Image via First Stage
Throughout Spring, First Stage, Milwaukee’s premier theater company for the youth, will be producing three short plays focusing on the perspectives and experiences of artists of color. Named “Amplify,” this short play series features creations commissioned from noted BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) playwrights and directors.
Playwrights Ty Defoe, Alvaro Saar Rios and Nikkole Salter have been brought in to create age-appropriate, exclusive scripts that center on young characters’ points of view. “This is an opportunity to develop professional relationships with those artists and expose our audiences to a wider range of perspectives,” says Jeff Frank, First Stage’s artistic director. Instead of imposing a topic to the playwrights, the company elected to give them a stage to express themselves. “It was nice to go to these artists and say, ‘What do you want to write in your heart and mind at this moment?’ We kicked around ideas and invited the directors in the process to bring those ideas forward.”
The three plays that resulted from this process, Copper Horns in Water, Unmuted, as well as a third, currently unnamed play, will be available on streaming virtually; releases will be staggered until the end of June. Access to the content will be free for registered audience members, although donations are encouraged to fund future endeavors and support the artists.
Copper Horns in Water will be the first short play—no more than 20 minutes—that will be available starting on Friday, April 16, for precisely one month. Playwright Ty Defoe is a Native American two-spirit writer. Directed by Johamy Morales and appropriate for families with children ages 8 and older, the story relies on Anishinaabe storytelling traditions. It is produced in partnership with Milwaukee’s Indian Community School, which provided the entire cast of 12 young actors and one adult actress, Marisa Carr.
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“It revolves around a curious underwater creature—it is not a character that we can speak the name of,” says Jeff Frank, “as they come to maturity and earn their copper horns. They come to understand the importance of that journey and what the copper horns mean. It is a really fun family story that weaves together how we care for each other and how we need to care for the Earth. It is a celebration of your inner power, which is powerful and unique and wonderful.”
Amplify will continue on Friday, April 30, with Alvaro Saar Rios’ Unmuted, which takes place in a Zoom room where the teacher dropped off the call and the young people gain control of the room. “One of the kids finds out that they have control and unmute everybody, allowing them to talk for the first time to one another [...] with a focus on what they miss about being together and the losses that they’ve experienced in this time.” The final piece by Nikkole Salter, who will start streaming on Thursday, May 20, will follow a group of popular kids planning a virtual pre-prom and get forced to face their ideas about who should or shouldn’t be included.
These short plays will remain available on First Stage’s Youtube channel for one month each. To continue in this momentum, First Stage is also considering launching another round of amplified short plays sometime in the fall.
For more information, visit https://www.firststage.org/amplify.
