Modern technology makes it easier for members of the U.S. military serving overseas to keep in touch with their families. But during World War II, Milwaukeean Martin Daly had to go to great lengths to keep his four enlisted sons aware of what was happening in day-to-day life back home. He toiled away on a manual typewriter, carbon sheets and some of the thinnest paper available, writing an exhaustive newsletter for his sons. He wrote some eight pages every week for three years, detailing life in Milwaukee. Martin named the weekly bulletin The Daly News. The war eventually ended, but the newsletters remained. Decades later, copies of the collected Daly Newspassed into the possession of Martin's grandson Jonathan Gillard Daly.
Martin's grandson, who is best known to local theater audiences as a member of the Milwaukee Rep's Resident Acting Company, understood that the human drama in The Daly News had the kind of universal appeal that would make for compelling theater. He had thought about putting together a stage adaptation of The Daly News for seven years before he finally started working on it. He'd been working for a company in California that did a lot of musicals at the time, so the project quickly became a musical theater piece.
Much of the work was inspired during a stretch of time spent in a rental truck hauling furniture across 1,000 miles. Alone in the truck, he sung bits of songs inspired by the popular music of the 1940s into a tape recorder. Later, he handed those tapes over to California composers Gregg Coffin and Larry Delinger, who worked with Daly on crafting the show. Inspired by the newsletter, the narrative that emerged tells of life during the war and Daly's relationship with his father. It is a story that found cross-generational appeal in its West Coast debut.
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Impressed with the response for its California run, Daly decided to work on it in his hometown when the opportunity presented itself. The Daly News makes its local debut in a Milwaukee Chamber Theatre production opening in the Broadway Theatre Center's Studio Theatre on Nov. 13.
The show has evolved since its initial run, with Milwaukee Chamber Theatre Artistic Director C. Michael Wright helping to tweak and streamline the production. Daly will be joined onstage by longtime Milwaukee actors Jeff Schaetzke and Jack Forbes Wilson in various roles. Among other characters, Daly will play himself in the production. This is an interesting twist, considering that he also wrote the show.
"There are moments that are completely free of artifice," Daly says. "It's a real challenge just to tell the story and not try to create an image of myself-an idealized image."
Milwaukee Chamber Theatre's production of The Daly News runs Nov. 13 through Dec. 14 at the Broadway Theatre Center.
