No better way to celebrate a new season than with a new play. The Milwaukee Repertory Theater is christening 2014-2015 in their intimate Stiemke Studio with the world premiere of after all the terrible things I do.
From the pen of award-winning playwright A. Rey Pamatmat, the piece doesn’t shy away from charged themes: prejudice, clashing cultures, pasts with secrets. Daniel—young, gay, aspiring writer—returns home to find himself. He takes a job in a local bookstore, run by Linda, who comes to this Midwestern town by way of the Philippines. Soon the sparks are flying.
The recent spate of articles decrying the nation’s endemic plague of bullying set Pamatmat on the path to after all the terrible things I do. The play began as “a study of bullies,” he explains. “Could I (and eventually the audience) recognize bullies as fellows, step into their shoes, and understand how their strengths and fears led them to act in ways I could not? Or are their actions so terrible that empathy for them is beyond my grasp?”
after all the terrible things I do runs Oct. 1 through Nov. 9. For tickets, call 414-224-9490 or visit milwaukeerep.com.
