Theatre Lawrence launches artist project honoring Louise ImMasche

Theatre Lawrence is turning a memorial into a working production path for local talent. Its new Striving Artist Project will give one emerging artist from the Lawrence, Topeka or Kansas City area the chance to debut an original play or musical with a modest production budget, technical support, access to scenic, prop and costume resources, a paid director, and about five weeks of rehearsal space.

The payoff is specific and unusually practical. The finished work will be filmed and separately audio-recorded, giving the selected artist materials that can travel well beyond Douglas County. Preference will go to musicals, and the production is set for the Theatre Lawrence main stage on Oct. 2 and Oct. 3, 2026, after rehearsals begin in late August and tech week opens Sept. 27.

The deadline is close. Applications are due May 31, finalists will be interviewed in the second week of June, the selected artist will be notified June 29, and Theatre Lawrence plans a public announcement for July 6. The theatre says the project is intended to support emerging artists in Lawrence with funding and resources to get original work on its feet.

The program carries the name of Louise ImMasche, a beloved local performer who died in a car crash on Friday, Oct. 24, 2025, after a performance of The Rocky Horror Show. ImMasche, 41, had been a familiar face on Theatre Lawrence stages, and the company used a separate Louise ImMasche Celebration Tour Cabaret to help launch Louise’s Striving Artist Fund. The cabaret was framed as a tribute built around ImMasche’s music and art, as well as the influences behind them.

That connection gives the project a deeper meaning inside the building’s 50th anniversary period. Theatre Lawrence says 2026-2027 will be its 50th Anniversary Season, and the Striving Artist Project folds that milestone into something lasting: a direct investment in the next wave of local work. For a theatre community still carrying the loss of a performer who drew two sold-out audiences in The Rocky Horror Show just before the crash, the new project makes the tribute concrete. It turns remembrance into a stage, and a stage into an opening for the next artist ready to step forward.