Events Calendar

Next Actors: The Interview Project - Performance

Friday, August 7

2:00 pm

Location: Village Center Meeting Room (Lower Level)

 

small, easy, simple good: The Interview Project

Directed by Elyse Edelman, Ken Miller, and Jake Penner

About the Program

Next Actors is Next Act Theatre's completely free summer intensive for advanced high school theatre artists and recent graduates. Over four weeks, student actors work alongside professional directors to explore the art of documentary theatre. They learn to conduct interviews, shape transcripts into theatrical storytelling, and bring the real words of community members to life onstage. The program culminates in an original play created entirely by the ensemble and shared with audiences throughout Milwaukee.

About the Piece

Rather than focusing on the divisions that often define conversations about Milwaukee, this year's ensemble wanted to ask a different question: Where's the love that's holding Milwaukee together? The student actors set out to discover where love comes from, how people experience it, and the ways it shapes families, neighborhoods, and communities. They interviewed a remarkable cross-section of Milwaukee - from well-known voices like John McGivern and Christopher Gilbert to little league coaches, religious leaders, music teachers, and other community members from different corners of the city. Using the words from those conversations, they created an original play of monologues and vignettes that blend journalism with performance. The result is a theatrical mosaic of authentic voices that reflects Milwaukee back to itself.

Run Time: Approximately 1 hour.

Next Act Theatre is a professional theatre company located in Milwaukee's Walker's Point neighborhood, near the border of the Harbor District and just across the river from the Historic Third Ward. Next Actors is the theatre's free education program. Learn more about Next Act Theatre and Next Actors at www.nextact.org.