Wisconsin is the badger state, but I also consider it the Shakespeare state. Name me any other place in the country that consistently offers the Bard in so many different sizes, shapes and forms.
Shakespeare is at the core of Spring Green's American Players Theatre, which may very well be the best classical stage company in the country. Door Shakespeare opens its 12th fresh air season in Baileys Harbor next month.
The Milwaukee Rep has a history of pouring its deep acting and production resources into a Shakespeare production every few years, and the Milwaukee Chamber Theatre has done Shakespeare, too.
Milwaukee Shakespeare developed into a first class company until its funding and life suddenly ended, and its successor group, goats & monkeys, continues to do highly staged readings of the Bard. First Stage Children's Theatre has produced Shakespeare. Off the Wall Theatre and the Boulevard Ensemble Theatre mount Shakespeare in storefront venues Downtown and in Bay View.
Even the edgy Bialystock & Bloom staged Shakespeare before that company shut down. But until now, we have been lacking a style of production that is the only way many people in other parts of the country see "Hamlet," "Macbeth" or "Romeo and Juliet" -- free Shakespeare in the park.
Optimist Theatre is about to change that. The park is actually a three sided courtyard on the Alverno College campus. The play is Shakespeare's early 17th century comic romance, "The Tempest." The production, which will open June 18 and run through June 27, features two of the city's best known actors, James Pickering and Angela Iannone.
It's a gutsy plan from a stage company new to Milwaukee. Optimist Theatre traces its roots to the 17-year-old Midwest Children's Theatre, a Kenosha-based touring troupe that produced original kids plays.
The company was founded by Ron Scot Fry, a Carthage College theater grad who has taught at his alma mater. He also holds a master's degree in drama from the University of Virginia.
While running Midwest Children's and acting in its shows, Scot Fry served as the artistic director of the Bristol Renaissance Faire in Kenosha County from 1990 to 2008. It was there he met his wife, Susan Scot Fry, a California businesswoman who scratched a creative itch by performing snippets of Shakespeare on weekends at a Los Angeles-area Renaissance fair owned by the same firm that operates the Bristol facility. When Susan took a job in Chicago, she investigated reprising her Shakespeare work at Bristol.
She ultimately did more than that, marrying the artistic director and becoming the fair's director of marketing and public relations.
The couple decided two years ago they were ready for a major life change and leap of faith. They moved to Milwaukee and began looking for a niche for themselves in the theater community. Midwest Children's Theatre was morphing into Optimist Theatre.
"We felt we were at the perfect age for a big change in our life," Susan said while sitting in their Brewers Hill home. "We're in our late 40s, we have a lot of experience, and we are young enough to have a lot of energy."
The unexpected closing of Milwaukee Shakespeare provided an opening for the Scot Frys. "I was madly in love with that company," Susan said.
Free summer Shakespeare in a park quickly popped into their heads. "We thought it fit what we are good at, outdoor festivals," she continued. "We could take our festival producing experience and Ron's directing experience and do this."
Ron Scot Fry explained that being artistic director of the Bristol Renaissance Faire was similar to running a theater company. "Most Renaissance fairs have an entertainment director whose job it is to find and contract talent. In Bristol we wrote and produced our own material," he said.
The Scot Frys went about getting to know the Milwaukee theater community, working on the Milwaukee Public Theatre's All-City People's Parade last summer. They made connections with Max Samson of the Milwaukee Mask and Puppet Theatre and Equity (union) actor Tom Reed, who is on the theater faculty at Alverno. Samson would sign on to create puppets for "The Tempest," and Reed, who is playing Caliban, is now associate artistic director of Optimist Theatre.
But I am getting ahead of myself. The Scot Frys planned to make "A Midsummer Night's Dream" their first Shakespeare offering. Then they realized "Midsummer" was receiving multiple productions around town this year and they decided to choose something else.
Reed suggested Rep veteran Pickering would be an excellent Prospero, and when he agreed to play the banished duke, "The Tempest" became the inaugural production of Optimist's free Shakespeare in the park. Iannone has been cast as the spritely Ariel, a traditionally male character. It is not the only gender bending audiences will see in the production.
Jacque Troy and Flora Coker will play a couple of guys, Antonio and Gonzalo. The women will not attempt to look or sound like men. Their casting requires only a few pronoun changes in the text.
"We wanted to use the best people, regardless of gender," Reed said. All of the principal actors are being paid.
Ron Scot Fry is directing in what he calls a collaborative process. Kathryn Gilbert, a member of the Alverno theater and dance faculty, is doing some choreography for the production. ML Cogar, who teaches writing at Alverno and Renaissance literature at Marquette, has done some trimming of the text in her role of dramaturg for Optimist Theatre.
The production's style and period will not be Elizabethan but 18th century Italian. It will have a pirate flavor, according to Susan Scot Fry. The island on which the play is set will include indigenous people.
While this seems to be a particularly perilous economic time to offer free theater, Optimist Theatre is optimistic about making it work. It received $10,000 from the Wisconsin Arts Board, $7,000 from the Milwaukee Arts Board, and the troupe raised $11,000 at a fund raising event.
More than $21,000 has been pledged on the company's Web site, and additional income is expected from the sale of a souvenir program. Alverno's contribution of myriad items, from audition and rehearsal space to the loaning of platforms for the stage and chairs for the audience, has trimmed about $40,000 from the budget, according to Susan Scot Fry.
The courtyard, which Reed said has excellent acoustics, will contain 200 seats. The space, on the west side of the campus, has room for about 100 additional persons who can bring their own chairs or sit on blankets.
Theater-goers are encouraged to picnic before performances in an area outside of the courtyard. Food and beverages, including box dinners, will be sold, and live music will be provided.
Free parking in a multi-level campus garage is also being offered. Rain will stop performances only if conditions become unsafe.
While admission is free, reservations are necessary. Go to optimisttheatre.org for more information and to reserve tickets.
Damien has been around so long, he was at Summerfest the night George Carlin was arrested for speaking the seven dirty words you can't say on TV. He was also at the Uptown Theatre the night Bruce Springsteen's first Milwaukee concert was interrupted for three hours by a bomb scare. Damien was reviewing the concert for the Milwaukee Journal. He wrote for the Journal and Journal Sentinel for 37 years, the last 29 as theater critic.
During those years, Damien served two terms on the board of the American Theatre Critics Association, a term on the board of the association's foundation, and he studied the Latinization of American culture in a University of Southern California fellowship program. Damien also hosted his own arts radio program, "Milwaukee Presents with Damien Jaques," on WHAD for eight years.
Travel, books and, not surprisingly, theater top the list of Damien's interests. A news junkie, he is particularly plugged into politics and international affairs, but he also closely follows the Brewers, Packers and Marquette baskeball. Damien lives downtown, within easy walking distance of most of the theaters he attends.
