Diary Of A Wimpy Kid, The Musical at First Stage

Did you ever dream that you fell asleep doing your homework and awaken inside of your spiral bound notebook surrounded by your own scrawls and doodles? Probably not but that is the wonderland presented to us by Scenic Designer, Casey Price! A wondrous floor and back drop and proscenium defined by college ruled blue lines, red margin delimiters, and the aforementioned doodles greet us as we enter the theater. And the theme is elaborately maintained as the blue ruled motif appears across household appliances, school lockers, and nearly every other stage prop in sight. What absolute fun!

And Diary of a Wimpy Kid is probably the most musicy musical that I have seen this season. The story is told almost exclusively through song and dance, rapidly moving from solo to small group to ensemble pieces that kept the children in the audience mesmerized. Look away a moment and you will miss something…something wonderful!

So that brings me to the amazing work by Director Julie Woods-Robinson, Music Director Paula Tillen, Choreographer Molly Rhode, and again Scenic Designer Casey Price. This is a non-stop wonder, and the cast covers a lot of ground and moves a lot of props and furnishings, on top of the singing and dancing. Yet everything moves smoothly and subtly and brings the story to life! You will be amazed on how often the stage transforms from home, to yard, to class room, to kitchen, to school yard, to bedroom, to best friends room, and back and back again throughout this sixty minute presentation (there is a short intermission midway).

As I said, the children in the audience were mesmerized by this musical. Literally edge of their seats in many cases and despite the majority of the audience being youngsters, I seldom heard the usual exclamations that I often experience at other First Stage plays. And quite frankly I was feeling it more than usual as well. This is recommended for children ages 5-6, 7-9 & 10-12 and of course teens and adults.

And as I’ve said the singing and choreography are truly amazing here. But let’s get into the story a bit. Greg Heffley is the Wimpy Kid of record and feels the outsider in both his family and school. The middle child at home he’s the brunt of teasing by his older brother and a bit unseen since his parents are doting on his younger brother. Such is often the dynamics in a family and it is handled very well here. And then Greg gets to move up to middle school and hopes to reset his place in his peer group with new friends, new experiences, and a new environment. It doesn’t always go too well. So we get to share in his disappointments but trust me, later there will be some victories to savor as well. The spoken dialogue here is often between Greg and his friends in one on one conversations but more often, Greg explains directly to the audience what is happening, or how he feels, or fills us in on a little of the back story. You won’t miss anything if you keep your eyes and ears open.

PRP_4446: Ryan Stepanski in DIARY OF A WIMPY KID THE MUSICAL. Greg Heffley in the Cheese Cast
First Stage, 2024. Photo by Paul Ruffolo.

The play relies on the first book in The Wimpy Kid series for most of the story, but some bits are from later books in the series. Do you have to be familiar with The Wimpy Kid stories to enjoy the play? Oh heavens no, the story is told clearly, there are no insider plots, and there is plenty of humor peppered throughout the dialogue and songs that everyone will be laughing out loud. And yes there is plenty of applause after the big numbers. But those of us who have read the series will get a kick out of some of the stories and gags maybe a bit more and we will be eagerly anticipating some of the events about to be dramatized. But dare I bring up the cheese?

Harper Fornstedt in DIARY OF A WIMPY KID THE MUSICAL. Greg Heffley in the Middle Cast.
First Stage, 2024. Photo by Paul Ruffolo.

Just in case you wonder, the first ensemble piece that opens Act II after the intermission, Animal Heart, is my favorite. Other than just the joyous fun, it is also a bit of a send up of Euro-pop stylistic conventions! Go William Swoboda as Joshie (also Rodrick Heffley as part of the Cheese Cast), a very credible Euro-pop star indeed!

And also part of the Cheese cast, Ryan Stepanski elicited all of the appropriate smiles, shrugs, sighs, exclamations, and excitement inhabited in the Wimpy Kid! Great job.

Middle Cast in DIARY OF A WIMPY KID THE MUSICAL. First
Stage, 2024. Photo by Paul Ruffolo.

Now if you aren’t familiar with First Stage’s staging techniques, they use two full cast of young people. So I experienced the Cheese Cast and the alternates are known as the Middle Cast. So depending on which show you attend, you may see a different cast than I experienced…but your experience will be just as enchanting. So you may want to check the cast list if you are hoping to see a particular actor before ordering tickets.

Cheese Cast in DIARY OF A WIMPY KID THE MUSICAL. First
Stage, 2024. Photo by Paul Ruffolo.

Now, this hadn’t crossed my mind until Saturday as I was heading home…but Diary of a Wimpy Kid has sixteen youth characters on stage…so with two casts, that’s thirty two young performers that need to be costumed. And I bet the chances of the actors in each role being the same size is slim to none…so how does Costume Designer Jason Orlenko keep their wits about them and get this all done?? Plus the two adult actors who play multiple roles…right? Wow, just wow.

And two notes: Greg Heffley, Wimpy Kid or no, had the best black high tops on stage…I was a little jealous, or the 12 year old in me was at least.

AND: Greg wants you to know, IT’S NOT A DIARY, IT’S A JOURNAL!!

Karen Estrada (bottom left), Harper Fornstedt (center), Becket Patterson
(left), Todd Denning (center), Alex Radtke (right) in DIARY OF A WIMPY KID THE
MUSICAL. First Stage, 2024. Photo by Paul Ruffolo.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Musical runs through May 5, 2024 at the Todd Wehr Theater in the Marcus Performing Arts Center. More information and ticket information can be found here!

Extra credit reading? The Program! and Enrichment Guide

With ’50 Paintings’, Has The Milwaukee Art Museum Finally Confirmed That Painting Is Dead?

or as the handout suggests: “Explore recent works by 50 painters defining their field”.

full foldout view of catalog for 50 Paintings

50 Paintings…by 50 Artists…created in the past 5 years. So a bold and daring survey of contemporary painting by the Milwaukee Art Museum…something not necessarily expected from a regional art museum. But let’s face it, the average museum goer probably doesn’t visit local art galleries so isn’t exposed to contemporary work. And not only should we give kudos for MAM for putting on this show, but for also giving it the full PR and advertising support that they give to their blockbuster shows.

And at the time of this writing, MAM has a brief introduction to the show and I believe all of the images from the show on their web page. Here’s the link!!!! But let me share the museum’s statement around the show (just in case the link is removed at some point):

The landmark survey 50 Paintings features works created within the last five years by 50 international artists, highlighting the artistic trends in practice today. With paintings by artists including Amy Sherald, Cinga Samson, GaHee Park, Nicole Eisenman, Cecily Brown, and Peter Barrickman, the exhibition celebrates the medium’s continued relevance and aesthetic range, and invites visitors to engage in close looking and formulate their own assessments of trends in contemporary painting.

The 50 works presented in the exhibition demonstrate myriad approaches to the medium. Painting—as a form, a language, a practice—is the focus, and the survey format underscores the many concepts and strategies present-day artists employ. 50 Paintings offers visitors 50 distinct opportunities to experience this traditional art form shaped by the imaginations of artists influencing the direction of painting today.

50 Paintings was co-curated by Margaret Andera, senior curator of contemporary art, and Michelle Grabner, artist, curator, and Crown Family Professor of Art and Chair of Painting and Drawing at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

So thank you Margaret Andera and Michelle Grabner for taking on this daunting task.

“…and invites visitors to engage in close looking and formulate their own assessments of trends in contemporary painting.” Perfect…so I was excited to see this show. And with 50 artists each having only one piece on display, I expected a very engaging show. But I don’t think that it is. Given one piece per artist, every piece would be the artist’s best piece from the period. No, I didn’t expect an ‘Armory Show’, but usually any and every show that I see, whether old master or contemporary gallery or even art fair, presents something that inspires me in some way. That just didn’t happen here. And I spent some time looking at it…at least an hour on my first visit. And I photographed some of the work that I thought worked and some of the work that didn’t. And I was disappointed and thinking that maybe I had an off day, I revisited the show and spent some more time with the work and took a few more photos. But my reaction was the same. On this second visit I spent about 20 minutes with the art before a museum employee said to me, you’ve spent some time looking at this show, what do you think…and I replied with a variation of my statement in the headline, that after decades of the art press and art critics claiming that painting was dead, the museum had finally proven it with this show.

Now, just because this is a show of contemporary painting, don’t be fooled into thinking that the artists are minty fresh MFA graduates. No, the painters here have had decades of experience, have certainly considered western art history, have dabbled in or played with the ‘isms’ of the 20th Century, and have certainly been influenced by other contemporary art. Just a quick scan of the brochure would indicate the youngest artist was born in 1990. So certainly this cohort has selected the media, methods, and styles that give voice to their vision.

[UPDATE: March 21, 2024: I originally viewed the show on Thursday March 14, 2024. Over the weekend I talked with a painter who had seen it on Friday. Then I revisited the show on Sunday March 17th. The painter read this article after I posted it last night and wondered why I wasn’t more direct in writing about the show compared to what I had said in conversation. So: I think that there is a lot of bad painting in this show. Not in the sense of the Bad Painting movement of the 1970s, although one or two of these paintings might fit into that genre. I am not sure that was intentional. But bad painting. I don’t see the craftsmanship that I would expect from work in a museum show. I don’t see the design or mastery of the media that I expected. Technique seems to be lacking. Color, although abundant, doesn’t work for me. Some of the paintings seem to be overworked to the point the life has been taken out of them. To me it seems that The Emperor Has No Clothes.]

One interesting side note. The brochure also includes responses from the artists to a number of questions posed to them. They make interesting reading but they were allowed to reply anonymously. I am not sure why anonymous was the way to go, but after reading the responses, I would have been very interested in tying them back to the actual paintings to see how the artist was actually articulating their thought(s). Here is the full spread of the answers. Hopefully you will be able to enlarge it enough to read. If not, I will also include the half page versions at the end.

anonymous replies from the artists to questions posed about painting (from the show brochure)

I encourage the Milwaukee Art Museum to continue curating similar surveys in the future. Maybe every three to five years? It is a worthwhile endeavor…

As I said earlier, the paintings from this show can be seen here for as long at the page is available on the Milwaukee Art Museum web page. But I am going to include a few of the photos that I took here as well. My best photos but a combination of paintings that I liked and didn’t like. I am not going to say which is which.

Cinga Samson (South African, b. 1986), Okwe Nkunzana 6, 2021
April Gornik (American, b. 1953), Study for Storm Suspended by Light, 2022
Angela Dufresne (American, b. 1969), Acid Queen, 2022
Cecily Brown (British, b. 1969), Pretty Stories and Funny Pictures, 2022
Lisa Yuskavage (American, b. 1962), Night Classes, 2020
Brad Kahlhamer (American b. 1956), 11:59 to Mesa (SRP), 2023
Carmen Neely (American, b. 1987), another way to imagine your details, 2023
Caitlin Lonegan (American, b. 1982), Untitled (CL 2022.03), 2022
Josephine Halvorson (American, b. 1981), Last Words, 2022
Sarah Morris (American, b. England 1967), Springpoint [Spiderweb], 2022
Paul P. (Canadian, b. 1977), Untitled, 2020

and as promised, the two other views of the anonymous responses to questions about painting.

article © 2024 The New World Digs

You on the Moors Now At UW-Milwaukee’s Department of Theater.

Jaclyn Backhaus riffs off the characters from Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, and Anne and Charlotte Bronte and produces an absolutely smart and hilarious farce. Our characters are four of your favorite women from Pride and PrejudiceWuthering HeightsJane Eyre, and Little Women and the their ardent suitors. From the starting point of the novels and the romantic standards of the time, four men ardently pursue four women and propose and…are ardently turned down! That’s not how it’s supposed to work.

And after espousing more contemporary ideas on romance, love, and marriage, there is nothing left for our heroines to do other than band together and then flee! And true to their nature, our suitors follow in hot pursuit. So given the nature of the novels there are twists and turns and misunderstandings and a variety of misconceptions.

And pursuit results in confrontation and an actual battle of the sexes…and it’s all fun and games until an actual bodice gets ripped…by a knife…and a heroine dies on stage. That seems to bring everyone to their senses and on to:

Chapter 33: A Tenth Annual reunion at Pemberley which is now a museum that documents these events and the Truce of Pemberley. All of the principals attend but unlike the prior scenes, the period is much more contemporary, the conversation far more natural to our ears at least, with the 19th Century lost in the rear view mirror. And Jane Eyre is now an astronaut!

Director Jeffrey Mosser, a department lecturer in storytelling and acting, has assembled an incredible cast from the theater department, and they all play their characters to the hilt! And he has them playing the humor as over the top as possible…and I am sure this Darcy (Duleon Schneider) is a fopier fop than the real Darcy would have ever hoped to be!

And the stage was a trove of information…and not just the props…but the false proscenium arch to the rear that supported a screen where the acts were named and the locations were outlined…so we knew when we were at Wuthering Heights!

© 2024 Ed Heinzelman

Two minor quibbles: The actors were speaking with period accents and quite quickly. It was difficult to understand what was being said at times. And this is a farce and there was a great deal of laughter…but the cast wasn’t prepared to wait it out and some dialogue was lost in laughing. And I apologize for the lack of photos this time.

So from last fall’s Macbeth to You on the Moors Now the theater department of UW – Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts proves that they can do it all!

Partly through my lack of knowledge of 19th C literature, I got lost a few times on who is who. But here is the cast list from the Program (which can be found here ).

article © 2024 The New World Digs