Our Mission
Write4Art Productions nurtures writers and develops dramatic narrative works including plays, musicals and screenplays. We focus on works that are character-driven and exhibit contemporary human themes, in the belief that all voices must be heard, that all people must be represented, and that all art is valid.
Who We Are
John Sparks and Sheila Wurmser founded Write4Art Productions to nurture and produce perforances of new works, introducing them to the public and to the non-profit and commercial producing communities. The founders offer in-depth dramaturgical support to teams of writers working on new projects that meet the mission statement, including a series of assessment table readings designed to prepare the work for audiences. They also offer a monthly series of 'living room' readings of new works at the Broadwater Black Box Theatre in Hollywood, and plan to offer concert readings and workshop productions of new works as the shows develop.
While developing a number of new projects, working with playwrights, bookwriters, screenwriters, composers and lyricists, John and Sheila are putting their skills to work for writers of other high-quality projects, offering an array of fee-based services from teaching basic skills, through nurturing initial drafts, all the way to developmental readings, workshops and developmental productions.
Cultural Equity and Inclusion
Write4Art Productions believes art is both a basic human endeavor and a human response to the universe we live in that transcends cultural, religious, racial, and gender differences. Write4Art Productions nurtures individuality, celebrates diversity, and values equity. We endeavor to create an inclusive space where artists can practice their craft. We welcome writers to participate in our process, especially including any who have been historically underrepresented based on race, ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, socio-economic status, geography, citizenship status or religion.
We make this statement to acknowledge the systems of power in our country that grant privilege and access unequally so that inequality and injustice occur. Because of this ongoing, historical unfairness, Write4Art Productions will practice constant vigilance to build new practices and dismantle old ideas. Within our process we want to remove implicit barriers and create explicit opportunities for persons to tell their stories.
Our Founders
Sheila Wurmser
"Everything I ever learned about how to help writers create characters and turn scripts into the best and most cohesive versions of their original ideas, I learned from Sheila Wurmser. There are few people on the planet who understand story development better than she."
Todd Schulkin
Schulkin Management, London & Los Angeles
"Having worked with Sheila for many years, her attention to project detail, continuity, and overall flow is exquisite. Currently attached to produce my screenplay titled Chasing Monarchs, Sheila's dedication to each project she's working on, in whatever capacity, is extremely inspiring."
Michael Davidson, Screenwriter
Sheila is an independent film producer who partnered with Todd Schulkin to form Smiling Dog Productions, dedicated to producing feature films and television shows from emerging talent. Smiling Dog’s expertise is in story development and working with playwrights to crossover into film and television. Smiling Dog is currently packaging Michael Davidson's screenplay Chasing Monarchs, a 2005 Nicholl Fellowship Quarterfinalist, and developing other film projects and television series. Sheila produced the award-winning short film THE MEZZOS and the independent feature Lifer's Picnic (starring Jena Malone, Brad Renfro and Alicia Witt) for HSI/Tomorrow Films.
A Chicago native and Chicago theater veteran, Sheila co-founded and served as the Artistic Director of THEATRE N.O.W., a collective of writers, actors and directors dedicated to creating and producing new, original works for the Los Angeles stage, film and television industries. THEATRE N.O.W. performed monthly staged readings at various locations in greater Los Angeles.
Previously, Sheila worked as a Manager at Giant Step Entertainment, the Story Editor at Innovative Artists Talent and Literary Agency and as a Casting Director at Tepper-Gallegos. In Chicago, she served as Artistic Director of the Jeff Award-Winning Alliance Theatre Company where she directed The Ruling Class, The Hostage and In Trousers, as well as producing The Wake of Jamey Foster and The Killing Game. In Los Angeles, she directed Games at Theatre/Theater and Texana at the Showcase Playhouse.
Sheila holds a BA and an MFA in directing from Western Illinois University.
Creator and Dramaturg
John Sparks
"Anyone who wants to write musicals should study with John Sparks. He thoroughly understands the craft and conveys that understanding with kindness and encouragement. I still rely on the basic principles of theater songwriting that John taught me over 20 years ago."
Composer/Lyricist Mark Hollmann – Urinetown -- Tony Award winner 2002
"Unlike most people who offer opinions on theater -- (blogs, chat rooms, your Aunt Alice) -- John Sparks really knows what he's talking about. He's my favorite go-to guy when it comes to crafting, creating, casting -- anything that has to do with making musicals. Or making your musical better."
Susan DiLallo -- Once Upon a Time in New Jersey – Kleban Award winner
John is the Founding Director of New Musicals, Inc (NMI) in Los Angeles, an outgrowth of the BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop where John was a member for many years until it closed in 1979. At that time he was instrumental in raising funds and incorporating the group as the private non-profit which is known as NMI today. John oversaw the 100% volunteer artists' collective as it grew iinto the vibrant institution that now supports a full-time paid staff nurturing hundreds of writers, actors and directors of musical theatre in the Los Angeles area.
John discovered musicals on the stage (as opposed to film) when he was 15 and living near Boston where he saw many new musicals on their way to Broadway – future hits, maybes and misses. For what would be considered a pittance today he saw stars - Elaine Stritch, Don Ameche, Margaret Hamilton, Julie Andrews, Richard Burton, Lawrence Goulet, Barbra Streisand, Vivien Leigh, Jean Pierre Aumont, Jackie Gleason, Robert Morse, Walter Pidgeon, and many others well-known at the time – all singing, dancing and telling funny/sad/dramatic stories with new songs by Leroy Anderson, Jule Styne, Comden and Green, Noel Coward, Lerner and Loewe, and other practitioners. It was hearing the songs before Broadway audiences did and realizing he would soon be hearing some of them on the radio that cemented John's love of musical theatre.
John began writing musicals at Stonehill College, still in the Boston area, where he was able to actually see them performed with the help of his classmates. Later in Los Angeles he discovered the BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and began to learn about writing musicals in earnest – from the master. Lehman had conducted over 300 Broadway shows, made a study of those shows and wrote books about them - their construction, the placement of their songs, the styles of their music, etc., and shared the knowledge with his students in the BMI workshops in New York, Nashville, Los Angeles and Toronto.
John returned to school at UCLA and acquired an MFA in Playwriting – although he didn’t write a play, of course. He wrote a musical (Come Into My Gallery, which was produced at the Freud Playhouse at UCLA in 1975/76 – no, it didn’t run for 2 years, but the run of the show spanned the Christmas break!).
John wrote the music and lyrics for a new musical (Babes In Barns) that was produced at Theatre Building Chicago in 1984/85, a production that took him to Chicago – where he met Sheila Wurmser before her move to the west coast. The producers of that show visited the LA workshop and decided to open a similar program for writers of musicals in the Chicago area under John’s leadership. For the next 33 years he commuted from Los Angeles to Chicago, first for one weekend each month to conduct workshop sessions, and then (from 1999 – 2009) for two weeks out of each month, to serve as Artistic Director of the theatre’s musical program, where he produced and oversaw the production of nearly 200 new musicals in readings, workshops and mainstage productions. The workshop continued for 5 more seasons after Theatre Building Chicago was sold, and he reluctantly returned to Los Angeles, now a resident of one city rather than the bi-urban guy he had been for 3 decades, racking up enough frequent-flyer miles to take frequent trips to London, where he served Mercury Musical Developments there as a Board Member from 2000 until 2021.
Currently John lives in Glendale, California, still writing, still nurturing writers who belong to NMI, and now nurturing projects with Sheila at Write 4 Art. He no longer composes music; having met many composers whose ears are younger and hipper (John ruefully admits that “my ears were formed by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters in the 1940’s!”) He now writes book and sometimes lyrics for new musicals, usually adaptations like Seagull Song, the Chekov adaptation that Sheila and John created with composer/lyricist Jake Anthony.
Writer, Lyricist, Teacher
Our Board of Directors
Burton Averre
Berton Averre as the lead guitarist and co-writer in the band The Knack, best known for the 1979 song of the year, My Sharona. Berton also is the composer of the musical Helldrivers of Daytona, produced in Chicago at the Royal George, the composer and co-bookwriter of Jungle Man, two productions at Stage One in Wichita and the composer and musical director for Setup and Punch at The Blank Theater.
Christina Biggs
Christina Biggs is an officer at Global Wildlife Conservation (Re:wild), managing the Search for Lost
Species program. Formerly a senior marine biologist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, her research focuses on biodiversity loss, cephalopods, and deep-sea invertebrates. Having previously worked as a journalist, she continues to enjoy writing, especially musicals for young audiences. Christina holds degrees from the University of California Santa Cruz, DePaul University, and Northwestern University. Her favorite activity is hiking along the ocean with her husband Rob, their three kids, and an energetic dog named Bear.
Joan Mazzonelli
Joan Mazzonelli is a freelance director who has produced, directed, and designed for the theater in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City. Theater pieces she has written include: Border Crossing with Marianne Kallen, Reasonable Terms, a musical with Marianne Kallen and Karena Mendoza, and the operas: Bottom’s Dream with James L. Kurtz, an adaptation of All in the Laundry by Fred Rogers of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood; and High Fidelity and The Proposal with Philip Seward. She is the treasurer for City Lit Theater in Chicago and Shpiel Performing Identity in Louisville, a board member of Season of Concern, and a member of the Dramatists Guild. She has happily served in leadership roles with Griffin Theatre, Midwest New Musicals at Light Opera Works (now Music Theatre Works), Athenaeum Theatre, Theatre Building Chicago, New Tuners Theatre, Illinois Theatre Association, National Alliance for Musical Theatre, Chicago Dance and Music Alliance, Child's Play Touring Theatre, League of Chicago Theatres, Season of Concern,
On Stage Productions, Opera Shop at the Vineyard Theatre, and National Shakespeare Company. Outside the lively arts, she was a credit officer in the World-Wide Banking Division of Chemical Bank (now J. P. Morgan Chase). She has taught as an adjunct instructor at Columbia College Chicago and lectured at DePaul University, Fordham University and Roosevelt University. B. A., Fine Arts, Fordham University, and work toward M. A., Art History, Queens College CUNY.
Paul Tauger
Paul Tauger has been an experienced intellectual property and litigation attorney for the past 30 years. Prior to becoming a lawyer, Paul was a professional actor performing in film, television and on stage. In addition to his JD, Paul has a BA in theatre, an MFA in acting and directing and a PhD (ABD) in theatre. Paul taught
acting professionally with noted acting coach, Ivana Chubbuck. Paul also composes for the musical stage, and studied with the late Lehman Engel at the Lehman Engel
Music Theater Workshop in Los Angeles.
Marlene Zuccaro
Marlene Zuccaro received a BA in Speech and Theater from Northern Illinois University and a BA in directing and theater education from Vermont College. In Chicago, she founded Zebra Crossing Theater and spent many years there directing as well as directing at other theaters around the city. She taught acting at Victory Gardens Theater and gave private lessons. In addition, Marlene taught Humanities and Communication at Columbia College. She met John Sparks in Chicago while directing a play for the New Tuners Theatre. In LA, she reunited with John who convinced her to direct the mini musicals for NMI, which she did for many years. She directed the staged reading of Seagull Song and its workshop reading. She has directed over 150 productions.
Brad Beaver
Brad Beaver has been writing book and lyrics for the musical theater since his college days at the University of Minnesota. He has also written comedy material, parodies and sketches.Brad had a brief career as an actor before succumbing to the universally-held opinion that his acting time would be better spent writing. He is a long-term member of the Academy for New Musical Theatre where he has studied under Lehman Engel and John Sparks. He has also studied lyric writing at UCLA and is a member of the Dramatists Guild. Brad (with composer Ann Reid) won a VATEA grant to write the one-act musical Computer Games, which was performed at Genesee Community College in New York State. Other musicals for which he has written book and/or lyrics include The Magical Wind, For Fun and Profit, Killing Time, My Last Halloween, Searching for the Rabbit Prince, Swiss Family Robinson, Wind in the Willows (winner of the Theatre for Youth class of the Chameleon Theatre Circle’s 13th Annual New Play Contest and Honorable Mention in the Jackie White Memorial National Children’s Playwriting Contest, 2012), Wild Space a Go-Go and Upon a Winter Road.
Susan-Kate Heaney
Susan-Kate Heaney is an actor, writer and filmmaker. Originally from New York she now resides in Los Angeles. She is a graduate of New York University Tisch School of the Arts. She has appeared most recently as Darlene in The Idol, Nurse Mackenzie on The Mindy Project (HULU), Renee in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (HULU), Shirley in Masters of Sex (Showtime), and opposite Bryce Dallas
Howard in the comedy Pant Suits. Most recently, Buster, Baby (a film she wrote and directed) won Best Short Short at the Cannes Short Film Festival. Susan-Kate also performs regularly in improv, sketch, one-woman shows and voiceover, and hosts a podcast called The Quirks.
Bridget McDonough
Bridget McDonough was employed in arts management from 1978, when she graduated from Northwestern University, until her 2019 retirement as general manager of Music Theater Works, which she co-founded (as Light Opera Works) in 1980 with Philip Kraus and others. Prior to founding Light Opera Works she worked for The Organic Theater Company in Chicago, The Troupe in Colorado Springs and Actors Equity Association.She has served on the boards of many arts and civic organizations both nationally and locally in the Chicago area. She is past president of the Rotary Club of Evanston and the North Shore International Network, where she still holds memberships. She served on the boards of the Evanston Convention and Visitors’ Bureau, Evanston Chamber of Commerce, Evanston Arts Alliance, National Alliance for Musical Theatre, Chicago Music Alliance, Around the Coyote, as well as the School of Communication Alumni Board at Northwestern University and the tourism committee of Chicago’s North Shore Convention and Visitors’ Bureau.
Arlo Williams
Arline “Arlo” Williams has recently retired from a major music company working in International
Royalties. In addition to being a writer and performer in the Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, she was also the Executive Director for over four years. In the past she has appeared Off-Broadway, as well as in productions throughout the U.S. and Europe. She is happy to join the Write4Art organization.