by Marina Brown

Like a chef who is thrilled for you to taste what they’ve prepared, or the talented teacher who’s selected a dozen books they know you will love, Jennifer Wright-Allen, the new Director of Florida State University’s Opening Nights, says, “I am eager to bring amazing talent to the Ruby Diamond stage — performers who, with raw emotion and passion will make direct connections with an audience, who will touch others’ lives from the stage, who will create memories.” 

For this, the 25th anniversary of Opening Nights, there is quiet enthusiasm heard in the voice of Wright-Allen, who herself brings over 20 years’ experience in theater direction and management to Tallahassee.

Assuming the position of Director of Opening Nights from her predecessor, Michael Blachly, Wright-Allen has only been in town for eight weeks, but already the Kansas native has fallen in love with what she’s seen. 

“Railroad Art Park, the museums, the history… I can’t wait to explore further,” Wright-Allen said. For now though, she is preparing for the initial production of 2022-23’s Opening Nights when ABBA: The Concert, a tribute show, comes to town on Aug. 3.

The second offering, Sept. 21, will be just as music-filled and colorful when the Iranian dance company staibdance performs “fence.” 

Measured, optimistic, and clearly enjoying the run-up to the new season, Wright-Allen sounds happily in control. For daunting as it may sound, the detailed budgeting, scheduling, and organizing of bookings and presentations of performing artists is what Wright-Allen seems made for. Perhaps it is in her genes.

“My mother is a visual artist, my father was a theatre and opera enthusiast who enjoyed retirement working as a docent in a museum. I played piano. I didn’t go into the arts as profession right away,” she laughs, “But I got there as soon as I could.”  

After working for some years after college as a paralegal, she went on for a Masters in Communication at Wichita State University, and was soon hired in the marketing department of the live-performance venue, the Orpheum Theatre in Wichita.

Encouraging younger audiences, using social media, and eventually helping to plan more varied programming, it didn’t take long for Wright-Allen’s organizational skills to be noticed, nor for her to be promoted to its Executive Director, where she spent the next 13 years renovating and updating the 1922 theatre building along the way. 

The 36-year-old’s horizons had expanded when she took on another role that would challenge her for the next half decade. “I moved to Lufkin, Texas, as Director of the Angelina Arts Alliance, which oversaw productions at the 898-seat Temple Theatre and the 450-seat Pines Theatre.”

There, with a $1.3 million budget, Wright-Allen brought top-ranked programming as well as emphasized community arts education as a must. 

Click here to learn more about Opening Nights.
Click here to read the rest of the article in the Tallahassee Democrat.