In case you haven't heard, APT was awarded the reginal theater Tony this year, which is very exciting and much deserved. They opened in 1980, with the original amphitheater up on the hill, added the indoor Touchstone Theatre in 2009, and fully remodeled the Hill Theatre for the 2017 season. Their current season includes eight plays performed in rep from June through early October, with one bonus play performed indoors in late October and November. A company of 50 actors (50!), most of whom perform in two or sometimes even three plays, embody the worlds of these very different stories. And then there are the designers, directors, and crew who make these worlds come alive, no matter the weather, switching sets around at least daily. Just the logistics alone of making all these pieces come together is mind-boggling, and then you add incredible artistry and attention to detail on top of it. The only surprise is that they didn't win the Tony sooner!
Our first day at APT was a two-show Friday, beginning with a 10:30 student matinee. Both shows were "up the hill" in the outdoor amphitheater, about a quarter mile walk up a hill through the woods and prairie grasses (shuttle buses provided, as well as bug spray). We saw both of this season's Shakespeare plays in one day, and both were rained on, but only for part of the show, and at APT, the show must go on (except in steady rain or storms, more on that later). These two plays made for a wonderful pairing; both are about love, the foolish and heartbreaking side, as well as the life-changing and wonderful side. As they sang in the first play, "love is like sunshine, love is like rain" (so appropriate for the day). Read on for a brief summary of each show, and click on the show title to view the full credits.
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| The Two "Gentleman" of Verona (photo by Dan Norman) |
This Two "Gents" is so charming, and a perfect way to begin the weekend and kickstart that magical feeling. Aaron Posner (whose Chekhov reimaginings we've seen in #TCTheater lately) has set the story sometime in the early 20th Century with a bluegrass band and an Americana feel. The love stories are so sweet, as are the friendships in this unlikely eventual foursome. The problematic ending, in which Julia (#TCTheater actor Maggie Cramer) takes Proteus (Jonathan Gardner) back after he totally forgets about her and falls in love with his bust buddy Valentine's (Colin Covert) love Silvia (Ama J. Kowunu), receives perhaps the best resolution I've seen. She forgives him, but not without making him pay, and reminding him that he has work to do. The addition of bluegrass-tinged songs (with additional lyrics by Posner) throughout the show enhances the storytelling, sung by the ensemble and played by an onstage three-piece band (Nate Burger, Tim Gittings, and Elleon Dobias, who also play characters in the play), interacting with the story and the characters in a way that almost makes this feel like a musical (which APT does not do). The entire cast is great, particularly the young lovers, the outlaws are hilarious, and the dog Crab is played by a human - Elizabeth Ledo stealing scenes as she gives this dog so much personality with no words. This is a really fun and playful adaptation, that still retains much of the original story and text, rearranged to make it feel fresh and modern, focusing on love, friendship, repentance, and radical forgiveness.
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| a wrestling match in the duke's court in As You Like It (photo by Michael Brosilow) |
This is one of the many Shakespeare plays in which people run off into the woods, which are perfectly suited to APT like nowhere else. Here the banished duke (by his brother duke who still reigns) has taken up residence in the Forest of Arden, with characters entering from and exiting through the literal forest that surround the theater, which makes the story and setting come alive. We move from the duke's court to this forest when cousins Rosalind, disguised as a man, and Celia run off to the woods and meet the country dwellers. Long time company member Laura Rook directs the play with a fairly traditional setting in Elizabethan times, but it's still full of lightness and humor and love and music (played by the same musicians as Two "Gents"), and features the largest cast of any show this season. The previous play's dog, Elizabeth Ledo, is now the jester, Samantha Newcomb and Sola Thompson play the close-as-sisters cousins, who fall in love with a pair of brothers (Derrick Moore and Rasell Holt), charming couples both. They're joined in the final wedding scene (presided over by the god Hymen that floats through the audience with a huge puppet head lit up like the moon) by two more couples, including the jester who has fallen for a local girl, and a couple of shepherds (one played by #TCTheater actor Emma Schuld in her APT debut). This play features one of Shakespeare's most famous monologues, that begins "all the world's a stage," well delivered by long time company member David Daniel as the melancholy Jacques lounging on the mossy green stairs, which span the stage and replaced the wooden porch and rustic sign/balcony of Two "Gents." The parallels between the two plays were apparent seeing them back-to-back - comedy, love stories, friendship, a woman disguised as a man, music - each with a different flavor.
On our second day at APT, we had plans to see the outdoor matinee, and an indoor show in the evening. The storms finally caught up to us, and the matinee of Sueño (translated and adapted by José Rivera from the 17th Century Spanish play Life is a Dream, directed by Marcela Lorca, former Artistic Director of Ten Thousand Things) was cancelled. Some brave souls had already made the wet trek up the hill, some played the odds and stayed home, others were gathered in the shelter of the gateway (box office and gift store) waiting for the announcement. We were in the latter group, and when the announcement was made shortly after the 1pm showtime, it came with a mixture of disappointment and relief. We spent the afternoon perusing the shops in Spring Green (which had a banner day) and rested before our comfortably indoor evening show.
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| Colleen Madden, James Ridge, and chairs (photo by Michael Brosilow) |
Written by one of the founding fathers of absurdist theater, this is a weird one! But delightfully so. I'm still not sure what it's about, or what it means (maybe nothing?), but it is a master class in directing and acting. Because while I didn't always know what the 75-year married couple was saying, the actors portraying them (real life married couple Colleen Madden and James Ridge), absolutely knew what they were saying, which kind of made it make sense. This is primarily a two-hander (with a ridiculous cameo by long time company member Nate Burger to end the play), and these two are so in it. In the intimate Touchstone Theatre, we can see the light in their eyes, the expression on their faces, in great detail, and there's so much emotion there. The general plot of the story is that these two characters are hosting some sort of event, and as each invisible (to us) guest arrives, they bring more chairs, until the once empty stage is cluttered with chairs. As they talk to and describe these guests, we can almost picture them. The old couple bickers and disagrees, but also expresses great love, the love of decades, and keep talking about an orator who will speak and explain everything (a subtitle for this play could be: Waiting for the Orator). There are some great effects of lighting and movement of the white curtains draped across the back of the stage, and the actors wear white face paint and extreme make-up typical of absurdist theater, while moving through the aisles and all around the theater for an almost immersive experience.
Our last day at APT included two indoor shows, so the weather didn't concern us. So of course, the clouds finally parted and the sun came out. While plays in the Touchstone are always fantastic, and often feature newer or more experimental smaller cast shows, in a way it feels like any other theater. The magic of APT happens up the hill. (The two other plays on the hill this season are Uncle Vanya, which had already closed, and The Matchmaker, which Ernest Goes to the Theatre saw). But we still had an amazing day of theater, and enjoyed the repertory nature of APT in seeing now familiar faces in new roles.
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| Casey and Diana (photo by Michael Brosilow) |
This beautiful new play premiered in 2023, and I hope to see it produced in the Twin Cities sometime soon. Based on the real-life event when Princess Diana visited an AIDS hospice facility in Toronto known as Casey House in 1991, it tells the story of people facing death. As nurse Vera (Elizabeth Ledo again, in a grounded and real performance much different from her comedic ones) says, they are all there to help these men die, in the most comfortable and cared for way possible. Volunteer Marjorie (Colleen Madden, almost unrecognizable from the previous show) has recently lost her best friend to AIDS, and butts heads with Vera because she wants to help them live, in particular a young patient she has become attached to. The play is brilliantly written by Canadian playwright Nick Green, interspersing Diana's visit with the week-long lead-up to it. For these very sick patients, seven days is a long time, and some of them might not make it, but the idea of Diana coming to see them gives them something to hold on to. We're introduced to two patients - Thomas (La Shawn Banks in a lovely performance), who has outlived several roommates, and his new roommate Andre (Joe Meyer fully embodying this sweet young man). Thomas is estranged from his sister (Dee Dee Batteast), who is trying to make amends before it's too late, but he just wants to focus on Diana. The tension of the play is these complicated relationships among family and caregivers, and whether or not these men will live to see Diana. At some point (spoiler alert) we realize that the Diana we have been seeing is only in Thomas' mind, but she does eventually show up, with Di's '90s hair instead of the '80s hair Thomas had been imagining (Hannah Ruwe plays Diana and fills the iconic shoes well). But the play is less about a princess than it is about the dignity of death, and seeing these AIDS patients as humans like Diana did (which was so important at that time), telling the world that they matter, that no one is above compassion (as Thomas says in the play). And maybe Diana could do that, because that's what she wanted too, living in her formal and restricted royal world. This play is so funny and moving and smart and thought-provoking, and as an added bonus, we attended an ASL-interpreted performance, with actor/interpreters Caden Marshall and Joshua Castille directly in our eyeline, so it was like watching two performances in one.
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| Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea (photo by Dan Norman) |
While we were enjoying a picnic lunch on the APT groups, with the sun finally breaking through the clouds, the crew transformed the Touchstone Theatre from a homey yet clinical room with hospital beds and cozy blankets on a raised platform, to the magical yet earthy world of this play, with a circular deck around the space, and three oddly shaped bookshelves containing props and art pieces representing the ancestral lineage of the characters. Dontrell (a sweet and earnest Derrick Moore) is a smart young man, about to start college at Johns Hopkins University, who dreams. When he dreams of his ancestor on a slave ship, he decides he wants to go to sea to connect with him. He asks his cousin Shea (Jazzma Pryor) to procure him a wetsuit, and finds a swimming teacher in lifeguard Erika (Jamie Herb), which develops into a sweet and innocent romance. His parents (Dee Dee Batteast and Gavin Lawrence, familiar to #TCTheater audiences) and annoyed younger sister (Samantha Newcomb) are not thrilled with the plan, but his friend Robby, almost like a brother (Rasell Holt, reuniting the brothers from As You Like It) supports him. Dontrell's journey into the sea is so beautifully done, as is his encounter with his ancestors, singing and dancing in traditional African dress. The play is lyrical and magical, but also grounded in the humanity of these characters and this family, which feels so real in their interactions with each other, the way they argue with but fiercely love each other. It feels communal (even including a singalong) and almost sacred, a beautiful thing to witness and a satisfying conclusion to the weekend.
I know this sounds cheesy, but when thinking about an overall theme of the shows I saw last weekend at APT, I couldn't come up with anything other than, simply, love. Romantic love, both new and old, sibling love, friendship love, familial love, ancestral love, forgiving love, nature love, tough love, generational love, caregiver love, even the love people have for a princess, an icon, and she for the people. What better theme for a theater oasis in the middle of the woods, and maybe everyone who experiences it, the hundreds of people who work at APT and the tens of thousands of visitors, will take that love with them into the real world.
When you go to APT (and you really must go to APT), there is much to do in Spring Green, although it is a small town of 1500 people. There are cute shops and a handful of restaurants (reservations recommended on weekend evenings), hiking and water activities on the Wisconsin River (weather permitting), and several hotels, which you'll also want to book early (we stayed at the Round Barn Lodge, which is clean and has a pool, free coffee, and onsite Mexican restaurant). This year I finally toured influential 20th Century architect Frank Lloyd Wrights' home Taliesin, and it's definitely a must see. A few years ago I also visited the nearby House on the Rock, housing collections of an eccentric millionaire that defies explanation. And of course, one of the highlights of any visit to Wisconsin - cheese.
Thanks to American Players Theatre for another magical weekend, see you next year!
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| Ernie, Julie, Jill, and Carol meet Tony |