This past weekend, record-breaking rainfall caused severe flooding across Greater Milwaukee, impacting many individuals and businesses—including Milwaukee Rep.
Our new 30,000-square-foot production facility in Wauwatosa suffered extensive damage, with floodwaters reaching up to four feet and forceful enough to blow out several loading dock doors. We estimate the damage at nearly $5 million. The facility housed essential tools for building sets and props, significant lighting and sound equipment, costume storage, and numerous other items.
Thankfully, the Associated Bank Theater Center—scheduled to open in just nine weeks—was unaffected by the flooding. Our teams have already identified potential locations for a temporary production shop so we can build sets for upcoming shows and launch the 2025/26 Season without delay.
Many of you have reached out after seeing news items to ask “how can I help.” Truly the best way to help Milwaukee Rep in this moment is to join us as an audience member in our upcoming season. Buying a ticket today helps us turn this challenging moment into a season of celebration for our whole community while directly supporting our artists and staff. Learn more about the 2025/26 Season here.
Thank you for your continued support.
With deep gratitude,
Chad Bauman Ellen & Joe Checota Executive Director
Yasmina Reza wrote Art in 1994, in French. And the American Players Theatre are presenting an English translation by Christopher Hampton that is a quintessential French existential comedy. And despite the translation, director Jackson Gay has lost nothing of the Frenchness here! So this is the play for the Francophile, Art Lover, and Theater Goer in you!
Art features three characters, long long time friends, middle aged and fairly successful. Serge, a doctor, Marc, an engineer, and Yvan, who is soon to be married, is currently working in sales. And our set fits all of the parameters set forth by Reza, a simple apartment setting that changes location depending on the occupant, Serge, Marc, or Yvan. As Reza stated and the program reinforces: nothing changes, except for the painting on the wall. Kate Noll’s set is perfect but I will get to the details in a bit!
Marcus Truschinski, THE painting, and Triney Sandoval. Photo courtesy of the American Players Theatre. Photos by Michael Brosilow
Art is played complete without intermission but it isn’t quite a traditional act/scene format. Instead we observe a series of vignettes as the friends interact in pairs or in the full group and each, at times, will step forward solo into a spotlight and address the audience directly. So there is some backstory and story line set up that we alone are privy to directly
Triney Sandoval and La Shawn Banks Photo courtesy of the American Players Theatre. Photos by Michael Brosilow
Marc is the engineer. And costume designer, Fabian Fidel Aguilar, has dressed him in a bit oversized rumpled suit that would do a disheveled academic proud. And as Marc, Triney Sandoval fills that suit with a big personality, a bit of cocky assuredness, boundless energy for a middle aged professional, and a sense of superiority over his friends. And when the balance of power in this little trio begins its shift, Sandoval can bring out the bit of condescension that Marc’s character calls for. You will know exactly how Marc feels about art, trust me. BTW: Marc sets up the intro to the play!
La Shawn Banks and Marcus Truschinski. Photo courtesy of the American Players Theatre. Photos by Michael Brosilow
Serge is a doctor, a dermatologist I believe. Aguilar has dressed Serge in the perfect Euro threads for a professional in the late parts of the 20th Century. Tailored sport coat, flawless jeans, turtleneck shirt, and the perfect shoes; elegant business casual, if you will. Marcus Truschinski presents Serge with the perfect airs of what Americans might envision as a stereotypical Parisian of the period. Perfectly groomed, he delights in his new found knowledge and appreciation for ‘modern art’. Although I’ll claim it’s actually ‘post modern’, but that’s a minor quibble. And he has purchased a new painting by a major figure in French modern art for a considerable sum. And when first showing it to Marc, he makes Marc guess how much he paid for it. The currency isn’t mentioned but whether Francs or Euros, it is a considerable sum. Serge’s new prize is described as a four foot by five foot painting in white with a few off white or sometimes gray stripes across the vast expansive face. For our APT version, the lines are a bit raised from the surface for the benefit of the audience. But Marc, with a clear and expressed disdain for modern art, forcefully declares the painting to be ‘white shit’. And you can imagine where the play goes from here.
La Shawn Banks’, Yvan, is far more energetic character than his two friends. Because of that energy and activity on stage he makes us feel like he’s a bit younger. In his earlier aside in introducing Yvan, Marc tells us that Yvan hate conflict and will often act as an arbiter and try to calm the waters. And Banks gives us that Yvan precisely, joining in with Marc’s criticism of the painting and fun at Serge’s expense over the folly of the painting when meeting with Marc, and then of course, the opposite when he visits Serge. But when the three get together to go out for the evening, he gets caught in the middle as both Marc and Serge try to use his own comments to support their positions in the argument.
Marcus Truschinski, La Shawn Banks (foreground) and Triney Sandoval. Photo courtesy of the American Players Theatre. Photos by Michael Brosilow
And here is the grand focus of the play. Art is the pivot in the story to investigate and discuss friendship. Why are these men friends? How do you maintain long term friendships? What do you accept that normally might irk you? What do you over look? What do you repress? Reza and Gay present a pretty dynamic discussion of all of these topics as the three confront each other. But there is a resolution…a happy resolution.
Now I promised a description of Kate Noll’s stage set. Up front on the Touchstone’s thrust stage, Noll has placed three pieces of a sectional, just a bit off white, just a bit severe, and just aptly late 20th Century Euro in feel…all against a perfectly white central back wall with a few white moldings and highlights, that refuse to let us forget the anatomy of the painting.
And I can’t take credit for this, but my wife, Rosalie, mentioned this as we were heading back to the car, but Yvan’s costume contains burgundy, borrowed from Serge’s turtleneck, and blue, borrowed from Marc. Bravo, and how clever, to Aguilar once again!
Spoiler alert but I couldn’t ignore this. At their major falling out and reconciliation, they were supposed to meet to go to a movie and then to dinner. Yvan was 40 minutes late and was all apologetic but Marc and Serge were having none of it. And then Yvan breaks down in a breathless minutes long rant about his day and the arguments around his wedding invitation between his fiance, father, future step mother in law, his own step mother, and mother…until we are ready to burst for breath. When he finishes Marc and Serge just stare in incomprehension and the audience erupts in a round of applause. But he’s not done, he’s just catching his breath, repeat. And when he finally finishes and reaches for sympathy, Marc and Serge, still sore that he was late, just tell him to call it off.
And just an aside. Given that it is 2025, many might find the argument around the painting rather surprising having lived with modern art and post modern art for better than a century. Even in 1994, when this was written, it was probably something of a surprise, particularly in Paris. But back in the day when I was in art school (1968 – 1973) this would be very much a topic for discussion in art history and the painting studios…although I don’t remember any friendships being risked over it! LOL!
More information on the APT’s Art and tickets here. Art is presented in APT’s intimate indoor Touchstone Theater, down the hill. It plays in repertory with other plays, so there aren’t that many dates left in the season and as of this writing a number have sold out. But the last day for Art is September 28, 2025. Contains adult themes & language.
Marcus Truschinski, La Shawn Banks (foreground) and Triney Sandoval. Photo courtesy of the American Players Theatre. Photos by Michael Brosilow
Of course I knew that William Inge’s Picnic is a major milestone in American theater but that is all that I knew. I mean it has a Pulitzer. But I had never seen it performed, not even the movie, nor read it or studied it. So when APT announced they were featuring it this season, it was my go to play for the summer. I was more than ready for APT to provide that coming of age experience for me.
The SET! Photo courtesy of American Player Theatre. Photographer Dan Norman.
Before we get to the play, let’s talk about the first thing we encounter as we enter the seating bowl of the Hill Theatre. We see two modest homes, probably late 19th or early 20th Century middle American rural homes, modest, solid, and in need of a bit of TLC. They have adjacent yards where all of the visible action occurs the only fences separate the yards from the street because we have good neighbors! Scenic Designer Takeshi Kata has done an incredible job bringing to mind that era, that culture, that environment.
In her Director’s Notes, Brenda DeVita states: “William Inge, from Kansas, always felt to me like he was someone who lived in the town I grew up in in Iowa. It even felt as if we grew up at the same time, though he was born 50 years before me. I always wondered why. Maybe it’s because there are very few American playwrights who write about the Midwest – the small town, the “small people.” Regardless, he clearly understood the gifts that came along with this kind of life. But he never sugar-coated that life either—the abiding boredom of such places. The Midwest. The Flyover States. Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, they were decidedly NOT Illinois, or even Minnesota or Wisconsin.”
Well, I beg your pardon Brenda. This all feels so so familiar to me as well. Well, not 2025 me, but 1958 me, when Pewaukee WISCONSIN was just a rural backwater and not the bedroom suburb that it is today. And I bet others from Wisconsin of my vintage or who have more recently grown up in similar rural areas will feel that sense of boredom and nostalgia endemic to Picnic, just as much as I did, before I even sat down.
Just a brief background…quickly. The houses belong to Mrs. Potts who lives alone with and is the caregiver for her elderly mother, who is never seen but sometimes heard. And the other is the home of Mrs. Owens and her two daughters Madge and Millie. She also takes in lodgers and her current resident is a ‘old maid’ school teacher Rosemary Sydney. The other characters are friends and neighbors, many of whom I will talk about.
Rasell Holt and Dee Dee Batteast. Photo courtesy of American Player Theatre. Photographer Dan Norman.
Let’s start with one of my favorites here, Dee Dee Batteast, as Helen Potts. At some point in the play Millie exclaims that if she gets to heaven she expects that everyone she meets there will be as nice as Mrs. Potts. And that is exactly the person that Batteast brings to life on stage. Despite getting some bad breaks in her own life, she is the life of the backyard in many ways and helps and supports her friends and neighbors as well as being the long suffering caregiver for her mother. But she does have one tendency that her neighbors question: she occasionally takes in ‘strays’. And that is exactly what she has done as the play opens, taking in Hal Carter, and exchanging breakfast for his help with some household chores. There is a fair amount of humor around Hal’s initial presence and introductions as he’s a right hunka man and is working without his shirt, attracting the female gaze from the entire female cast at this point. But little do any of us know that he is the catalyst that will change everyone’s destiny.
Hal is played by Rasell Holt who clearly has the physique bona fides for the role as he totes trash barrels or leaps the picket fence…but also is a glib talker, a bit of braggart, and more intelligent than the apparent vagabond they all take him for. His appearance isn’t totally random after all. It appears he was at college on a football scholarship until he flunked out and was frat brother to Alan Seymour, who he is hoping can help him find work…not just any work…some how he hopes Seymour can help him skip a few rungs. Holt knows what he’s about here. He certainly can strut under that female gaze and can morph into the glib talker at any time and change his story and persona as needed dependent on his audience. And Holt can turn on the charm as the ladies’ man which starts the changes across our little universe.
Aline Tabor and Colin Covert. Photo courtesy of American Player Theatre. Photographer Dan Norman.
Colin Covert plays Alan Seymour as the cool college boy you’d expect in 1953 Kansas. Clean cut, conservative, well dressed, well placed and headed back to college soon. Apparently Hal’s only friend in the frat, he has his own stories to tell about Hal. Some real, some, we find out not so real, and a lot of issues left out of the conversation. Covert gives us a Seymour who plays it way too cool as he courts his steady, the prettiest girl in town, Madge.
And Madge is the prettiest girl in town and everyone says so. But feeding into the image, Alina Tabor knows how to play that game to her advantage. But she also exhibits a sense of self doubt as she wants something more, a recognition that she is more than a pretty face. And Tabor brings us that nagging bit of angst as she does want more and she’s not sure if the attentions of Seymour are her goal or if his hesitancy to commit is a red flag. And then there is Hal, who openly flirts with her and takes her to the picnic in a way, or not. And the Madge/Seymour/Carter world explodes.
Kelly Simmons and Alina Tabor. Photo courtesy of American Player Theatre. Photographer Dan Norman.
And Millie is the smart one, Madge’s younger sister. My favorite character here, because: Kelly Simmons plays Millie with such a boisterous enthusiasm you can’t help but focus on her. From sneaking cigarettes from her hidden coffee can stash to her boyish wardrobe, she is playing into being labelled the smart one. So Simmons has caught that bit of her quality but in her poses aside the main action at times you can see her growing sense that she wants to be an adult. And then Hal sets his eyes on Millie and Simmons brings out a new Millie who revels in the attention and then glows red with jealousy when Hal turns his attention to Madge. Probably for the first time in her life. It’s then that Millie realizes that she can be the smart one and a pretty one and Simmons turns that page as well!
Colleen Madden has a role that suits her fancy! She is Rosemary Sydney, the maiden school teacher. Madden presents us with a preening, yes I think preening is right, woman of a certain age who is proud that she is a single woman and school teacher. And she has a boy friend…well no, a friend who is a boy. But me thinks, that Rosemary doth protest too much. And that proves true, as Rosemary too falls under Hal’s charm, demands that Howard marry her. Madden is hilarious and outrageous in this scene! There may have been a bit of alcohol involved.
Colleen Madden and Triney Sandoval. Photo courtesy of American Player Theatre. Photographer Dan Norman.
And then there is the girls’ mother, Flo Owens, who Tracy Michelle Arnold plays as a subdued and resigned woman who wants nothing but a better life for her daughters. She sees that in Alan Seymour and openly pushes Madge in that direction. Arnold gives us the frustrations of a single mother who is struggling to provide a stable home and solid economic base for her family. And Arnold also shows us the love of a mother despite the distractions her daughters either face or present.
The Cast. Photo courtesy of American Player Theatre. Photographer Dan Norman.
Director Brenda DeVita has made a very quiet but very bold statement with the casting of Picnic. If you have enjoyed the photos that accompany this article, you will have noticed that Hal and Mrs. Potts are played by black actors. That isn’t an issue per se but given the history and culture of the United States, no matter what the level of our suspension of disbelief, it does subconsciously put a different twist to some of the dialogue. But DeVita has done an amazing job casting and directing this play. The characters ring true and believable and the story telling is succinct and memorable.
Picnic is being presented in the Hill Theatre in repertory so the dates are spread out through the summer and early fall. The last show is Saturday September 13, 2025
Spoiler Alert: We don’t get invited to the picnic!
