A modern riff on the 15th-century morality play Everyman, Everybody will be performed by the Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s 2018-’19 Professional Training Institute company.
Theater
A modern riff on the 15th-century morality play Everyman, Everybody—written by playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and directed by Ryan Quinn—will be performed by the Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s 2018-’19 Professional Training Institute company. The latter is an advanced actor training program for high school students interested in pursuing a career as professional theater artists. The Rep’s current such company boasts 16 students hailing from 10 different high schools.
As The Rep says of the play: “Death tells Everybody that their time is up. But Everybody doesn’t want to greet Death alone, so Everybody seeks the company of their friends Stuff, Kinship, Friendship, Cousinship and Love to make the trip bearable.” Everybody follows its title character as he or she journeys through life’s greatest mystery: its meaning. As Jacobs-Jenkins once explained about his play: “The concept is that every night there’ll be a different Everyman, chosen by lottery, so the cast will shift a lot. This may be an insane idea. We’re assuming all these lovely actors are going to memorize the entire script.” (John Jahn)
July 18-21 in the Stiemke Studio, 108 E. Wells. St. For tickets, call 414-224-9490 or visit milwaukeerep.com.
Dance
Wild Space’s Response to “Nares: Moves” at MAM
There are two excellent reasons to spend Sunday afternoon, on July 14, at the Milwaukee Art Museum: the ground-breaking exhibition Nares: Moves and a complementary, once-exclusive Wild Space Dance Company performance in the big hall outside it. The Nares show marks museum director Marcelle Polednik’s bold debut as a curator. She’s arranged the artist’s paintings and films along a looped path that opens into “chapters” in a non-linear story. Each encounter stops you in your tracks to think, feel and connect, just as you do at a dance performance.
“He has the most choreographic mind of any visual artist I know,” says Wild Space choreographer Debra Loewen. Her dancers responded to Nares’ work with movement, which Loewen then extensively shaped. She describes the exhibition as a love letter to New York City decades back when she (and Nares) lived there and “you made do with what you had” and “tackled your prejudices as you did that.” She sees it as an analysis of transformation played in slow motion. Two audience groups will face opposite directions in the hall and see terrific dancers perform three looping 20-minute sets. “You don’t have to see the whole show,” Loewen insists. “I’m hoping you’ll see part of it and then the exhibition.” (John Schneider)
Wild Space performs from 2-3 p.m. Free with museum admission.
Milwaukee Ballet’s four-week summer Ballet Beat program brings professional dancers into libraries, parks, community centers, senior centers and summer festivals throughout the Greater Milwaukee area. As Alyson Chavez, director of community engagement, sweetly puts it: “It’s year three of Ballet Beat and we’re pounding the pavement, dancing our way through the streets, bringing interactive workshops and performances to audiences to connect with the sunny spirit of Milwaukee in summer. Everything is free—we just want people to have a chance to experience Milwaukee Ballet in a new, fun way.”
The program includes 20 events in 13 zip codes and climaxes in two full-length outdoor performances at the Marcus Center’s Peck Pavilion and the St. Ann Center’s new Indaba Band Shell. Seven of Milwaukee Ballet’s professional company dancers and two from its pre-professional MBII program will perform scenes from beloved classical ballets along with new contemporary works. “The shows also feature some of our community partners this year from Restore Arts Festival, the Lake Arts Project, Xalaat Africa Dance and Drum for Life, and our own Relevé program,” Chavez says. “We are thrilled to have these guests with us!” Come early and watch them all warm up onstage. (John Schneider)
Performances Thursday, July 18, at the Marcus Center, 929 N. Water St., and Sunday, July 20, at St. Ann’s Center, 2450 W. North Ave. For the complete schedule of workshops and events, visit milwaukeeballet.org.
More To Do
“We feature family favorites during our summer season,” says West Performing Arts Center managing artistic director Judith Smith. Mary Poppins—The Broadway Musical was originally produced in 2006. With music and lyrics by Richard and Robert Sherman, book by Julian Fellowes and new songs and additional music subsequently appended to it by Anthony Drewe and George Stiles, Mary Poppins was co-created by Cameron Mackintosh as a staged musical based on the stories of P.L. Travers and the famous classic Walt Disney film. Mackintosh’s take, however, is much more about family than the 1964 Disney film. July 12-14 and 19-21 at West Performing Arts Center, 18695 W. Cleveland Ave., New Berlin. For tickets, visit nbexcellence.org.
