Janet Preus’ plays include The Gift, a musical with Ed Kee and T.W. Hale; Snip, Snap, Snute, a family musical with Margi Preus and Dieter Frank; Hank & Jesus, with Bryan Cumming; Welcome to Hell, Please Choose from the Following Options, with Jane Sanderson; Water from Snow, a contemporary musical with Robert Elhai and Fred Steele.

Her work has had readings, productions or development at the Stages Festival of New Musicals, Chicago; Pantochino Productions, Milford, Conn.; ThinkSelf at Open Eye Figure Theatre, New Musical Theatre Exchange, Nautilus Music Theatre and Little Lifeboats in Minneapolis/St. Paul; and elsewhere.

She has been awarded grants from the McKnight Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, and has co-produced projects awarded grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, Minneapolis. She was one of 10 recipients nationwide awarded a scholarship to attend the 2015 Dramatists Guild Conference in La Jolla, Calif. She’s won national songwriting awards, and state awards in print and broadcast journalism. She has several personal essays, and many trade magazine articles published, and reviewed theater (pre-pandemic) for howwastheshow.com for better than a decade.

She is a member of The Playwrights Center, Dramatists Guild, a founding member of New Musical Theatre Exchange, and a board member of the Minneapolis Writers Workshop. 

She earned a bachelor’s degree in English education from Luther College, Decorah, a speech and theater degree from Hamline University, St. Paul, and a Master of Liberal Arts (theater concentration) from Minnesota State University Moorhead. She taught theater and has directed a long list of plays, musicals and light opera productions.

She divides her time between her favorite city, Minneapolis, and her cabin in the woods “up north.” When she isn’t writing (with pencil on paper), she’s skiing or hiking in the woods with her rescue dog, Winter. (she/her/hers)