Page 73 Appoints Dennis Whipple as New Managing Director and Reveals Staff Promotions

In a moment of milestones for Page 73, the Tony and Obie Award-winning organization that develops and produces the work of early-career playwrights who have yet to receive a professional production in New York City, Dennis Whipple steps into the role of Managing Director. Succeeding Amanda Feldman—who left to become Managing Director of Classic Stage Company—Whipple will join Artistic Director Michael Walkup as the leadership team for this acclaimed Off-Broadway company. The organization has also promoted Kari Olmon, formerly Associate Producer, to the position of Associate Artistic Director, reflecting her growing producing and artistic responsibilities.

 
 
Dennis Whipple, Vanessa Vivas, Morgan Barnes-Whitehead, Kari Olmon, and Michael Walkup. Photo by Daniel J Vasquez.
 
Whipple joins the Page 73 team from New Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse, where he served as Director of Operations. Says Michael Walkup, “As we grow our staff during a precarious moment—of prosperity for our organization but serious turmoil for the industry—it’s reassuring to be drawing on Dennis’s vast experience and thoughtful, people-focused management philosophy. We’re proud to welcome him to the Page 73 team.”
 
“I am honored and grateful to be partnering with Michael and the Board of Directors at Page 73 in building upon their twenty-five years of launching playwrights’ careers and producing exceptionally high quality off-Broadway productions” says Dennis Whipple. “I look forward to connecting with our playwrights, audiences and donor community to build on the theater's tremendous legacy in new and exciting ways.”
 
Whipple joins the company just as it receives its biggest-ever grant: $160,000 from The MacMillan Foundation to support a branding and a strategic marketing effort to increase awareness and engagement around its playwright programs and off-Broadway productions. While this grant offers momentous support to the organization for spreading word about its playwright-centric mission, work, and the work of playwrights themselves, Page 73 will increase the financial support their programs offer writers starting in 2024. The organization will double its honorarium for the Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship to $20,000—which is awarded in addition to a public workshop and a $10,000 discretionary budget for the Fellow to direct towards developing further work through travel, research, workshops, and relationship-building. Playwrights in the annual Interstate 73 writing group—where writers meet twice a month to share their newest pages and discuss their work with their peers and Page 73’s Artistic Director and Associate Artistic Director—will now receive a stipend of $3,000 each (previously $1,200).
 
As Off-Broadway suffers through a financial crisis that’s resulted in major contractions, layoffs, and mass uncertainty, Page 73 is reinforcing its commitment to both the artists in its orbit and its own employees. Beyond increasing funds for artists, the organization has created two new positions for its 2022-2023 season apprentices Morgan Barnes-Whitehead and Vanessa Vivas, who will now stay with the company as, respectively, Development Assistant and Marketing Assistant. Buttressed by The MacMillan Foundation’s significant grant, they will help further the reach of the organization’s work.
 

About Dennis Whipple
 

Dennis Whipple is a creative arts executive with experience in strategy, financial management, fundraising and marketing with a record of strategically growing institutions’ missions, objectives and brand awareness. He came to Page 73 from New Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse where he served as Director of Operations and he founded GREAT (Great River Educational Arts Theatre) Theatre in St. Cloud, MN serving as its Executive Director from 2003 to 2022.
 

About Kari Olmon

 
Kari Olmon joined the staff of Page 73 in 2019. A dramaturg, producer, and translator with a background in new play development, she has previously worked in the artistic departments of Yale Rep, Playwrights Horizons, Soho Rep, the Wilma, and the Guthrie Theater. Olmon received her MFA in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism from the Yale School of Drama, where she is currently a doctoral candidate.
 

About Morgan Barnes-Whitehead
 

Morgan Barnes-Whitehead is a playwright with a background in directing, performing, dramaturgy, and education. She is originally from Virginia, but grew up in southeast Michigan. She received her BA in Theatre and Performance and her MA in Teaching at Bard College.
 

About Vanessa Vivas

 
Vanessa Vivas is an actor and arts administrator with a background in playwriting and project management. She received her BA in Theatre Arts from Point Park University. When not at the office, Vanessa is a content coordinator at Think Big Picture, LLC, and a teaching artist with New York City Children’s Theatre.
 

About Page 73
 

Since its founding in 1997, Page 73 has unwaveringly focused on nurturing early-career playwrights and expanding the theatrical canon. The organization has consistently sought to open new pathways to recognition for fresh, urgent, and daring voices, in part by mounting works solely by writers who have not yet had a New York City premiere Off-Broadway. In 2020, the organization was honored with an institutional Obie Award “for providing extraordinary support for early career playwrights.”
 
Page 73 has become renowned for introducing playwrights with a distinct approach to theatricality and language into the larger theatrical ecosystem. Page 73 offers writers career guidance, financial assistance, and development opportunities through programs including the Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship, the Interstate 73 Writers Group, and writing retreats and residencies. The organization helps playwrights move their work toward premiere, in Page 73’s own presentations or co-presentations with partner institutions, or by connecting writers to available opportunities at colleague theaters. Playwrights leave Page 73’s programs having meticulously honed their crafts, formed kinetic new collaborative relationships, and been equipped to flourish as empowered, self-assured artists.
 
Page 73 developed and, with Playwrights Horizons, produced the world premiere of Michael R. Jackson’s A Strange Loop, which won dozens of prestigious awards including the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Among Page 73’s many other celebrated world and New York premieres are Zora Howard’s STEW, which was named a Finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Drama; Mia Chung’s Catch as Catch Can, Leah Nanako Winkler’s Kentucky, Max Posner's Judy, Clare Barron’s You Got Older, George Brant’s Grounded, and John J. Caswell, Jr.’s Man Cave. Diversifying the American theatrical canon and making space for voices theater audiences have not yet heard is at the core of Page 73’s ethos. Page 73 has co-produced with eminent new play theaters including Soho Rep., Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, and Ensemble Studio Theatre. The organization produced the professional New York City debuts of Samuel D. Hunter (2015 MacArthur Fellow), Quiara Alegría Hudes (2012 Pulitzer Prize winner), Dan LeFranc (2010 New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award recipient), Heidi Schreck (2019 Pulitzer Prize finalist, Tony Award nominee), and Clare Barron (2019 Pulitzer Prize finalist). Close to two-thirds of the over 150 playwrights supported by the organization have subsequently received New York or regional theater productions, and the number grows each season.
 

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