UWT professors reveal secret project in Tacoma community

UWT professors announce their major project called “Devising Tacoma” that hopes to reflect the uniqueness of Tacoma’s community and relationship with UWT.   

For the first time, UWT’s Professor Michael Kula and Dr. Maria-Tania Bandes B Weingarden (Dr. B) of the Culture, Arts and Communication, division of the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences reveal to The Ledger the secret project they’ve been working on for the past few months, called “Devising Tacoma.”  

Since summer of 2023, the project has had Professor Kula and Dr. B working closely together with community members in creating a musical inspired by Andre Dubus’ short story “Townies.”  

“Townies” is a story that is told by the perspective of two men from different walks of life who live in a world full of division. A division that is only overcome briefly on a bridge at the center of a university campus where one night a violent act occurs. Although the story is 40 years old and is a product of its time, the tense relationship it shows between a University and its surrounding environment is still relevant today. 

The connection UWT has to its surrounding environment as a university campus is the setting Professor Kula needed to make an 18-year dream of making “Townies” into a musical come true.  

“Originally, this musical was going to be created before the pandemic but thanks to the pandemic it never happened until now thanks to Maria-Tania [Dr. B] asking me last year to join her in making a play with Tacoma Arts Live,” Professor Kula said.  

After working with Dr. B and Tacoma Arts Live last school year, he was inspired to pitch again his musical. In April of 2023 Professor Kula and Dr. B got the green light to start “Devising Tacoma” by winning the National Endowment for the Arts grant.  

The mission of this project is to bridge the university-community divide by bringing members of the campus and the broader Tacoma and South Puget Sound communities together in creating a new musical that explores issues between the merging of a university and its broader communities. Hence, creating a musical that is relevant to universal audiences.  

“Our hope is to tell a story that is uniquely Tacoma. We want it to resonate with our community and that they see themselves in it. But we also want it to have legs and want the universal themes to speak to a broader audience,” Dr. B tells The Ledger.  

To meet the project’s goal, during last June the lead artists of this project assembled a devising team with members of the Tacoma community with little to no theatre experience to help them look through Dubus’ story and explore the story’s themes in ways that are relevant to Tacoma’s  community. During that same month the team was also planning immersive sessions to coax a new story and music into being.  

The script and music are expected to be finished sometime this month.  

Once the script and music is ready, “Devising Tacoma” plans to host a series of readings and workshops for the public to get a sneak peek and give their feedback on the musical in December, January, February and April. These readings and workshops are going to happen in local high schools and Metro Park’s four community centers. The feedback the lead artists receive during those events will be used to revise the musical.  

“I hope this musical highlights the relationship between UWT and Tacoma. This project is a love letter to Tacoma for it reflects the uniqueness and tells the story about said uniqueness. I hope this musical reaches many stages and places for I believe it has legs to live on beyond this moment,” Professor Kula said.  

Dr. B agrees with Kula, adding that “Tacoma has grit to it, and some painful history, but it is full of beauty and promise.  My hope is that we can capture this dichotomy as we tell this story.”  

Although there is no official page for this project, people can reach out to Professor Kula and Dr. B to learn more about this project.