Milwaukee Public Theatre's Hospice Drama

I read Dr. Timothy Leary’s Design For Dying a couple of years out of high school. It’s a remarkably gripping look at preparing for death by a man who was looking forward to the transformative properties of experiencing it. That’s just the kind of guy Leary was . . . but death is not an easy thing for a lot of people to try to consider. The quality of life near the edge of death can be a remarkably rough thing to try to address. The one serious drama that studied the subject—Tuesdays With Morrie has been staged pretty consistently since it debuted a number of years ago. There hasn’t been much in the way of popular stage explorations on the subject of end of life care in the modern world . . .

The Wisconsin Humanities Council recently approved a grant of $10,000 for Milwaukee Public Theatre to produce a look at the quality of end-of-life care. From The Start, Consider the Finish is consists of 20 dramatic sketches performed by two actors in multiple roles. The sketches are drawn from real-life stories about end-of-life planning and hospice decisions.   Three songwriters also wrote 22 original pieces for the show . . . which probably makes it song really, really long. It’s not. It’s 75 minutes. The show is adapted from The End of Life Advisor by Susan Dolan and Audrey Vizzard.

The show will be touring Wisconsin starting September 10^th in Medford.

Here are a list of scheduled performances from the press release:

 

Saturday, Sept. 10, 2011

Red-White Theatre (high school), Medford

Sponsored by Medford Memorial Health Center and Hope Hospice and Palliative Care, Inc.

     

Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011

Ogema Town Hall, Ogema

Sponsored by Ogema Area Our Town Association

 

Friday, Sept. 23, 2011

Fusch Community Center, Reedsburg

Sponsored by Reedsburg Area Medical Center

 

Saturday, Sept. 24, 2011

People’s United Methodist Church, Oregon

Sponsored by People’s United Methodist Church

 

Sunday, Oct. 9, 2011

Thompson Community Center, Appleton

Sponsored by Fox Valley Coalition for the End of Life Care and Lutheran Social Services of Wisconsin & Upper Michigan, Inc.

 

Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2011

UW-Milwaukee, Milwaukee

Sponsored by Center on Age & Community, UW-Milwaukee