Lights! Camera! Soul! was born out of a desire to bring a younger audience to the arts community. The organization saw an opportunity to give young people a creative outlet, and it’s now preparing for its 7th production, Emergency .
We sat down with Di’Monte Henning, the group’s executive director and director of Emergency , to talk about the play, the group’s progress and how the arts can make a difference in people’s lives.
How did you get into theater?
I went to school at Milwaukee High School of the Arts and was a theater major. I then went to UW-Milwaukee and started doing shows professionally. I’ve done shows with First Stage, Tandem Theater and Chamber Theater. I also just finished a residency at the Milwaukee Rep on April 10. As soon as I left there we started rehearsals for Emergency on April 12.
Tell me about Lights! Camera! Soul!.
Lights! Camera! Soul! started as a student organization at Alverno College in 2013. One of the cofounders and I attended a theater event and noticed that there weren’t a lot of young people there. We brainstormed for a couple of months on how to change that and came up with the idea for Lights! Camera! Soul! We wanted to gear this towards young performers and audiences of all backgrounds. We wanted to do something that offered more than just one specific genre.
We then became a student organization at UW-Milwaukee, and last June we became a nonprofit. We celebrated becoming a nonprofit with a fundraiser called “Sweet as Gold”, which will be annual for us going forward. We just finished Mahalia: A Gospel Musical in December and this May we’ll be doing Emergency!
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What sets Lights! Camera! Soul! apart from other groups?
I think that we are rooted in growth. I hear a lot of times in my age demographic, and I’m 22 years old, is that people want to leave Milwaukee because there aren’t any opportunities for growth. What we’re trying to do with Lights! Camera! Soul! is become a staple for growth in the performing arts industry in Milwaukee. That came with having these multidisciplinary art forms. There isn’t an organization right now that does that. We want to reach as many people as possible and we want to broaden Milwaukee’s art industry. I think that we just have to be able to sell that a little bit more to donors and our audience.
Can you tell me about Emergency ?
Ashley Jordan, our artistic director, discovered the play two years ago. It was written by a playwright, spoken word artist and actor named Daniel Beaty. It depicts the story of a slave ship that emerges in front of the Statue of Liberty in the middle of a slam poetry competition that sends the community into an uproar. In between all of this you see these characters dealing with their own personal emergencies. Some themes that come up are homosexuality, mental illness and sexually transmitted diseases.
These themes are prevalent not only in the Black community, but in the Milwaukee community. There are themes of drug use that come up in the play. We have high numbers of heroin use in Milwaukee and Wisconsin in general.
One thing that struck me about this play is that it’s about truth and healing. I think that there’s something for everyone. Whether it relates to you personally or someone that you know, I think that it will have a major impact on anyone who sees it.
There are 23 characters, and in our production they will be played by eight actors. Every actor will be double cast.
Why did you decide to double cast your actors?
Beaty originally wrote this play as a one-person show. It’s a 42-page script, and he’s playing 23 characters. In the script he also broke down how to do it as a multiple character cast, so it can be played how we’re doing it now. We have some talent who has been seen around town like Darian Brown, who’s a graduate of the B.F.A. program at UW-Milwaukee, Mario Andre, who has done theater and film around Milwaukee and Shonte Miller, who is a very talented up and coming actor. We also have some new talent to offer our audience.
How many productions have you directed?
This will be my second production. We did The Colored Museum last January. I enjoy directing, especially this piece. I like pieces that have a strong effect on the audience. Pieces that resonate with not just me personally, but also have some kind of meaning in the actor and audience’s lives. I’m excited about this play. I think that there’s so much that you can do with a play. There’s the acting, the storytelling and the set. I’m having a ball doing it.
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How have you grown as a director from the first production to now?
I think that I have more of an understanding now that I have spent eight months at the Milwaukee Rep doing nothing but theater with artists from all over the world. Watching them work, and watching different directors, I think I have a deeper understanding of how to get the most out of a piece of work. Whether that’s from playwriting to lighting and all of these different elements. How do you reach your furthest potential with this production? Much like I do with my own personal career as an actor, where I try to reach my furthest potential no matter what project it is. I want to go as far as I can. That’s something I understand more now.
Do you have a preference between acting and directing?
Probably acting. The pivotal moment in my life was watching the Michael Jackson video for “Bad” when I was in second grade. From there I wanted to perform. I think that if I would have been watching a director, and that had that same impact on me, I would have chosen directing. I do love directing, and art in general, but there’s something about performing. It’s the feeling and connection with the audience. The fact that I have that connection with you and I’m entertaining you right now in this moment is something that you can’t really get as a director.
What do you see as the future for Lights! Camera! Soul!?
I think that the next steps are getting our message out and financial stability. We need to have the financial sustainability to continue to produce shows and reach that ultimate goal of giving people a creative outlet. I see so many people with so much potential. In Emergency we have five young (under 18 years old) performers, more than the adult cast, in this production. I think that if they had an outlet right here in Milwaukee crime rates would go down, and there would be so much growth.
