Rep switches to 5-show season
The Milwaukee Repertory Theater will use socially distanced seating for season.
Bumping its previously announced schedule a year down the road, the Milwaukee Repertory Theater now plans to perform five shows with small casts in what it calls the 2020-’21 Season Reset.
The Rep’s plan is to seat audience members in socially distanced ways and to limit capacity to 35%, the theater company said. Face masks will be required.
Also, every ticketholder can choose to watch a high-definition virtual performance instead of attending in person, even at the last minute.
Subscribers and ticketholders for the previously scheduled 2020-’21 season, including the musical “Titanic,” will have those tickets rolled over to the 2021-’22 season. The Rep is now selling Reset Passes for the new 2020’21 productions.
Under current COVID-19 protocols, the Rep couldn’t produce the originally planned season safely, but it also didn’t want to give up the “exciting, energetic” lineup it planned, executive director Chad Bauman said, explaining the decision to defer “Titanic” and other shows to 2021-’22.
The reset season is contingent on the Rep reaching agreement with Actor’s Equity Association and other trade unions. Bauman said that process is under way, with the Rep submitting a 26-page COVID-19 safety plan for the first production.
These changes mean that Rep won’t perform its lavish annual production of “A Christmas Carol” at the Pabst Theater this year. But fear not, Scrooge will show his curmudgeonly face.
The Rep’s 2020-’21 Season Reset includes:
“Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol,” Dec. 1-24. Quadracci Powerhouse. Former Rep mainstay Lee E. Ernst, who was going to play Scrooge in the regular “Carol,” will play all of the roles in this one-actor version, assisted by an onstage Foley artist who will create sound effects live.
“Ella Fitzgerald: First Lady of Song,” Feb. 16-March 14, 2021, Quadracci Powerhouse. Alexis J. Roston will sing Fitzgerald’s music, accompanied by a small onstage band. She’s performed at the Rep in “The Color Purple” and “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill.”
“McGuire,” March 23-April 18, 2021, Quadracci Powerhouse. Tony Award winner and Thomas More High School grad Anthony Crivello will reprise his performance as Marquette basketball coach Al McGuire in this one-actor play, written by the late broadcaster Dick Enberg.
“Antonio’s Song / I Was Dreaming of a Son,” April 7-May 2, 2021, Stiemke Studio. Actor Antonio Edwards Suarez will perform in this personal one-actor show, which he developed with poetic dramatist Dael Orlandersmith. Artistic director Mark Clements directs; it’s a passion project for him.
“Nina Simone: Four Women,” April 27-May 23, 2021, Quadracci Powerhouse. In Christina Ham’s musical play, four women sing and represent different aspects of Simone’s psyche as she responds to the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963, which killed four girls.
Dates and programs are subject to change.
Due to cancellations wrought by the
COVID-19 pandemic, the Rep lost $1.5 million last season, according to Bauman. Even after reducing its budget for the reset year from $14.3 million to $7 million, the Rep anticipates a loss of $6 million for the 2020-’21 season, he said.
The theater has launched the Rep Rising Fundraising Campaign to support the reset season, with Rep trustees matching new and increased gifts up to $500,000.
HR manager Emily Hill and production manager Jared Clarkin have taken specific training to become the Rep’s COVID-19 safety coordinators, Bauman said. In addition to many other sanitary steps, the Rep has upgraded the filters in its HVAC system and will use an electrostatic system to disinfect and sanitize its public spaces.
Since halting public performances in March, the Rep has posted a stream of online content on its Facebook page, including short commissioned performances written by Lauren Gunderson and other leading contemporary playwrights.
Now, under the Soundstage banner, it will produce four audio plays written and designed by Marisa Carr and Andre Pluess set in locations within walking distance of the Rep: a romantic comedy set in the Milwaukee Public Library’s Central Library, a historical comedy set along the Riverwalk, a ghost story at the Pfister Hotel and a drama at the War Memorial. These audio plays will be posted during the fall.