For the fourth summer, Milwaukee will host an African American theater festival, this year with a slightly tweaked name. The Black Arts MKE Fourth Annual Theatre Festival will be “smaller and longer” than past events, according to co-organizer Sheri Williams Pannell. “Fewer choices and more opportunities” to take in what remains a substantial block of programming.
At the heart of this year’s festival is the world premiere of Vel & Groppi: In the Deep Tracks, written by Josh Pohja and directed by Pannell.
Photo courtesy of Sheri Williams Pannell
Sheri Williams Pannell
Sheri Williams Pannell
Pannell grew up with Vel Phillips, Milwaukee’s first Black alderwoman, and Father James Groppi, Catholic priest turned civil rights crusader, and has memories to share. Pohja, a relative newcomer to Milwaukee, became intrigued by Vel Phillips Avenue, a street he often drove on the way to FiservForum. “I Googled her name and went down the rabbit hole,” he says. He learned that she was Milwaukee’s first Black alderwoman before becoming a judge and Wisconsin secretary of state. What especially fascinated him was her collaboration with Groppi on a marathon series of protests for open housing in Milwaukee (1967-68), triggering hostile reactions from the city’s white racists. When Phillips and Groppi dramatized the struggle against segregated housing by marching across the 16th Street Viaduct linking the North with the South Side, they were met with rocks, bottles and taunts.
“I love that they marched for 200 days during all kinds of weather,” Pohja says. The reality of their accomplishments was longer than the process behind composing Vel & Groppi. “It took me a year to compile all the research and two weeks to write the first draft.”
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
Pohja wrote Vel & Groppi with Pannell in mind. They had never worked together but crossed paths in Milwaukee theater where both have enjoyed extensive careers. At the close of 2024, Pohja and Pannell gathered with close friends and associates (along with Groppi’s widow, Margaret Rozga) to review the first draft. “Josh and I acted out the parts and sang the songs,” Pannell recalls. Yes, songs! In 2025 they did a reading (singing) for a larger group at the Marcus PAC. The feedback from both sessions was valuable. What began as a two-hour-plus play has been trimmed to 70 minutes. “Josh made those cuts with surgical precision. He took his ego out of it,” Pannell says.
Musical Parody
Songs? “It’s a play with music,” Pohja begins. “Rather than just tell the story, we needed a hook and spectacle. We needed people to listen to the story of that terrible time in Milwaukee.” The songs are from the ‘60s-‘70s civil rights era, reshaped as gentle parodies to communicate the play’s messages. The Persuaders soulful hit “A Thin Line Between Love and Hate” becomes “A Red Line Between North and South,” referring to Milwaukee’s sectional divide between North and South Sides.
Photo via Olivia Coleman
Olivia Coleman
Olivia Coleman
Portions of Vel & Groppi will be staged with the actors (Olivia Coleman as Vel, Mitchell Blohm as Groppi) on stage in conversation, “like a ‘Soul Train’ episode” Pohja says. They will speak to each other as if on television, then break the fourth wall by addressing the audience with their memories of the protests. Images will be projected behind the cast, including maps of Milwaukee displaying the red lines that confined Blacks to certain neighborhoods and signage from the marches across the viaduct. A climactic moment arrives when Lyndon Johnson is shown signing the Fair Housing Act of 1968.
Photo courtesy of Mitchell Blohm
Mitchell Blohm
Mitchell Blohm
For Pohja Vel & Groppi was a history lesson. Pannell lived through it. When she was 12, she won an essay contest that resulted in naming a new YWCA complex for Vel Phillips and presented the civil rights leader with a bouquet of roses at the YWCA’s ribbon cutting. When the cultural center where she took ballet lessons was firebombed, classes were moved to the basement of Groppi’s nearby parish, St. Boniface. The church was guarded by the Commandos, a branch of the Milwaukee NAACP Youth Council. The ‘60s struggles for civil rights weren’t always happy, sign-waving gatherings in the park on sunny days.
Pohja and Pannell hope the music will help rally audiences to connect emotionally with Vel & Groppi’s story. “We want people to be touched inside—to be motivated to do something for good,” she says.
Vel & Groppi: In the Deep Tracks will be performed August 13-14, August 15-16, August 20-21 and August 22-23 at the recently renovated Wisconsin Black Historical Society, 2620 W. Center Street. The Black Arts MKE Fourth Annual Theatre Festival runs August 12-29 at various locations and includes workshops, a youth and family night and other presentations. For tickets and more information, visit blackartsmke.org
