Dear friends, 

When we paused our season earlier this year, we promised to keep you informed as planning progressed. Today we want to share a few important updates. 
 

Save the date: June 3rd fundraiser 
We want to bring you back into the room with us. On June 3rd at the Open Book Performance Hall and in partnership with our friends at Milkweed Editions, we will host a fundraising reading of Letters from Max, the extraordinary correspondence between Sarah Ruhl and her student Max Ritvo. It is a play about mentorship, mortality, and the persistence of art, and it was going to be a key part of the season we had to cancel. Sarah Ruhl will join us for this very special event. Proceeds will support the Jungle’s transition and the planning work ahead. 

We hope you’ll join us. It will be a wonderful opportunity for our community to come together and celebrate what makes the Jungle so unique. More information will follow shortly. 
 

Building update 
After careful consideration, we have decided to put our building up for sale. The Jungle’s home has been a beloved part of our identity, and we do not take this step lightly. But owning and operating the building has tied a meaningful share of our resources to bricks and mortar at a moment when those resources are needed for artists, audiences, and the work itself. Finding a buyer for the building will allow us to address our financial obligations responsibly and to free up the flexibility needed to plan well for what comes next. 

This is not the end. It is a beginning. Across the country, theaters of every size are reexamining their assumptions about how they make and share work, including seasons, venues, and relationships with audiences. We have an opportunity to be thoughtful about what the Jungle becomes on the other side of this transition, rather than simply trying to return to what was. That is the work ahead. 

Paused but not closed 
During the current extended “intermission,” the Jungle continues to operate, hosting theater classes and providing rehearsal space to local artists. In addition, three teams of students from the Impact Lab at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota have been working pro bono on the Jungle’s path forward, helping us analyze our options and think through what comes next. They recently delivered their final presentations, and their findings will inform our planning. The Jungle has always been more than a building. It is the artists who have made work here, the audiences who have filled these seats, and the community of donors and friends who have made all of it possible. That community is what we are building toward, and what we are building from. Thank you for staying with us. There is more to come, and we look forward to sharing it with you. 

With gratitude, 

Christina and Rachel