The Milwaukee 2024 – 2025 art season was simply remarkable. I was continually surprised and challenged by the art, music, dance, and theater events that I was fortunate to experience. And I hope that it also helped me to improve my understanding of the arts and increase my ability to see. I know that I was able to expand my coverage of theater as the Milwaukee Chamber Theatre and Next Act Theatre invited me to participate in their seasons. And I want to thank the artists, performers, directors, art admins, and university professors who encouraged and supported me in 2024 – 2025. It let me know that I was adding value and moving in the right direction with my efforts at An Intuitive Perspective.
So I felt a great deal of excitement and anticipation as the 2025 – 2026 season got underway. And I was off to a great start with Next Act’s Sanctuary City and Vanguard Milwaukee’s Presentation of Lungs. And then I was called away for a family emergency and missed a few other season openers and felt a profound sense of loss. And it just reinforced in me that art is important: to the individual and to the community. I am home now and intend to jump back into the season with both feet this weekend. So for those readers looking forward to a review of your favorite theater company, I am sorry. And to those organizations looking forward to my support, I am sorry. I may get called away again, so if I seem to be missing in action, please bear with me.
So this seems like a good place to add these thoughts. Milwaukee’s arts scene is incredibly vibrant and diverse and the level of professionalism is truly remarkable. But please don’t take it for granted. As Wisconsin has slipped to 50th place in public support of the arts, please support your favorite art groups by attending every event that interests you. And donate to them in any manner and any means that you can. It is important.
Red Bull Theater is an Off Broadway Theater organization that specializes in producing inviting presentations of the classics, Shakespeare, Moliere, Ben Jonson, etc. both in full blown stage presentations and readings. Some times they also put up video versions so that those of us in the hinterlands can enjoy their performances.
I discovered Red Bull during the pandemic. Unwilling to surrender to the lock outs and stay at home orders, Red Bull put together a remarkable string of Zoom readings with each actor working from their safe space. Each offering saw not only better and better acting but increasing skills at making Zoom imitate live readings. The backgrounds became uniform across the platform and costuming got a bit more elaborate…and they obviously put time into rehearsing ‘passing’ items back and forth and displaying ‘faux signs’ of affection. I wrote about a number of their Zoomies at the time. I was wholly entertained!
So needless to say, I still stream as many of their video presentations as I can…and I am a subscriber to their email newsletters. So earlier this year I got the announcement about soliciting new plays for their 15th Annual Short Play Festival. They were looking for 10 minute or less plays to read at the festival that supported their mission of classical works and fit in the theme of Defiance. I happily reproduced their press release as a public service announcement here on AIP and immediately forgot about it.
But my creative, or should we say pesky, subconscious wasn’t willing to let it go that easily. So about a week or so later, I started being awoken with snippets of text and plot lines that persisted into my waking moments. Now, Red Bull wasn’t the only driving force here. I had just completed auditing an English course at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee titled modern drama. We read and discussed a number of provocative plays including David Henry Hwang’s Yellow Face, Larissa FastHorse’s The Thanksgiving Play, Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog, August Wilson’s Two Trains Running, and others…so I have been heard to exclaim that I was under the influence. Thank you Professor Berkowitz!
So…where do I start…and where did I start then? As I said I was awoken with text. That isn’t unusual for me. When I toiled as a computer programmer ideas or bug fixes often would awaken me mid-sleep. And since then a number of poems have appeared and the core for scene one and scene last for my WIP cabaret piece. I just need the middle 90 minutes. LOL. My goal is to finish it this year. So yes, the outline popped into my head one night and I tossed and turned for several more to flesh it out and name characters and fill in some details. I kept telling myself to put it away but I resisted or persisted. And I completed it.
What’s it about? Well it plays off those modern plays that I read about gender and environment and character development and contemporary theater practices. And the premise is around auditions for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. A defiant male actor auditions for the role of Juliet. So this opens the whole dialogue about the possibility of theater being a gender neutral playing field, contemporary presentation vs. practices at the Globe, and some other contemporary societal background noise. For a play of just a few pages I think I captured some angst, some defiance, and there is certainly some humor. And I cheated (?) by pulling a small speech from Shakespeare’s piece for our auditioner to read. I titled the play What Light?
Did he get the part? No. Was my play one of the six selected? No.
But I learned a lot. I had a lot of fun. I pushed myself outside my usual comfort zone on a national level instead of just the home town, although few beyond those of you reading this will ever know. And I thought about a lot of things that I don’t normally consider. Should the character’s names mean something other than just a name? In this case I gave them names that mean something in the narrative. Well at least in my mind. How does a playwright comment in the play to the actors and director about on stage activities or gender/race/age assignments for the roles or scenic/set/siting without stepping on their toes in performance? I may have taken a swipe at the Milwaukee Rep’s Romeo and Juliet too but don’t tell anyone. And I learned about how difficult it is to write voices and words for others but how much fun it was when I was done and I submitted it.
Will I do it again? I can’t be sure but I won’t rule it out. But I am officially a playwright!
I know that I have friends out there who are playwrights…so check this out!
We are looking for work with a classical inspiration. Six brand new short plays will be selected from this open-submission process to be presented alongside new plays from commissioned writers, Will Eno (The Realistic Joneses, Thom Pain (Based on Nothing)) and Anna Ziegler (The Last Match, Actually). Red Bull Theater’s 15th Annual Short New Play Festival is scheduled for Monday, June 23, 2025. This year’s theme? DEFIANCE
“Happy New Year! Each year for our Short New Play Festival, we look for fresh and exhilarating work with classical inspiration. This year’s theme is DEFIANCE. But that’s just a jumping off point. We hope that playwrights from around the world will respond to our mission to revitalize the classics. Writers are encouraged to riff on a classical character, borrow a classical setting, or be inspired to create a brand new style of dramatic verse. Finding inspiration from classics beyond the traditional Western canon is welcome. Through this festival, we hope to cultivate dialogues with classical theater in a multitude of creative and surprising ways. It’s a new year – time to write something new?” – Jesse Berger | Founder & Artistic Director
OPEN SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Using the theme DEFIANCE, write a short play that: makes use of heightened language, and/or is in conversation with a classical theme, style, or story from any cultural tradition; is no more than 10 minutes in length; is self-contained with a beginning, middle and end; is an original, unpublished, and never previously produced new work. Get the complete guidelines.
Selected playwrights will receive a staged reading of their submission as part of the festival on Monday, June 23, 2025, performed by an ensemble company of some of New York City’s finest actors, with a commissioning fee and travel reimbursement to attend the festival, rehearsal, and performance in New York City.
And I wouldn’t mind hearing from any of you who might enter. If you don’t want to comment in public, you can reach out to me at ed.heinzelman@anintuitiveperspective.com
