Playwrights of color are in the spotlight in the new musical works series announced by Skylight Music Theatre. Dubbed “MKE MaKEs” for its goal to make Milwaukee the first city to premiere these newly developed musicals, the series is the first of a new annual playwriting competition. This year’s theme, which couldn’t be any more topical, is works written by “BIPOC” (Black Indigenous People of Color) playwrights.
“We just want to give a platform for underrepresented voices. If you look back on the past 10 best musical Tony Award winners, I believe Book of Mormon and Hamilton are the only shows written by people of color. Historically, artists of color are underrepresented in musical theater,” explains Michael Unger, Skylight’s artistic director. Hamilton, he says, perfectly represents the reason why Skylight wishes to support the artistic visions of writers of color: “The subject [of Hamilton] focused on major characters who were white, but how brilliant it was to have it completely told it utilizing the hip-hop genre and a cast of such monumental diversity. It is a brilliant new perspective for what is conventionally a story focusing on the white founding fathers of this country.”
With a name like “MKE MaKEs,” it might be counter-intuitive, but contestants can be from anywhere in the United States, and Unger's ambitions include reaching out to writers outside of Wisconsin. The objective is to bring national talents to Brew City, so their works will be given world-premiere representations on our stages sometime next spring.
Unger states that the series itself is still very much undergoing development: “We are committed to doing a reading of one or more musicals that we pick from this group of submissions that we will evaluate. Our purpose here is to give it the first step and launch its journey. If a piece is viable and successful and we connect to it, it is our hope that it would really be the first step on a pathway to a workshop, and perhaps a full production at Skylight or elsewhere. For now we’re really focusing on the first reading. But we want to help you make your musical come to life.”
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Playwrights who wish to submit their work to Skylight have until Sunday, Nov. 1, to do so. They can find the submission form on Skylight’s website. They have to describe the work, submit 15-20 pages of the script, as well as recordings of three songs. Other requirements are that the work must not have been previously fully produced, and photos and bios of all authors—at least one of which must be a BIPOC—are required.
“In Milwaukee, we have a very dedicated, phenomenally talented family of artists of color. I feel like we can celebrate that diversity and inclusion, and it’s our duty to do so,” Unger says. “I hope that this kind of initiative and all the work we do within the diversity sphere would help to expand our audience. We would, of course, welcome as much diversity in our audience as possible.”
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