Drama Ink - Fall, 2019

The donor newsletter of Milwaukee Repertory Theater

Issue 12 • Fall 2019

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR MARK CLEMENTS’

10TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON (see page 4)

DIRECTLY SPEAKING

Mark Clements

Chad Bauman

Dear Friends, Something’s coming, something good…

Welcome back to the start of the 2019/20 Season at Milwaukee Rep! Even before the season kicks off, our programming actually began back in July with the production of Everybody by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, featuring our Professional Training Institute in the Stiemke Studio. Serving as the capstone to a yearlong training program, these 12 youth performers had the opportunity to experience what it would be like to work as professional actors in their own production.

Additionally this summer, we partnered with Milwaukee Public Schools’ Summer Academy, the Conservatory of Music, and Arts@Large to provide youth arts education programming.

This will be the fourth partnership and second premiere with artist David Lutkin. We are also thrilled to bring Antonio’s Song to the Stiemke Studio, which premiered this summer at the Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, under the direction of Artistic Director Mark Clements.

Beyond these productions, we are working to reimage our Mpact programming so that it can be even more responsive to the needs of our community. Read on to learn more about our newest education initiative, the national August Wilson Monologue Competition, and the upcoming community engagement programming that will take place around The Niceties.

In just a few short weeks, we will kick off our 66th Season with the Tony Award-winning classic West Side Story. Over the summer, artists participated in festivals across the city performing songs from the show, including the NEWaukee Night Market, Puerto Rican Family Festival, and Washington Park Wednesdays.

We can hardly wait to share the upcoming season with you!

The excitement continues with the first musical in the Stiemke Studio, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and the world premiere of Hootenanny: The Musicale in the Stackner Cabaret.

Mark Clements Artistic Director

Chad Bauman Executive Director

An additional note from Chad We are also celebrating Mark Clements’ 10th Anniversary Season. Mark has left an indelible impact on Milwaukee Rep over the last decade – bringing the American Musical to the mainstage, building a new production of A Christmas Carol, programming more diverse work, creating the John (Jack) D. Lewis New Play Development program, and most recently launching the Classics Initiative to produce epic theater masterpieces. All of this was made possible because of the loyalty of our Subscribers and the generosity of our donors.

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AUGUST WILSON MONOLOGUE COMPETITION COMES TO MILWAUKEE “Life is a mystery. Don’t you know life is a mystery? I see you still trying to figure it out. It ain’t all for you to know. It’s all an adventure. That’s all life is. But you got to trust that adventure.”

— August Wilson, Gem of the Ocean Milwaukee Rep will embark on a new adventure during the 2019/20 Season by participating in the national August Wilson Monologue Competition (AWMC). This multi-faceted program celebrates the words of playwright August Wilson, inspiring high school students to find and express themselves through theater.

August Wilson

August Wilson was America’s most prolific African-American playwright.

His literary legacy is a series of ten plays known as The American Century Cycle. Each is set in a different decade, depicting the comic and tragic aspects of the African-American experience in the 20th century.

About the Competition The competition was founded in 2007 by Kenny Leon and Todd Kreidler at Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company in Atlanta, and is now produced in collaboration with the national presenting partners True Colors Theatre Company and Jujamcyn. The program is now hosted in twelve cities nationwide, including Los Angeles, Dallas, and

Pittsburgh. This season will serve as Milwaukee Rep’s shadow year, the first step to becoming the next host city. This shadow year will allow Milwaukee Rep to build relationships with community partners; design and test programming; and observe programming at other host cities.

Year One: The Shadow Year The year will include a ten-week after school residency, training workshops, and a citywide monologue mock competition for Milwaukee high school students. Seven sites across Milwaukee will host after school residencies for their students, where students will study monologues from August Wilson’s century cycle and prepare for competition through specific workshops. In addition to performance skills, these workshops will teach students how to deconstruct, analyze, and interpret a piece of text, all of which will help students increase their reading comprehension and critical-thinking skills. continued on page 8

The national finalists and judges of the 2019 August Wilson Monologue Competition.

Photo by Gustavo Monroy.

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ON THE MARK – SPECIAL EDITION

To celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Artistic Director Mark Clements, we have a special edition of On The Mark! We asked Mark to share his top ten favorite directing experiences from his time so far at Milwaukee Rep. We hope you enjoy reading about them as much as he did directing them!

Cabaret (2010/11) This was my first show ever at Milwaukee Rep and the first musical on the Quadracci Powerhouse stage, so there was a lot of risk involved!

There were actually two moments on opening night that were very gratifying.

Kelley Faulkner as Sally Bowles The first was right after in Cabaret. the entr’acte finished at the top of Act II. There was this incredible roar from the audience that was one of jubilation, excitement, and celebration. It was exhilarating and it just alleviated all my tensions, nerves, and fears about “have we done the right thing, is this going to work?” The second was introducing Kelley [Faulkner] to an audience when she happened to be my girlfriend (and later my wife). Having her sing the title song of the show and have everyone cheering and applauding like it wouldn’t stop, that was the moment I knew we brought it home and I thought, “Everything’s ok.

Milwaukee’s gonna be great for us.”

Laura Gordon (left) as Linda Loman and Lee E. Ernst as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman.

Death of a Salesman (2010/11) This was the third time I’ve directed this play. I did it once in my 20s, in my 30s and then in my 40s here. In my 20s, I viewed it through the eyes of the boys. And in my 40s, I saw it through the eyes of Willy and Linda, which completely changed my direction of the play. I’ve always felt everyone should be able to see this show at least once a decade, so they have the opportunity to view it at different points in their lives.

Next to Normal (2011/12) This was the second musical and it was such an important one in terms of subject matter. It was the ideal for me – producing entertaining shows that address important issues. The panels we arranged with Rogers Behavioral Health were really compelling. It was wonderful to see how people wanted to talk after seeing that show. Also it’s a great theatrical vehicle for emphasizing the importance of destigmatizing mental health issues.

Othello (2011/12) I had the opportunity to take a great classic and fuse it with two loves of my life: theater and motorcycles. It was also amazing to have HarleyDavidson equip that show with Lindsay Smiling (left) as Othello and bikes and apparel Gerard Neugent as Iago in Othello. of our choosing.

This was such a great way to present a classic using modern culture. I feel it definitely whet people’s appetite for more classical works.

Assassins (2012/13) Assassins was probably the least effective of the musicals in terms of audience appeal, but I feel one of the best shows I have directed. I loved that the Sondheim Society came and said it was the definitive production that they’ve seen. To my mind, it was also the best physical production that I’ve seen produced at Milwaukee Rep in my time here.

Ragtime (2013/14) I really love how Ragtime deals with what is America and what it means to different people.

The cast was fantastic and the whole production we created was extraordinarily beautiful. It was a very hard show to top for the longest time!

It was also an important milestone in terms of audience and donor development; it showed what we could do given the opportunity and if we were supported in the right way. It was great having people from the sports and corporate world begging for tickets when they couldn’t get in. It felt like Milwaukee Rep had moved on to the next level when we were the hottest ticket in the city.

Five Presidents (2014/15) This was a really good vehicle to launch our new play development program. Five Presidents came at a time when people were craving political plays without partisan politics driving the narrative. This play was very important for us in developing patron and donor confidence in new plays. It broke box office records at Milwaukee Rep, in Arizona, and in New York State where it was co-produced.

This success was pivotal in imbuing donors with the confidence to give us more resources to create more new works. They saw this and went “yep, more of that please!”

Of Mice and Men (2015/16) I’ve always been a Steinbeck fan and love the central story.

This was my second opportunity to direct this play; the first was in Philadelphia in 2005. It was great to work with Scott Greer again, who was playing Lennie for the second time. He delivered a beautifully nuanced performance and I loved watching every single moment of it.

This was a chance to take something I Scott Greer (left) as Lennie thought I was proud and Jonathan Wainwright as of and move it to the George in Of Mice and Men. next level by having a second go at it.

The Glass Menagerie (2016/17) Again, this was a second chance to direct this play.

Here too, there’s a difference between doing this play the first time around in my 20s and then again in my 40s, when it was an opportunity to see Kelsey Brennan (left) as Laura Wingfield the play through a and Hollis Resnik as Amanda Wingfield in completely different The Glass Menagerie. lens. I was able to see the mother (Amanda Wingfield, brilliantly played by Hollis Resnick) in a new, compassionate way, which forever changed my direction of the show.

One House Over (2017/18) This was a new play that Catherine Trieschmann submitted to us, and I fell in love with the script straight away. And the set was stunning! Our artisans are second to none, and the quality is as good as you’d get on any stage in the world.

In some ways, it was the perfect new play – it was really entertaining but it had something substantive to say about the times in which we’re living. I really love those kinds of plays; especially plays that question how ‘woke’ and compassionate we think we are. Plays that test where our boundaries really lie and how comfortable we are at acknowledging them when we’re confronted.

Bonus I feel like I should say something about all of them, but there’s 22! If I could add more from this past season, it would be Junk and Things I Know to be True. Both productions were the culmination of where we’ve come as a theater and where I’ve come as a theater director. I feel I’m a much stronger director than when I arrived.

DO YOU HAVE A QUESTION FOR MARK? Submit your questions to onthemark@milwaukeerep.com and see his answers in an upcoming issue!

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BEHIND THE SCENES

FOOD (AND DRINK) FOR THOUGHT We sat down with Jim Guy, Properties Director, to ask him a few questions about the food and drink he prepares for the actors to consume on stage.

Q. When a script calls for eating food, how do you work with an actor to discover what they can and can’t eat?

It’s a matter of finding out what they can eat and then what they will eat. Actors need to eat the same thing eight times a week for six to seven weeks (including technical rehearsals). I work with them to find foods that they can eat physically and also tolerate for that length of time. We take into account their personal preferences, dietary restrictions (lactose intolerance, celiac/gluten allergies, etc), and religious restrictions. Sometimes it’s a simple swap to accommodate a vegetarian or vegan option, or we’ll replicate the look of it with another type of food. For instance, we’ve used watermelon as grilled steak with the grill marks painted on.

The best example is from How the World Began (2012/13 Season), when Deb Staples needed to eat a slice of lemon meringue pie and then throw the rest out. Deb is a vegan so we needed to figure out what she could tolerate eating for eight to 10 weeks that looked like lemon meringue, but that we could throw away every night without being cost prohibitive. We ended up lining the inside with instant mashed potatoes to look like the lemon curd and topped it with whipped mashed potatoes to look like the meringue.

To generate the burned look of the meringue, we painted on the spirals with tamarind sauce, which also added some much-needed flavor to the potatoes.

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Properties Director Jim Guy

Q. Who manages the real food during a show?

For “food-heavy” shows, the Prop Department will prepare the food ahead of time and freeze it. That way our resident stagehand can just reheat it before the show. The most intensive show recently was One House Over (2017/18 Season). We served six different meals during each performance!

Q. What is really in the ‘alcohol’?

Depending on both the actor and the type of liquor we need to represent, we usually give the actors choices. Options to represent spirits include colored water (or clear for clear liquors), or diluted Diet Coke for its rich caramel color and red tones. We can also dye Coke to resemble just about any liquor.

For red wine, we use fruit juice. Cran-raspberry is good for darker wines, diluted cranberry juice for rosé, or hibiscus tea (which doesn’t stain if you wash it with cold water quickly enough). For white wine we’ll use white grape juice or colored water.

Beer is the hardest to replicate. We need to find a substance that can hold the foam, is the right color, has carbonation, and will be something the actor is willing to drink. We also need to consider how it will be served – in a bottle, can, from a keg, or from a tap, etc. That affects what we can use. During Guys on Ice (2015/16 Season) we used carbonated water and stuck labels by hand onto every can. With nearly a dozen cans used each night for nearly 70 performances, that was a lot of cans!n

THE NICETIES ENCOURAGES COMMUNITY DISCUSSIONS “On one side, a historian who champions American democracy as one of the wonders of the world, its faults notwithstanding; on the other, an activist who looks at the nation’s history and sees all of the black lives that did not matter to its founders, to the people who have governed since and to the authors of its history,” observed Laura Collins-Hughes, critic for the New York Times, when she reviewed the 2018 world premiere of The Niceties at Manhattan Theatre Club.

Described by Collins-Hughes as “a bristling, provocative debate play about race and privilege in the United States,” The Niceties comes to the Stiemke Studio starting September 25 and runs through November 3, 2019. The play centers around a young black student and her white professor who meet to discuss a paper the student is writing about the American Revolution. What starts as academic guidance quickly devolves into a fierce debate about who gets to tell that story of America, and how that in turn shapes the story that is told.

Our Community Engagement Department has planned a series of programs to explore and unpack the play more deeply.

Act II and Other Programs We are bringing back our popular Act II program in collaboration with the Zeidler Center for Public Discussion. After every Tuesday and Saturday evening performance, trained facilitators will lead small groups in a discussion around the themes of race, history, and power, creating an open

Audience members gather for small group discussions facilitated by the Zeidler Center for Public Discussion following a performance of Until The Flood.

Lisa Banes (left) and Jordan Boatman in Geffen Playhouse’s 2018/19 production of The Niceties. Photo by T. Charles Erickson.

dialogue where audience members can express their viewpoints. Each week during October, discussions will focus on a different theme from the production, including:

• Racism and Academia • The Great Generational Divide • Access to Education Following the remaining performances, we will hold a mix of talkbacks, panel discussions, and other events exploring that week’s theme.

Partnership with Local Universities Because academia is the setting for The Niceties, we will host a pre-show discussion for faculty, staff, and students at UW-Milwaukee to create an intergenerational dialogue between peers and professors about the relevance of the production’s themes on college campuses today.

Attendees will then have the opportunity to see the play for themselves and continue the discussion. Additionally, we will have students in the Service Learning program work with Milwaukee Rep to develop and implement much of this collaboration. These students are studying entrepreneurship and the ways in which cultural centers can engage communities. This will serve as their program practicum and give them first-hand experience devising community programming.n

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NOVEMBER 15, 2019 Opening Night of The Nerd Donors $2,500+ are invited to join us for a special opening night celebration for The Nerd. The evening includes a dinner at Saint Kate – The Arts Hotel, tickets to the opening night performance, all followed by a post-show reception in the Quadracci Powerhouse Lobby with the cast.

UPCOMING EVENTS For a full list of events, please visit www.MilwaukeeRep.com

SEPTEMBER 27, 2019 NEW – Unscripted Donors $100 are invited to join us for a new speakers series. Listen to Rep staff and artists share behind-the-scenes experiences and insights while you enjoy a light continental breakfast at Saint Kate – The Arts Hotel.

OCTOBER 15, 2019 First Rehearsal: The Nerd Donors $1,500+ are invited to join us for the first rehearsal of The Nerd. Enjoy some light refreshments with the cast and listen to the director and designers introduce the production before sitting in on a read-through of the script.

OCTOBER 30, 2019 Limelight Legacy Society Luncheon with Eleanor Burgess Members of our Limelight Legacy Society are invited to join us for a private lunch in the Stackner Cabaret with Eleanor Burgess, playwright of The Niceties. Through a conversation moderated by a member of Milwaukee Rep’s Artistic Staff, hear about the new plays she is working on for Milwaukee Rep’s John (Jack) D. Lewis New Play Development Program.

DECEMBER 5, 2019 NEW – Unscripted Donors $100 are invited to join us for a new speakers series. Listen to Rep staff and artists share behind-the-scenes experiences and insights while you enjoy a light continental breakfast at Saint Kate – The Arts Hotel.

JANUARY 9, 2020 Tech Talk: The Legend of Georgia McBride This benefit for donors $500+ allows donors to attend a working Technical Rehearsal of The Legend of Georgia McBride and watch everything come together for the first time.

JANUARY 17, 2020 Opening Night of The Legend of Georgia McBride Donors $2,500+ are invited to join us for a special opening night celebration for The Legend of Georgia McBride. The evening includes a dinner at Saint Kate – The Arts Hotel, tickets to the opening night performance, all followed by a post-show reception in the Quadracci Powerhouse Lobby with the cast.

FEBRUARY 5, 2020 Magic in the Making: Prop Shop Donors $250+ are invited for an exclusive behind-the-scenes experience in our prop shop. Meet Properties Director Jim Guy and learn more about what it takes to support a story through props.

AUGUST WILSON MONOLOGUE COMPETITION COMES TO MILWAUKEE continued from page 3

All Students Welcome Even though we are hosting residencies for students at specific sites, any Milwaukee high school student will be welcome to participate in the competition. We will make workshops available throughout Milwaukee for students who either are not a part of a residency or miss a session at their residency site, with a particular focus on creating equitable access across the city.

Our goal is that any student, regardless of where they live, will have a workshop nearby and be able to participate in the competition. The final element will be a mock regional competition at the Stackner Cabaret.

If Milwaukee is selected as an official host city, the two winners of our regional competition will then compete in the national competition, winning an all-expenses paid trip to New York City and the opportunity to perform on a Broadway stage, courtesy of the National Finals Sponsor Delta Air Lines. It’s going to be an exciting year for Milwaukee Rep and local high school students.n

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Cover Photo: Kit Kat Klub Cast Members and Emcee Lee E. Ernst in Cabaret (2010/11).

Issue 12 • Fall 2019 Milwaukee Repertory Theater • Development Department 108 E. Wells Street • Milwaukee, WI 53202 Chuck Rozewicz, Chief Development Officer crozewicz@milwaukeerep.com Amy Dorman, Director of Development adorman@milwaukeerep.com Alli Engelsma-Mosser, Major Gifts Officer aengelsma-mosser@milwaukeerep.com Cassidy Skorija, Associate Director of Development, Institutional Giving cskorija@milwaukeerep.com Morgen Clarey, Associate Director of Development, Events & Stewardship mclarey@milwaukeerep.com Stephan Thomas, Development Database Manager sthomas@milwaukeerep.com To make a gift in support of Milwaukee Repertory Theater, please contact the Development Department at 414-290-5376 or visit www.MilwaukeeRep.com.