here. Next season, the plays either deal with the idea of groups of people coming together and being stronger for it, or exploring what happens when people don't have community.  

BWW: Which one are you most excited about?  

Jeremy: Which show next season?  

Coburn: That's a hard one. Gosh, I don't know if I can answer that really. You know what I am? I'm excited about MISERY because I'm excited to see how people respond to a mystery or horror play during October. I personally love scary plays.  

BWW: Me too. October is my favorite theatrical month. 

Jeremy: Isn't it a fun time?  

Coburn: And I don't think they, from what I understand, have never done mystery, scary plays here at Argenta. It's something new we're trying and I want to see how it lands, and I think people are going to be really excited about it.  

Jeremy: Not to mention, the stage adaptation of MISERY is just incredible. It's a really great adaptation. Such a great book, became such a great film, and then the theatrical version is just perfect.  

BWW: I love it! I can’t wait! I'm also looking forward to all the new stuff you bring.  

Jeremy: Next season we do have a program that will include new work that's called One Play Three Ways, which is a project that I co-created with Heather Dupree, who is the Academy Coordinator here, and Kobe was the playwright for it last time, the first time we did it here. And that's where we invite one playwright to create a new short play, about 20 minutes long, and then, as a twist, we remove one of the scenes from it. Then we give that play with the removed scene to three different creative teams, and they can interpret and stage that play in any way that they are inspired to do. We'll be doing that in our black box, in the Act Two black box space, and invite audiences in to see more of a work in process rather than a full production. 

Coburn: And speaking of excitement, in addition to that, we do have two new shows next season that have not been done here in Arkansas. One is THE CAKE, which is a comedy written by the writer of the TV show This Is Us. It's a wonderful comedy, heartfelt, and it's going to star Natalie Cannaday.  

BWW: I love her.  

Coburn: A local treasure. And a new musical called HANDS ON A HARD BODY, which is just a rollicking musical about these 10 Texans who are desperately trying to win this truck, and they have to keep their hands on the truck, and whoever keeps their hands on the truck long enough wins it. So it's a wonderful musical, and I just fell in love with it when I read it. 

BWW: I haven't heard of that one.  

Jeremy: It's a different style of musical, in that it's more modern, in that it really gets into lived people's experiences, the story of the community. It's not such a big, splashy musical, which I love those also. But there's some really great individual stories about the people, why this matters to them, and a different way of sharing the new version of the American dream, what it is to be able to succeed. Our last show of the season, A CHRISTMAS CAROL, will be a new adaptation of a classic story by local playwright Judy Goss. So that will be a new version of that story that we're really excited to have on stage. 

BWW: ACT used to do it every year. 

Jeremy: And she was the playwright for that, and we're commissioning a new version from her, and we're going to be doing a whole new version, which will be lots of fun.  

BWW: Well, that's fun. There's a lot of different versions of Christmas Carol.  

Jeremy: There really are.  

BWW: One year I went to, like, seven different ones, and they were all completely, I mean, the same, but different. 

Jeremy: Same story, but it's told so many different ways, right? I mean, that's one of the things I love about theater, is that hopefully it wakes up imagination, right? And that it gets us all thinking more imaginatively, rather than there's only one way to do this thing, you know? That can be a nice outcome, especially when you get to go see two different productions of the same show, and it can be really exciting.  

Coburn: So we've got a mix of shows that people are familiar with and then shows that they might not have heard about before. So that was really our plan, to have both in there.  

Jeremy: And to really highlight the amazing community of Argenta through all of that too, really thinking about roles and designers and some great challenges to highlight our local talent.  

BWW: Is there anything we're changing from before to now to make it new and different or bigger or smaller even?  

Jeremy: I think more than coming in with a vision for change right now, Coby and I have really just been learning about where is this organization in its history right now? And there's so much growth that's been happening in so many different ways over the years. And looking at how we can be good stewards, responsible stewards of that growth to continue the mission, but we're really excited to work with the board to sit down and start a visioning process of what does the next 10 to 15 years look like together. The mission has not changed since its founding. We want to provide really excellent performance and education opportunities and continue to transition from a community theater and more as a community arts organization. It's just grown so much. We have our main stage, we have our black box, we have the academy, we do work outside of these walls. Our communities are in and out and have just grown in so many different ways over the years that we're really looking at, like, what is our identity now at 15?  

BWW: Right.  

Jeremy: And Coby and I are really excited to, like, get into conversation with everybody around that and how can we collectively create this vision to move ourselves forward. 

BWW: Well, I love the Argenta. The talent here is always wonderful. I love following all of my actors around.  

Jeremy: This is such an exciting time for theater in Central Arkansas. I mean, there's more new companies, younger companies coming up. 

BWW: and that’s exciting too! There are so many shows to see. 

Jeremy: Now, there's almost so many more shows than anyone can see, you know. And that's a great problem to have, you know.  

BWW: My calendar stays full for sure. I am super excited to see ALWAYS PATSY CLINE. I'm ready to see that one already.  

Jeremy: We have a really exciting cast, and we're going to set that in our Act 2 black box where it is more immersive. 

BWW: Dinner? 

Jeremy: No dinner. We will have drinks and snacks. 

BWW: Did dinner not go over well? I went to a few of those.  

Jeremy: It was a mixed bag. So there will be a little bit of food, something tasty, but it will be designed like you're walking into a honky tonk. 

BWW: Oh how fun! Immersive theatre is my favorite. 

Coburn: After that, we will come back over to the big stage to do CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY.  

Jeremy: Coby's directing that one which will be amazing. Do you want to share our design?  

Coburn: Oh yeah. So we've got Yslan Hicks who's going to be our Costume Designer. She's a local designer. She's phenomenal.  

Jeremy: She most recently was the chair for the UALR theater department. She has worked at every major regional theater throughout the country. She's an incredible designer.  

Coburn: And we've got Case Dillard playing Willy Wonka.  

BWW: That’s going to be so good! 

Coburn: Yeah, so six shows in total, and in between those we'll do classes, and we are going to partner with ACANSA and do a ten minute play. 

Jeremy: Also, we'll be hosting the 24-hour play festival this year this July. 

BWW: Well this all sounds amazing, and I’m super excited for this year for you guys. It’ll be interesting to see what all you bring to ACT. 

Jeremy: We're listening to what audiences want right now.  

Coburn: It's going to be a good learning year for us to see what people want. 

BWW: Well great! Welcome home. I look forward to seeing you at the next show! 

For more information on what coming up at ACT, visit their website at argentacontemporarytheatre.org.

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