Six months after saying it would cut ties with Tom Wopat, a Wisconsin-born actor who was accused of sexual assault last year, the Overture Center for the Arts has announced a new name for the high school music theater awards program that was named in Wopat’s honor.
The Tommy Awards will become the Jerry Awards — aka “The Jerrys” — for W. Jerome Frautschi, the Madison philanthropist and patron of the arts who famously donated $205 million to build the Overture Center in the 1990s.
“Mr. Frautschi is a huge supporter of the arts, and he’s also very interested in our youth,” says Lex Poppens, vice president of marketing and sales for Overture. “When we approached him, he was honored.”
Poppins says the decision came after several months of conversations with those in the youth theater community, including parents, teachers and students from throughout the state. A variety of naming options were considered, including The Timmys for Tim Sauers — Overture’s vice president of programming and community engagement and original creator of the awards program — but Poppins says Frautschi’s name came up most often in conversations.
“[Frautschi] has a very good reputation,” Poppens says. “It just seems a lot more fitting.”
Wopat, a Lodi native best known for playing Luke Duke in the television show Dukes of Hazzard, was charged last September with indecent assault of a 16-year-old female cast member in a community theater production in Massachusetts. The charges came after allegations that he groped an adult cast member. Wopat pleaded not guilty to both charges.
Wopat never participated or financially supported the program, but he provided his name to “lend credibility” to the awards and “inspire Wisconsin young people that a career in the performing arts was possible,” according to the Overture Center. The program launched in 2009.
When news broke about the allegations, some in the Madison theater community urged the Overture Center to rename the awards immediately. Among those was Meghan Randolph, executive director of Music Theatre of Madison. She was pleased to learn that the awards is being renamed to honor Frautschi. “I think it’s great that kids and teachers are finally aspiring toward an award that is named after somebody that has been so influential in our community,” she tells Isthmus. “I’m glad we have a way to honor them that’s not coded in controversy.” When asked if the Overture Center should have acted sooner, she says “At this point, whether or not they made the change soon enough is beside the point.”
Poppens says the organization waited to change the name in order to allow for an “inclusive” process in which stakeholders could provide input. He also says there were marketing concerns associated with the change. “Ultimately, I think those who were dissatisfied with the [previous] name will be satisfied, and those who wanted us to do something immediately will probably say, ‘What took them so long?’” Poppens says. “But this is not a small program, and this is not something that we are going to be impulsive about.”
The award program’s new name will be officially rolled out at a ceremony June 10.
