Photo courtesy of Next Act Theatre
Boswell - Next Act 2025
L to R: David Cecsarini, Heidi Armbruster, Madeline Calais-King and Josh Krause during rehearsal for Next Act's 'Boswell' (2025)
“It’s my literary season,” says director Laura Gordon. Barely done with Switzerland, Renaissance Theaterworks’ Patricia Highsmith production, she’s on to Next Act’s Boswell, an imaginative take on the legacy of James Boswell (1740-1795).
Written by Milwaukee’s Marie Kohler, the play contains two story lines that “ping-pong off each other,” Gordon says. One concerns Joan, a 1950s American graduate student writing a dissertation on Boswell’s better-regarded friend, playwright-essayist Samuel Johnson. The other plot line brings Boswell and Johnson together for their trip through the Hebrides in the 1770s.
Boswell’s reputation was based on his The Life of Samuel Johnson, which set a high bar for future biographers, but he was otherwise ignored until the 20th century when previously unpublished journals and papers surfaced. The search for unknown Boswell material through midcentury is the lynchpin of Kohler’s play. “Joan goes to Scotland, hearing about material in the attic of a woman’s home,” Gordon says. From there, Boswell snaps back and forth between centuries as Boswell gets to know Johnson and Joan takes the measure of both men.
Gordon was drawn to an earlier version of Kohler’s play, called Boswell’s Dream, when Renaissance Theaterworks produced it some 20 years ago. When Kohler’s revised version was chosen for the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Gordon directed and acted. Someone from New York’s 59E59 saw the play and produced it in 2022 with Gordon directing. “Then we pitched it to Next Act,” she continues. “It’s never been done in this form in Milwaukee. We thought it would be great for the holidays—it’s not about Christmas but it’s a heartwarming, uplifting story that fits the seasonal vibe.”
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Photo courtesy of Next Act Theatre
Boswell - Next Act 2025
L to R: Josh Krause and Brian Mani during rehearsal for Next Act's 'Boswell' (2025)
The casting brings an added dimension to Next Act’s performance. Brian Mani played Johnson for Renaissance Theaterworks and at Edinburgh Fringe and 59E59. Josh Krause played Boswell in New York. Cast as Joan, Madeline Calais-King is new to the production. “It’s very cool to see them revisit the play,” Gordon says of Mani and Krause, “because life changes you. There are new resonances that come out when you live your life.”
Boswell is about exploring literature and the lives behind the narratives—no easy task with James Boswell, a hard-to-pin-down contrarian. “The play is also about risk, living authentically. It’s about life, about friendship,” Gordon continues. “There’s a line from Marie’s play that I really like: ‘Journeys help us realize who we are, not who we thought we’d be.’”
Playwright Marie Kohler and actors Josh Krause and Brian Mani will discuss and read from Boswell 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 12 at Next Act Theatre, 255 S. Water St. “Light hors d’oeuvres and Scottish treats” will be served in the lobby at 6 p.m.
Next Act Theatre will produce Boswell from November 19-December 14.
