“Michelle Hensley, artistic director of Minneapolis-based Ten Thousand Things Theater Company, has won the 2005 Francesca Primus Prize, a national award recognizing outstanding accomplishments by female artists in theater… She is the first non-playwright to win the award… Hensley founded Ten Thousand Things in Los Angeles in 1990, and moved to the Twin Cities in 1993. The company’s repertoire includes everything from Shakespeare to Brecht to its current production of the musical Ragtime. Using actors with credits on the Twin Cities’ major stages, Ten Thousand Things’ productions are a perennial part of local critics’ annual best-of lists. Though the company does paid public performances of its work, its core patrons are those in prisons, urban community centers, senior high rises and other audiences not generally exposed to theater.”