Wellesley Repertory Theatre is thrilled to announce the next cohort of recipients of the Wellesley Repertory Theatre Grant. The WRT Grant provides project-based support to Wellesley College graduates for the development and/or production of unpublished/unproduced work in the field through unrestricted funding that supports artistic process. Projects are expected to be completed during the 2026-27 academic year. Our three recipients will convene at Wellesley College in September 2027 to share their vision and experience at the next Wellesley Repertory Theatre Festival.
From Marta Rainer, Artistic Producer of Wellesley Rep and Director of Wellesley College Theatre: “I am overjoyed by the deep and foundational connections made during the inaugural Grant Cycle and Festival - between our graduate grantees and current students, alumnae, Wellesley’s interdisciplinary campus community, local theatre supporters and artistic ensembles gathered to support this work on our campus from around the country. In that spirit, we now welcome a truly exciting, distinct, and kaleidoscopic second cohort of grantees into the WRT festival family. I am honored to be able to support their ingenuity this year, and I can’t wait for you to encounter their inspiring projects next Fall!“
Maia MacDonald ‘06 (WRT Cohort 1 Grantee) shared: “As I reflect on the experience, I’m struck by the impact of creating this wider web of connections between alums, professors, and current students. …The WRT grant has offered such robust moral, spiritual, and monetary support to explore ideas in embodied performance, research, and sound design. It has facilitated collaborations and approaches to making a stage show that previously lived only in a dream space.
[I am] reinvigorated by the generative possibilities encouraged by thoughtful programming and creative, mission driven organizations like Wellesley Repertory Theatre. … I’ll forever be grateful for this life changing (and career advancing!) support, and look forward to continuing the conversations and building the new relationships fostered by this program.”
Cohort 1 Grantee Annie Jin Wang ‘14 expressed to the Wellesley News: “ [I want] to give festival attendees insight into the creativity, problem-solving, and collaboration that goes into developing a new theatre production. …Given how our artistic and cultural institutions are being systematically censored and destabilized, we need more curious, smart, and passionate people to share in our advocacy of the arts. …I think education about how art is made is key to that.”
Our Cohort 2 WRT Grant Recipients are:
MAYA MARTIN-UDRY
Maya "Marty" Martin-Udry ‘16 is an avowed amateur, seriously dabbling in puppetry, drag, and crafting of all sorts. In her work, she explores cool lefty praxis like seasonality, family abolition, and anarchy. She's particularly proud of her puppetry performances at Dixon Place and Teatro Sea, a stained glass ginkgo leaf she made as a gift, and her potato pancake grilled cheese recipe.
The WRT Grant will fund the development of a sci-fi puppet show: Bird-like aliens expand our capacity to imagine liberatory futures in Seasons, a radical puppetry adaptation of a story by speculative fiction titan Ursula K. Le Guin.
MARA PALMA
Mara Palma ‘15 (she/her) is a theater maker, director, and creative youth educator most drawn to stories about Asian American women, sapphic characters, and physically dynamic theater. Originally from Quezon City, Philippines, she now calls Los Angeles home. Playwright: Babble - a TYA BIPOC Superhero Project (Bocon), The F Word: Filipinx a Solo Performance Piece (18th & Union), Octavia and Kleopatra (CompanyONE PlayLab). Director: She Kills Monsters (Upcoming: Nov. 11-15, 2026; AVPA Theater + Blurred Vision Theatre Co.), Area Code (AnyWay Productions Co.), and Making of the Gods (CalArts Coffeehouse Theater). Associate Director: Tale of Moana (Disney Cruise Lines - Treasure, dir. Connor Gallagher). Assistant Director: Flower Drum Song (East West Players, dir. Lily Tung Crystal), Grease (Blurred Vision Theatre Co., dir. Lee Margaret Hanson). Training: Wellesley College, London Academy of Dramatic Art, SITI Company in LA Summer Intensive. www.marapalma.com
The WRT Grant will fund the completion of a new script: When young Filipina superhero, Evangelina, learns her grandfather has gone missing, she decides to search for him and realizes that the power of language might be the key to bringing her family back together. BABBLE is a semi-autobiographical play, and is part of the nationwide Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) BIPOC Superhero Project.
FANI SUAM-BAUM
Fani Suan-Baum ’17 is a producer, writer, director and educator from Athens, Greece, currently living in Berlin, Germany. After a stint as a strategy consultant, Fani spent the past several years at Anton, a film production and financing company, acquiring and executive producing feature films, such as The End We Start From with Jodie Comer and Benedict Cumberbatch and Left Seat with Michelle Rodriguez and Richard Gere. She’s recently left to work independently as a creative and producer across film and stage. She graduated magna cum laude with a BA in philosophy from Wellesley College and holds an MSt in philosophy from the University of Oxford and an MA in Creative Business from the National Film and Television School in the UK.
The WRT Grant will fund the translation of an original work into English; Burning Berlin is a musical about Lotte Hahm and Käthe Fleischmann, two women at the heart of lesbian life and activism in Weimar Berlin. It follows their love story from the bars and clubs of the late 1920s through Nazi persecution, exile and the years after the war. The book is written by Fani and Melissa Suan-Baum, who also directed the show. Theresa (Terry) Zanon wrote the music and lyrics. The show grew out of archival research with Spinnboden lesbian archive, which also produced the first, sold out run in Berlin in August 2026. The team is in the process of translating the show into English with the support of the WRT grant.