STAFF

Josh Short, Founder & Artistic Director

Josh Short is the Founder and Artistic Director of Providence's award-winning Wilbury Theatre Group, where he’s produced more than 100 workshop and full-scale productions of work by local and world-renown artists with commitment to artistic excellence and audience engagement. In addition to his work as a Producer, Josh has directed more than a dozen productions for the group, including; Spring Awakening, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, and the New England premieres of Sarah Kane's Blasted, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, This Beautiful City, Detroit, Ui [oo-ey], and Wallace Shawn's celebrated 2013 adaptation of The Threepenny Opera. As an actor with the Wilbury Group he appeared in the New England premiere of Gruesome Playground Injuries, Young Jean Lee's Straight White Men, Ui [oo-ey], and the group's inaugural production, Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. 

In 2014 Josh founded the Providence Fringe Festival (FRINGEPVD). Featuring 50 handpicked artists in just 5 venues throughout downtown Providence that first year, today FRINGEPVD is a voting member of the United States Association of Fringe Festivals and the World Fringe Congress and has grown to become the largest Fringe Festival of it’s kind in New England featuring more than 200 artists in over a dozen venues throughout Providence.
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In addition to his work with The Wilbury Group and FRINGEPVD, Josh has worked in a variety of roles with Perishable Theatre (Providence, RI), The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre (Pawtucket, RI), Elemental Theatre Collective (Providence, RI), The LaJolla Playhouse (San Diego, CA), The Gaslamp Quarter Drama Department (San Diego, CA), The Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival (Provincetown, MA), and The Providence Black Repertory Company, where he served as Associate Producer of Public Programming and Sound Session from 2008-2010. 

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Kate Kataja, Artistic Associate

Kate Kataja has worked as a professional theater artist and arts administrator for over a decade. At The Wilbury Theatre Group, she has assistant directed This Beautiful City, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, and Next to Normal; and was in the ensemble of Rebecca Noon's Unfortunate Fits, as part of the New Works program. She was also the Associate Director for the 2015 Providence Fringe Festival. Kate's notable credits in NYC include work with The Public Theater, the New York International Fringe Festival, the Tribeca Film Festival, the River to River Festival, NBC's Law & Order: SVU (as an actor), and Bravo's Inside the Actors Studio (two seasons). 

A Rhode Island native, Kate holds a BA in Theater (Acting/Dramaturgy) from Emerson College and a Graduate Certificate in Arts Administration from NYU. She has directed, produced, and stage managed hundreds of programs and events for the performing arts and film over the course of her career. Kate has worked in the development office at Trinity Rep since 2009. where she is a fundraiser and produces donor events and supplemental artistic programs (highlights include directing Brian Dennehy and Fred Sullivan, Jr. in selected works of Eugene O'Neill and the "Great Writers" series). She is a certified RYT-200 hour yoga teacher and lives in Providence.

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Laura Goldstein, Education Director

Laura Goldstein is a Providence-based theatre educator and certified teacher. Previously, she has taught at the Center for Dynamic Learning, the YMCA and Trinity Repertory Company. She is currently pursuing her M.Ed. in Arts Integration at Lesley University.

Laura is a 2012 graduate of Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts (BA, Theatre and Dance Studies), where her academic interests included theatre for social change, playwriting, feminist performance and puppetry.

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Ben Jolivet, Playwright-in-Residence

Ben Jolivet’s plays have appeared on the East, West, and Gulf Coasts.Fragile Thing Cracks, developed in readings at Argos Productions in Boston, MA, and Panndora Productions in Long Beach, CA, received its world premiere with Panndora at Long Beach Playhouse in March of this year. The play will receive its regional premiere at Acadiana Repertory Theatre in Louisiana this fall. Medea of the Big Box Store will appear in Acadiana Rep’s new works festival this summer. Summer-Something Might- Have-Been, a play for young audiences, was commissioned and premiered by the Delta Grand Youth Company. This Broke-Down Communion received a developmental reading as part of Wilbury Group’s new works program, directed by Susie Schutt.

Haunted was a finalist for Sanguine Theatre’s Project Playwright and a semifinalist for the Eugene O’Neill conference. Motif Magazine called Ben’s comedy, Get Rough With Me!, “one of the funniest and simply enjoyable pieces of theater that has been presented in RI in quite some time.” Short plays have appeared across the country, including the Pick of the Vine Festival at Little Fish Theatre in San Pedro, and at the Boston Playwrights Marathon. Ben holds a BA in writing from SNHU and was named a 2013 Massachusetts Cultural Council Dramatic Writing Fellow.

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