For Ann Joseph-Douglas, Educating Acting Students is No Child’s Play

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Photo courtesy Ann Joseph-Douglas

Ann Joseph-Douglas

Ann Joseph-Douglas

One of the nation’s top educators/administrators for youth acting skills is Milwaukee native Ann Joseph-Douglas. For the past three years, she has been the director of education at the Children’s Theatre Company (CTC) in Minneapolis.

The (CTC) is the nation’s largest and most acclaimed theater for young people. It presents shows in two theaters that entertain and educate about 250,000 patrons each year. It is the only children’s theater nationwide to earn a Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre. It is also dedicated to new work, having presented more than 200 new works to date. 

By comparison, the CTC’s annual budget of $11.2 million is more than double the $5 million budget of Milwaukee’s First Stage, a theater that’s also dedicated to producing work for audiences and students in various school programs.

There are numerous parallels between the CTC and First Stage. One of them exists in Ann Joseph-Douglas’ background. During the pandemic, she directed a “radio play” of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible for First Stage, with students from the First Stage Young Ensemble filling the roles. While entertainment venues were closed during the opening months of the pandemic, viewers could “tune in” through their digital devices to hear this well-known play. At the time, First Stage administrators felt that such activities were a way of keeping the arts alive during an incredibly stressful time in Americans’ lives.

After directing many plays in her career, Joseph-Douglas admits that The Crucible remains one of her favorite plays of all time. She is very proud of her work and the work of her talented students in creating “a theatrical experience that focuses on story and dialogue” rather than some of the potential distractions of sets, costumes and lighting effects.

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Photo by Glen Stubbe

The Children's Theatre Company's Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress

Mathias Brinda and Joy Dolo in The Children's Theatre Company's ‘Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress’

First Stage Graduates Now Enrolled at University of Minnesota 

Today, at least two of the Milwaukee students who performed in The Crucible cast (during First Stage’s 2020-21 season) are never far from Joseph-Douglas’ mind. That’s because they are studying at the University of Minnesota, where her husband, Aaron Todd Douglas, is the director of the BFA program. She is delighted that she can keep in touch with the students vicariously, and she reports the two acting students are doing good work at the university. 

Joseph-Douglas can be forgiven for sounding like a proud parent. Along with her husband, she lives in nearby St. Paul with their two girls, ages 13 and 17. Although Joseph-Douglas describes her girls as “creative,” she says neither has shown an interest in performing onstage. The girls have seen firsthand what a haphazard life in the theater can be like for professional actors.

Even Joseph-Douglas, who considers herself “incredibly lucky” to be working at her current level of theater, didn’t start out at the top. As a graduate of UW-Stevens Point, Joseph-Douglas recalls that her early acting career often put her into the role of a teaching artist in schools and at summer camps.

For many years, Joseph-Douglas worked as a professional artist, educator and arts administrator in Chicago. While there, she worked closely with youth and teens at Lookingglass Theatre and Congo Square Theatre Company. As an actor, she has performed in productions at Goodman and Steppenwolf in Chicago, and at Milwaukee Rep. Before moving to the Minneapolis area, she was director of theater for the National High School Institute at Northwestern University. She is a founding member of Chicago’s Congo Square, where she also served in several administrative roles.

Despite her adult years in Chicago and Minneapolis, Joseph-Douglas says she still considers herself a “Milwaukee girl.”

Her exposure to the arts began early in life. At an arts-oriented Milwaukee elementary school and later at Roosevelt Creative Arts Middle School on Walnut Street, Joseph-Douglas learned much more than basic arts techniques. She was immersed in arts education, to the point where middle school field trips included visits to what was formerly called the Performing Arts Center (now the Marcus Performing Arts Center) to see touring productions of Annie and The King and I. There were also trips to Chicago by bus, to see Dreamgirls, The Wiz and Oliver!  

In middle school, students were encouraged to learn a musical instrument. Joseph-Douglas played the flute. “The arts were a big part of our family dynamic,” she says, noting that its influence also extended to her brother and sister. Her brother still lives and works (in construction) in the Milwaukee area. The kids grew up in the Riverwest neighborhood.

Joseph-Douglas graduated from Milwaukee’s Riverside High School, and then started her undergraduate schooling at UW-Stevens Point. She also has a MFA in acting from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.

Taking a Cue from Her Past Experiences in the Arts

All these experiences proved valuable in preparing her for her current role, she says. At CTC, she is in charge of the Bethune partnership, which now has teamed up with 32 area schools. The partnership provides all students with many arts experiences over the course of 30 weeks.

Recent changes to the program have been made to deal with students’ trauma related to the pandemic. “Our curriculum was developed with psychiatrists who specialize in crisis,” she says. “Students can face a lot of traumas during their school years, from dealing with a teacher’s strike to a situation where a student’s mother has Covid, or the student herself/himself comes down with Covid.” 

The program uses a variety of approaches to dealing with trauma. “We teach breathing exercises, in an attempt to make our school kids more resilient,” Joseph-Douglas says. “We also teach students to look differently at failure. They learn that failure can be a tool for furthering developmental growth.”

One of the main goals of Joseph-Douglas’ work is to help parents and other adults understand the importance of arts education. “Storytelling is as valid as other programs that focus on reading, math and science,” she says. Too often, she says, arts programs are on the chopping block when it comes time to trim school budgets. “Today is a pivotal moment,” she says. “We must commit to arts education as a way of connecting to our culture, our community and each other. We need to be proficient in these skills in order to accomplish other goals for these students.”

Dealing with Different Audience Dynamics in 2024

As is the case with many regional theaters nationwide, CTC is working to regain audiences lost during the pandemic pause. Joseph-Douglas credits the Minneapolis/St. Paul area as being “aware and supportive” of the performing arts, and that’s certainly true financially. Minnesota’s government spends almost $10 per capita on arts-related activities. In comparison, Wisconsin ranks dead last (50th) in per capita spending on the arts, amounting to a few cents per capita.

 “People are connecting with theater—down slightly from pre-pandemic levels in all of the performing arts—in a different way than they did pre-pandemic,” she says. “But it’s great to feel such overall support for what we do, and what we can bring to our community.”