Suzan Fete Bids Goodbye with ‘Barefoot in the Park’

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Photo courtesy of Renaissance Theaterworks

Suzan Fete on stage

Suzan Fete on stage

From almost the beginning, Renaissance Theaterworks insisted on producing no more than three shows per season. Artistic Director Suzan Fete was there from the start, cofounding the company in 1993 with four other women: Marie Kohler, Raeleen McMillion, Jennifer Rupp and Michele Traband. “Quality is the largest part of it,” Fete says, as well as scheduling time in the space they share with Next Act Theatre. Earlier this season, Renaissance staged Joanna Murray-Smith’s Switzerland and Hansol Jung’s Cardboard Piano. This month, Renaissance will conclude 2025-26 with Barefoot in the Park, Fete’s final play before her retirement.

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Photo courtesy of Renaissance Theaterworks

Suzan Fete - Renaissance Theaterworks

Suzan Fete (left) in front of the Renaissance Theaterworks sign

Fete had been on stage in Chicago and Cleveland before moving to Milwaukee where she co-started Renaissance under the umbrella of “Theatre X Presents the Women,” an annual program by Milwaukee’s venturesome theater troupe. Renaissance soon grew into its own nonprofit organization, but its mission has never changed. “We bemoaned the lack of opportunities for women as directors and playwrights and wanted to produce the very best we are capable of and provide opportunities for women on stage and off,” Fete says.

Although Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park, memorably adapted for the 1967 Jane Fonda and Robert Redford film, might seem like a departure for Renaissance, it features a strong female lead, and was something “I’ve been talking about doing for years!” Fete says. “Comedies are the hardest to do. You have to do all the things you do in dramas, but the pace is important.”

Laughs and Mishaps

The story of newlywedded bliss and mishaps, Barefoot in the Park is an autobiographical and easily relatable comedy, drawn by Simon from the early days of his first marriage. Renaissance is staging Barefoot as a mid-‘60s period piece, complete with rotary phone. “The constrains of that time add to the humor,” Fete says, “People didn’t usually live together or have sex before marriage,” Fete says, leaving the couple unprepared. “And suddenly, it’s ‘Oh, I actually married a human being with their own mannerisms and foibles and ways of doing things.’”

She references Simon’s remarks on the play in his memoir, Rewrites. “He said that in the first scene, we see how much the couple love each other—and for the rest of the play, they’re not very nice to each other. The audience never worries that they won’t end up together, but we enjoy watching them struggle. The play says if you can move through it with patience, that’s what love is.”

Renaissance will recreate Simon’s precise set description of a worn-out apartment at the top of five flights of stairs with two additional steps up from the doorway, additional steps to the bedroom, an exploding stove in the kitchen and no tub in the bathroom. “But it’s also paradise,” Fete adds. “Their first home together!”

In addition to their three-show season, Renaissance organizes the annual Br!nk New Play Festival, which solicits scripts from women across the region and workshops them into world premiere readings.

To find her replacement as artistic director, Renaissance has hired a search firm, Avra, and has received more than 100 applications from places as far away as South Africa. Fete’s retirement plans include a Danube cruise with her husband and freelancing as a director. “This has been an all-consuming job. Having a chance to do more gardening would be fun!” she says. “But I’ve been the luckiest girl in the world with the unbelievable privilege of being artistic director of Renaissance Theaterworks, getting to do what I love and going to work each day with my best friends. Leaving will be hard.”

Renaissance Theaterworks will present Barefoot in the Park, March 22-April 12 at the theater at 255 S. Water St. For tickets, visit rtwmke.org/shows/barefoot-in-the-park