Zany Experimental Theater in Dale Gutzman’s Off the Wall

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Photo credit: Dave Zylstra

Just across the street from the famed Milwaukee Repertory Theater, past a hall covered from floor to ceiling with posters of performances ranging from Superman: The Musical to La Cage aux Folles and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, is a peculiar black-box theater. Off the Wall Theatre, headed by Dale Gutzman, is where some of the most eccentric experimental theater in Milwaukee is performed.

Gutzman is a piece of Milwaukee’s history, as he predates many of the city’s most prominent theater companies. He remembers a time “when The Rep didn’t exist, and Skylight Music Theatre was just starting up.” At the time, he was barely discovering the world of theater, acting out stories with toys and, later, classmates. “I started acting with a man named Bob Pitman, who taught at Alverno College, and he brought the actors in as guests,” he recalls. “Then I worked at the Jewish Center, which had a wonderful theater program, and I sort of shopped around town while going to college. Eventually, I directed 26 shows for Skylight.” This veteran of theater also worked for the royal family of Thailand for years, although he always favored local theater over a career in New York City.

Off the Wall Theatre, now Gutzman’s full-time activity, was born at the turn of the century. “In the ’90s and early 2000s, I was traveling back and forth between Milwaukee and Thailand, when someone said there is this little space and a guy who needs a partner to start a theater company,” he explains. “Within six months, the guy left town, dumping this place in my lap. Suddenly, I had my own theater. I realized that, if you have a theater and you want to keep it running, you have to take care of it, so I started investing more and more time in Milwaukee to make it a viable theater company.”

And so he got to work to make it viable. Actors working for Off the Wall are volunteers—sometimes professional actors taking time off bigger productions in higher-profile companies. Royalties can cost thousands of dollars, therefore, many productions are based on original scripts, taking advantage of Gutzman’s love for writing. Gutzman, himself, retired to dedicate himself entirely to his new project as a playwright and director.

‘Personal Growth Is the Major Reward of Theater’

Twenty years later, Off the Wall is still alive and well, and the company found a niche in the city’s theater scene. The current season includes such plays as a “failed” staging of A Christmas Carol, Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, a thriller and an original musical revue centered on George and Ira Gershwin’s work. Off the Wall’s next show, The Glance, is an original script focusing on Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, an Italian Renaissance painter who opposed the Catholic Church’s views on art.

“He was gay, he killed a man, he drank heavily and lived wildly, and his paintings were often very erotic,” Gutzman explains, but Caravaggio refused to bend to the artistic standards of the Church. “It comes from my interest in the rituals of our lives—how we lie to ourselves about reality, how we form visions of our own lives. If you strip away the masks, what do you find underneath?”

This is not the most unusual show or season you will find at Off the Wall, however. Gutzman credits the company’s low profile for that blessing: Their small black-box theater only seats 40 people, and with ticket prices of “$25 to $30,” the shows barely break even. Gutzman admits Off the Wall depends on donations to remain open. “We cannot pay our actors, I don’t get paid, nobody here gets paid; it’s really a work of art and love. All the money we make goes back into what we do.” While it may sound dire, Gutzman sees it as an advantage his company has in Milwaukee’s performing arts landscape.

“Today, there are tons of little theater companies in Milwaukee,” he says, “but they often close a couple years after opening. It’s not called ‘show business’ for nothing. Right now, there’s a small group of theatergoers who try to see everything, but there is too much going on for them to support everyone. Because of that, our theater community is less thriving than many people say it is. I sometimes feel sorry for our professional theaters like The Rep, because I think that in order to survive, they have to do more conventional shows than what we’d see in other cities like St. Louis or Minneapolis.

“The theater audience in Milwaukee would go see Fiddler on the Roof or A Christmas Carol every night, and they would love it, which is a dark side of our theater community,” Gutzman continues. “People who want to take risks have a hard time surviving.” He shares that “making shows on relatively little money allows me to make shows that no other theater can do. We can just pick whatever we want and try different things, because it’s totally my whim. If it doesn’t work, that’s fine; six weeks later, we start something else. Nobody can tell me what I can or can’t do; I don’t even have a board of directors!”

As a result, most Off the Wall shows are zany, experimental and all sorts of quirky. They don’t exist to attract an audience or generate a profit; they are made because Gutzman and his collaborators like them. “When I choose a season or a play, the main reason I choose it is because it helps me grow. Personal growth is the major reward of theater,” he says.

One anecdote he shares illustrates his mindset. When he worked for the royal family of Thailand, on an opening night when he got to meet the royals and was given bouquets of flowers filling his taxi, he recalls, “I realized I was no happier that night than when I opened a tiny little show in my own little theater or at the Skylight. That night, it struck me that it was the show itself that excited me; it wasn’t all the celebration or the hoopla around it. Regardless of where the show is done, if I grow from it, it’s a good show; if I don’t, then it’s not as rewarding.”

The Glance will be performed through March 8 at Off the Wall Theatre, 127 E. Wells St. For tickets, call 262-509-0945 or visit offthewallmke.com.