Every year in mid-July, the American Players Theatre company has internally celebrated its founding in Spring Green. The troupe's first performance was July 18, 1980.
That celebration is being extended to the public this year, with a picnic at 4 p.m. July 17, preceding the 6 p.m. performance of "The Taming of the Shrew." The APT will provide grilled burgers and brats, and participants are asked to contribute a dish to share.
The picnic and performance will be dedicated to the memory of APT founding managing director Charles J. Bright, who died in New Jersey last month after a long battle with cancer. One of four founders, Bright ran the business side of the APT from 1980 to 1988. He was a warm and genial soul who saw the company through its most financially difficult years.
Although the founders have been gone from Spring Green for several decades, the high and uncompromising esthetic standards they established remain today.
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.
