After 20 seasons as artistic director of Milwaukee Youth Theatre (MYT), Therese Burazin will give the role this spring to Associate Director Brandon Herr who’ll guide the organization in its coming 25th season. MYT began in a Bay View storefront beside the Avalon Theatre in 1991. In season four, Burazin, a Milwaukee Public Schools teacher well versed in community theater, directed one show and was asked to stay. In season five, she joined a team of co-directors and by season six, she says, “I was the last one left.” She took MYT to Lincoln Center of the Arts where, as resident artists, the company provides workshops and performances to MPS students in return for office, rehearsal and performance space. MYT produces three shows each season.
It must be hard to say goodbye, Therese.
TB: Don’t make me cry. I married late in life so we never had children. MYT kind of is my child. Even though I didn’t found it, I feel like I have. I don’t have a theater degree. I’m amazed that I’ve run a company this long. It’s through the power of doing, you know. When you live it, you become it. But I feel really good about leaving the theater to Brandon. He’s been with us a long time. He’ll officially run the next show and I’ll just kind of mentor. We’re planning to have me step into the role of board president for a year. Then my husband and I bought a house in Florida and we plan on retiring there. We found an area that’s very involved in the arts.
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This is your fifth season, Brandon?
BH: I graduated in 2011 from UW-Parkside. My degree is in theatre arts. When I moved to Milwaukee, I worked at the Marcus Center where Greg Davis, MYT’s technical director, works. He told me MYT was looking for a play and a director. Well, I had a play and I direct, so there you go. I met with Therese. I said I’ve got this show called Shakespeare’s Comedies. I took a bunch of scenes from different comedies and put them together with intros and outros. Brittany Curran, who is our education and outreach coordinator, directed it and I was assistant director. That’s how I started my involvement.
What do you most value about MYT?
BH: I love being able to share what I’ve learned about theater, which is my passion, to pass that along to young people who are starting out where I did. Actually, Shakespeare started for me in high school. It’s great to be able to pass that love on, to see them getting excited about it. We’re doing Twelfth Night as our final show this season.
TB: The most important thing is that we give students their first opportunities to perform. We have open auditions. For at least a third of each cast, it’s their first time on stage. We also have children who stay with us for a long time. We don’t charge children to be in our plays. We cast as many who try out as possible. We give “How to Audition” workshops beforehand. We provide pre-performance workshops for schools that come to see our shows. We provide opportunities in theater to many, many children who couldn’t otherwise afford it.
Mr. Popper’s Penguins is next.
BH: The kids are very excited about being penguins.
TB: We do just one performance for the general public on Friday, Feb. 12 at 7 p.m. We’ve sold out our school shows so we’re adding a 10 a.m. performance on Wednesday, Feb. 10. We already have 230 students signed up for that one. We sell the first two tiers of seats in Lincoln Center’s Ivory Hall because the little ones get lost from the third tier. In the first two tiers, there are 700 seats. So we’ve sold over 1,600 seats already. In Bay View we sat 40. I can’t remember when we had two sold-out school shows a month before opening. It means we’re doing the right thing and we’re important to the community. What a way to go out, hey?
