After 30 years at the Cleveland Play House, actor Richard Halverson relocated to Milwaukee, where he made a mark as a member of the Milwaukee Repertory Theater. Halverson officially retired from the company in 1994, but “retired” is a relative term. In the decades since, he’s appeared in dozens of productions at the Rep and other regional companies, including the Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, Next Act Theatre, Skylight Opera Theatre and First Stage Children’s Theater. The Shepherd Express caught up with Halverson ahead of the Milwaukee Rep’s production of Harvey, which casts him as Judge Omar Gaffney.
Do you have a personal connection to Harvey? I’m assuming you’ve seen the film.
I have seen the film, but I also saw the first Broadway tour of it back in the ’50s, when two or three of the original actors were touring, including Frank Fay, who played Elwood, and Myrtle Mae the daughter was Jean Staple, who you know of course as Mrs. Archie Bunker. Then that summer I was asked to do it at a little theater, and all I remembered was Frank Fay’s performance so I sort of imitated it, because I was in my 20s. Well, you can’t do that. I was so-so but not too hot. Then about 10 years ago I played the Judge in a little theater up north, I believe it was in Cedarburg, and I’m playing the Judge now. It’s a lovely play, and so well written. And there’s a great deal of humor in it, but no gags. There’s no jokes as such.
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How many productions do you appear in these days?
I’m pretty much retired. This is my only play this year. But when I first started here, and when I was at Cleveland for 30 years, and I used to do six to eight plays a year.
Does it feel like you are retired?
Well, it’s nice to be asked to do a show. But you know it’s work like anything else. But it’s very rewarding, and we have a wonderful director [KJ Sanchez] for this show. And it’s nice to be back in a good script and working with old friends in a theater I love. It doesn’t get any better than that.
Are you pickier about the roles you take these days?
No, not really. People will call me up and say, “Would you like to play this or that?” But I don’t care to do more than two or three plays a year now.
Is there any role you’re still hoping to play?
A favorite play of mine, and I’ve done it three times, is Our Town. I’ve done the Choir Master, and I think you could be almost any age in that role; you’re never too old to do it. He’s a very bitter and unhappy man in a sense. And it too is a wonderful play. It’s a very hard look at life. People will say, “Oh, I saw the high school do that a few years ago, and it’s so sentimental,” but it really isn’t.
What is it about that play that draws so many high schools to it?
Well, it concerns young people and young love, and there are no sets involved. Two ladders, maybe, a couple of chairs and a table. But it’s so American that I think high schools like to do it, and it’s a good thing for them to do it, too. But what they don’t realize is that really it’s a hard look at life, and at the end where she says goodbye to the world, it’s really touching.
Do you have any advice for aspiring actors?
[Laughs] No, not really. Be prepared to work, and if you can try to get into a company like a rep company like I was in Cleveland for a couple for years—I was an apprentice there before I got the union. Also, watch other actors, watch and see what they do and sometimes learn what to do and what not to do. You learn what works and what doesn’t work.
The Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s production of Harvey opens Tuesday, November 18.
