MCT Board Member Profile: Kathryn Herman

by Max Seigle

1. WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

I grew up in Milwaukee on the Southwest side and went to Pulaski High School. I left the city in the '50s to study education at Carroll College in Waukesha and have lived there ever since. My husband and I currently live in downtown Waukesha. We love it there. It’s an easy walk to coffee shops and restaurants. We have three children and four grandchildren who all live in the Milwaukee area.

2. HOW DID YOU LEARN ABOUT MCT?

I found out about MCT from a dear friend of mine, Linda Loving. She is a former MCT board member and actress in the community. She always talked about this theatre company and one day mentioned an opportunity to sit on the board. From there, I met with Michael Wright and Kirsten Mulvey and just knew immediately that they were people that I would love to work with. They were so welcoming and enthusiastic. We all felt I could serve the board well as a representative from one of the western counties and as a retired community volunteer. I think the latter is an important voice to have on the board as retirees are part of the mix that we serve.

I have been on the board four years now and really enjoy it. I love coming into the city and being part of the theatre community in the Third Ward. You are surrounded by a lot of fun, creative and highly skilled individuals. I’ve never been so close to the theatre as I am now with MCT and it’s been a wonderful addition to my life.

3. FAVORITE PLAY OR PLAYS?

I loved UNDERNEATH THE LINTEL in 2013. It was a one-man show with James Ridge and he made a tremendous impression on me. He was just amazing in that role and it’s one of those plays that I think of often. I also enjoyed THE TRAIN DRIVER in 2015. It was very powerful and extremely well-done. I loved the fun of BOEING BOEING in 2015 and was a huge fan of the all female company in A LOVELY SUNDAY FOR CREVE COEUR last year.

4. FAVORITE ACTOR?

James Ridge. As I mentioned earlier, he was outstanding in UNDERNEATH THE LINTEL. He is such a versatile actor. He can be very serious and a bit dark but he’s also a great comic actor.

Also (MCT associate artistic director) Marcella Kearns -- she most recently appeared as Berthe in BOEING BOEING and directed VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE. Her comedic timing is amazing and she also brings a lot of versatility to the stage. I admire her work as a director as well. She is a real gem for MCT!

5. SPECIAL MOMENTS AT MCT?

I really enjoyed my experience on the Adopt-a-Show committee for A LOVELY SUNDAY FOR CREVE COEUR. As board members, we select different shows to adopt during the season and help the staff with audience development and promotions. We did some fun things with LOVELY SUNDAY, like raffling off a gift certificate to the Milwaukee Public Market. We encouraged the idea of buying a “Picnic at the Park” to go along with the picnic at the park you heard so much about in the show. I was also able to attend the first rehearsal for this production and loved the behind-the-scenes look that these rehearsals offer. You become more intimately involved in the show by hearing first-hand from the actors, the director, the costume designer and the set designer.

I have also been proud to arrange a few groups from my retirement community to see some MCT shows. We rent a big bus and usually pair the experience with a meal. There are many people in the community with a lifetime love of theatre but they can no longer do the drive and miss not being able to go. With the bus, they can get out and enjoy a show easily, so it works out really well. We are going to see GREAT EXPECTATIONS in the spring.

6. WHAT DO YOU DO PROFESSIONALLY?

I am retired now but spent my professional years in education. I was a first grade teacher in the Waukesha public schools for 15 years. Teaching reading was my speciality. My first school was Blair Elementary.

I later went on to work in adult education, focusing on adult literacy. I was the first executive director of what is now called the Literacy Council of Greater Waukesha County. I spent those days recruiting volunteers to work with adult learners, training the tutors and doing publicity and fundraising. This was really heartfelt work, meeting students who went through much of their adult life without knowing how to read. I was impressed at how motivated they were to learn. I remember grandmas who wanted to be able to read stories to their grandchildren and women who wanted to read the Bible. It was very fulfilling and exciting to be a part of this educational renewal.

7. WHAT YOU DO FOR FUN? ANY HOBBIES?

My husband and I love to travel. We’ve seen theatre and opera all over the world. London is my favorite city. The theatre there is not to be missed! We also spend time in Cornwall, a county in the southwestern most part of England. About 15 years ago, we bought a cottage in the town of Penzance and travel back and forth during the year. I love being in the small town and getting to know the neighbors and the shopkeepers. Being so close to the sea, you quickly see how the livelihood is guided by the water and the fishing industry. It’s been a wonderful and enriching life experience for us.

I also enjoy reading modern fiction, and reading and writing poetry. I belong to a book club and an adult poetry appreciation group. I like to write my life stories as well so my children and grandchildren can learn more about my background and where life has taken me.

8. WHERE TO EAT BEFORE A SHOW?

I like the Skylight Bar & Bistro upstairs in the Broadway Theatre Center. I have eaten there with groups from my retirement community before a show.

I also love Swig nearby, and recently had brunch at the new Journeyman Hotel in the Third Ward. It was very nice, too.

9. FAVORITE WISCONSIN SPOT THAT NEVER GETS OLD?

I think I like the City of Milwaukee itself as my favorite spot. The lakefront, the world-class art museum, wonderful restaurants, theatre, music, dance and opera — Milwaukee just has everything. I love being in the city. I think I’m a city girl at heart.

10. FAVORITE SUMMER FESTIVAL?

I like the music, food and ambiance of GermanFest. In Waukesha, my husband and I enjoy Friday Night Live. The festival takes over part of the downtown area and there are live bands to enjoy. It’s nice to get something to drink, wander around, listen to the music and meet up with friends. It’s very informal. People bring their dogs, their children and even set up lawn chairs in the streets.

11. ANY OTHER ORGANIZATIONS THAT YOU’RE A PART OF THAT YOU ENJOY AND WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW ABOUT? 

I am proud of the work I do with organizations tied to my Cornish heritage. One is the Cornish Society of Greater Milwaukee. The other is the Cornish American Heritage Society and I am the president of that group. We organize and present educational seminars and conferences that highlight all aspects of Cornish culture. We cover the history, language, literature, genealogy, food and travel ideas. We also stay in close touch with what’s going in Cornwall today.

12. BACK TO MCT: WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE PEOPLE IN THE AREA TO KNOW ABOUT THIS THEATRE COMPANY WHO MAY NOT BE FAMILIAR WITH IT?

I think people should know about MCT’s commitment to working with local actors and production crews. Michael Wright is so dedicated to promoting Milwaukee’s theatre community and I appreciate that so much. I also love Michael’s commitment to diversity in the plays and actors he selects. You will find well-produced, thought-provoking life stories on the MCT stage, and characters that you can connect with. It’s a very unique experience and I just think everyone should be enjoying it as much as I am!

Review Roundup: THE FEW

by Kaitlyn Martin, marketing and development assistant

Milwaukee Chamber Theatre's THE FEW opened this past weekend and positive reviews from critics and audience members alike have been reaching our ears! Be sure to read the press that we've received as well as making a trip to see this Samuel D. Hunter script on our Studio Theatre stage. THE FEW closes on March 19!

Mike Fischer,
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Outstanding Chamber cast delivers 'The Few'

Mary MacDonald Kerr and James Ridge in THE FEW.
Photos by Paul Ruffolo

"Featuring C. Michael Wright’s nuanced direction and an exceptional cast, it’s the best Wisconsin production I’ve seen thus far in 2017."

"QZ can be forgiven for seeming wary and confused, as well as angry, truculent and even a bit vengeful. Kerr gives us all that and something more, from this hurt and disappointed woman: Tender regard and lingering love for the broken man darkening her doorway."

"Bultman’s Matthew can remind one of a puppy: starved for love, eager to please and unbearably open. Physically bigger than either Ridge or Kerr, he can also seem uncoordinated, gangly and much too large [...] Because he’s such a bad fit for the space he fills, Matthew gives this dark play much of its humor; he’s also a reminder to his two elders of their best younger selves."

"Despite a few explosive moments during which all this simmering comes to a boil, there’s nothing overt in Ridge’s work, here; true to the character he plays and the themes coursing through this play, communication and connection are never that easy."

Paul Kosidowski,
Milwaukee Magazine
Life is a Highway...

James Ridge in THE FEW.

"Ridge plays Bryan with great attention to his damaged spirit and his passionate resilience. Watch him listen—early in the play—to a personal ad phone message from “Cindy.” He routinely types her message, then stops dreamily as her rambling story becomes more than ad copy—a familiar tale of a lost and lonely soul."

"MacDonald Kerr plays QZ with the hard edge of a pragmatist—a Mother Courage of the interstate, perhaps—but reveals her heart in the care she shows for Matthew."

"Bultman, who is making his local major theater debut, gives his character touching honesty and vulnerability. Personal ads and all, The Few is Matthew’s refuge from a cruel past, and Bultman is heartbreaking in his tenacity to get the paper out on time."

"It’s all orchestrated by director C. Michael Wright, who helps imbue the characters with intricately wrought humanity. It’s a great play for our troubled times, and MCT’s production offers a welcome dose of compassion and respect for the troubled fellow travelers."

Dave Begel,
On Milwaukee

Chamber Theatre gives 'The Few' solid, sensitive treatment

James Ridge, Mitch Bultman and 
Mary MacDonald Kerr in THE FEW.

"Milwaukee Chamber Theatre offers a wonderful treatment under the bright and sensitive direction of C. Michael Wright and a cast featuring two of the best actors in this state."

"Kerr and Ridge are among the finest actors this state has ever produced, and this production clearly shows why. [...] Kerr can say more with a single discouraged glance at Ridge than you might get in a full page of dialogue. Ridge wears his forlorn life like a shroud, never once stepping outside of what we think he ought to be. They are both brilliant."

"Bultman is new to me and an absolute delight. He's funny and sensitive and angry and not a single one of those traits strikes a false note."

Harry Cherkinian, 

Shepherd Express
Chamber Theatre's "The Few" Explores the Disconnect of High-Tech

Mitch Bultman and James Ridge in THE FEW.

"[The Few] is a beautifully wrought, stark and poignant reminder of the ever-constant need for human contact—this largely due to the excellent cast and seamless direction of C. Michael Wright."

"Ridge is perfectly suited to the gaunt, burned-out drifter and completely inhabits the role."

"In a stunning breakout MCT performance, Bultman is the catalyst (and catapult) for the explosive transformations that follow. His insecurities, kindnesses and fearfulness transform his Matthew into more than what the script provides."

The Many Voices of THE FEW

by Kaitlyn Martin

Samuel D. Hunter's THE FEW is set within the "newsroom" of an unorthodox publication: a newspaper designed for truckers, populated largely by personal ads submitted by travelers just as lonely as our protagonists.

Sound designer and UWM professor
Chris Guse worked with director C. Michael Wright
and voiceover coach/casting director Raeleen
McMillion to find just the right voices
for the play's lonely souls placing personal ads. 

As such, the play's characters are often interrupted by incoming calls from readers, played over the office's answering machine (this is 1999, after all!). These callers, about a dozen in all, each provide a glimpse of the world outside our surroundings, conveyed in only a few lines.

To find just the right voices for those calls, director C. Michael Wright turned again to UW-Milwaukee's theatre department. MCT has previously partnered with the university on three other productions -- LOVE STORIES (2015), THE DETECTIVE'S WIFE (2013) and PICNIC (2009) -- and has a strong working relationship with many of the professors and students who have been a part of the program. For this collaboration, Wright worked with UWM professors Raeleen McMillion and Chris Guse to select and record more than a dozen students, faculty and alumni whose voices will be featured in the production.

Guse, also the sound designer for THE FEW, says the answering machine plays a central role in the drama, letting these voices be heard over the tension between the characters on stage.

"The characters that are on the answering machine are important to the description of the play [and] the description of the location, as well as evoking the emotional state of the characters and reinforcing the themes," says Guse, adding that they echo the emotional state of the small-town Idaho residents.

As the sound designer, Guse's role isn't just limited to lining up each of these voices. He's in charge of every sound cue, from scene change music to the beeping of the answering machine itself.

"Finding out ... the sequence of events that you go through with the simple operation of an answering machine is really much more complicated than it seems," A lot of thought was given to the amount of beeps needed, the starting of the answering machine tape spinning in its track, and the clicking and whirring of all of the moving parts that -- once crucial to hearing the voices of those you have missed -- are now obsolete.

Through the use of music from the late 90s as well as carefully designed soundscapes, Guse looks to reflect the emotional states of the characters onstage as well as invoke a sense of foreshadowing. Cueing the audience as to what is approaching in the story or allowing them to reflect on something they have just seen is all part of the subtlety and emotional sharpness of Guse's design.

The cast of THE FEW gets "personal"

Compiled by Kaitlyn Martin and Matthew Reddin

THE FEW, by acclaimed playwright Samuel D. Hunter, is a tale of three lonely souls seeking renewed faith in humanity. Set in the year 1999, in a disheveled office space in northern Idaho, Hunter's play is a compassionate, gently hued drama about "emotional and spiritual misfits" struggling to find a purpose for their lives. Centered around a newspaper for truckers (also titled The Few), the characters strive to connect others through personal ads while searching for how to connect themselves.

To introduce you to their characters, we asked our three featured actors to put together their own set of personal ads -- the ones their characters might write for themselves -- as a way to go beyond the usual "meet the cast" post. We hope their words here inspire you to check out Sam Hunter's in a few weeks!

Mitch Bultman (Matthew)

Mitch Bultman is from Wauwatosa and is thrilled to be making his Milwaukee Chamber Theatre debut. Mitch was most recently seen in Forward Theater’s production of 4000 MILES directed by Jen Uphoff Gray.
Mitch is currently a resident teaching artist with First Stage Children’s Theater in Milwaukee and has worked locally on stage with First Stage, Bunny Gumbo, and others. He spent a year studying classical text at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater in London and performed as Henry in HENRY V at the Globe.

Mitch has had the privilege of working with and been directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel, Tim Carroll, Michael Sexton, William Carden and others. Mitch holds a BFA in theater from Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts.

Mary MacDonald Kerr (QZ)

Mary is thrilled to be acting at Milwaukee Chamber Theatre again. Her last show here was THE DETECTIVE'S WIFE. Other favorite Chamber shows include THE SWEETEST SWING IN BASEBALL, JOE EGG, THREE DAYS OF RAIN, VOICE OF THE TURTLE and BEAST ON THE MOON. Mary has also acted in productions at Renaissance Theatreworks, Milwaukee Rep, First Stage, Milwaukee Shakespeare and Next Act Theatre.


Mary is also a director, whose most recent project was LUNA GALE for Renaissance Theatreworks. Her other directing credits include CRIMES OF THE HEART at MCT, THE GLASS MENAGERIE at In Tandem and GOING TO ST. IVES at Next Act, among others.

James Ridge (Bryan)

James first performed with MCT in the Shaw Festival, where he appeared in TOO TRUE TO BE GOOD and WAITING FOR GODOT. He and director C. Michael Wright have collaborated on the projects UNDERNEATH THE LINTEL and DICKENS IN AMERICA, as well as A NIGHT IN NOVEMBER and STONES IN HIS POCKETS for Next Act Theatre. 

James is a core company member of American Players Theatre in Spring Green, WI where he recently completed his 19th season with the repertory company. Past roles at APT include Iago, Teach, Richard III, Puck, Shylock, Petruchio, Tartuffe, Didi, Malvolio, Col. Pickering and Lickcheese.

He now directs the CTM (Madison) production of A CHRISTMAS CAROL in which he played Scrooge for 4 seasons.

I'm Just Looking For...

by Julie Ferris

There was a time in our recent history when marriage was first and foremost an enterprise that joined families and protected their lineage. Holy unions positioned oneself in society. And, of course, another reason to connect one’s life to another in a legally binding way has always been present: Money.

Yet, for most of us, we may engage in coupledom, partnership and even marriage for another wholly impractical and fantastical set of reasons—love and companionship.

But shifting our cultural standards of how to meet and marry, how to date and how to find that other half, has been slow. For more than 300 years, personal ads have been a tool to connect, and for nearly as many years, they’ve had their critics.

From Lonely to Looking

Noga Arikha’s essay, “Swiping right in the 1700s: The Evolution of Personal Ads” reminds us that the first personal ad published, by one Helen Morrison in 1727, landed its author in an asylum for a month as a result of this shockingly autonomous practice our culture wasn’t ready for. 

Arikha adds that “the values that had sustained the inherited rules of matrimony were changing during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries…ideals associated with romantic love were taking center stage at a time when Romantic reactions to a rationalized, industrializing world emphasized the individual, lonely soul,” (2009).

We were seeking companions because we were just plain lonely.

And despite whatever changes have happened to the technology of personal ads, from phoning in a print order to the profile picture-driven profiles of today’s “must love dogs” online matchmaking services, one thing remains true. Anonymity is the key.

The People Behind the Pen

The requisite intimate qualities and fantasies can be publicly shared and assessed only because they represent a person we have not yet met, who we do not know live and in the flesh. This concept isn’t new to popular culture, either. The Shop Around the Corner, later modernized as You’ve Got Mail, features a lead couple who know one another in person—frustrations and all—and then both rely on a personal ad-style connection where they write letters or chat, not realizing until the end that the poets at the end of the pen, saying all the right things, are indeed the same shopkeeper and businessman who are friendly foes in everyday life.

The safety included in anonymity has carried through all 300 years of personal advertising. From the ability to ignore all responses delivered to your post box to never swiping right, for the tiny sum of a few personal details, you purchase the right to remain safely behind your ad, unexposed in your choice-making. 

Anonymity is the thesis and catharsis of Rupert Holmes’ 1979 hit, often called “The Piña Colada Song” (actually named “Escape”).

A bored, lonely husband sings about his dissatisfaction in his partner and how he searched newspaper personal ads to see what his options were. The woman who wrote about the now famous piña coladas piques his interest and he responds. When the pair finally meet, both are shocked to see the other standing before them.

A form of confession, this sharing of secrets allows the writer to embody a person they hope to be, to showcase those qualities they want cherished and hope the perfect other is one drawn to these quirks. If your confession that you lick the microwave popcorn bag, don’t like ice cream or only read entertainment magazines and nothing more and someone responds, your match is made.

You’re Not Alone

The validation available to you when someone responds to these bold presentations of what’s “wrong” with you by cultural standards provides a kind of love. It provides forgiveness and verifies you can still fit in the social order. Your strange habit that, by all cultural measures is “different,” becomes sanctioned when another hears about it and continues to move forward, treating you as a regular member of society and importantly, telling you you’re not alone.

Pew Market Research says more than one third of those using online dating sites haven’t ever actually gone on a date with someone they met there. One third of personal ad or app users are engaging each other without even meeting because the gesture of having someone respond to self you’ve shared in and of itself is a connection.

300 Years and Going Strong

Today, the industry has exponentially amplified its profitability with online advertising and matchmaking services. There is, of course, an app for that. In fact, of the $2.9 billion dating industry, 70% of this annual profit is derived from online dating sites.

But personal ads were always profitable. Framed often as “classified” and purchased through the sales group of papers and magazines, advertisers paid for the privilege of creating a profile. Originally, publishers would offer a reply program: As readers responded to your ad, the paper would collect the mailed-in responses and deliver them to you, often weekly. Publishers soon began leveraging premium-rate telephone numbers to entice writers to publish their ad for free, but those replying via phone call must pay the premium rate. Newspapers charge by the character — a throwback to old typeset processes — and therefore, abbreviation and acronym became their own economy of love. Researchers note how this industry jargon has moved forward into today’s online dating as well.

The Lonely Hearts Club Cast of THE FEW

In THE FEW, personals remain the profitable choice for such a small publication. But, true to the history of personal ads, the play embraces the lonely over-the-road truck driver. This is one of many landmarks in the practice’s evolution. In the early 1900s, personal ads saw a resurgence as Western farmers wrote to solicit love and practical assistance. From housekeepers to wife material, this isolated group leveraged personal ads to improve their situation. A different sort of request—pen pals—became the hallmark of World War II soldiers using the same mechanism to connect with others.  

So, when we enter the publishing office of THE FEW, we immediately see instant and obvious hallmarks of the personal ad. A need for capital, flexing the economy of the paid service, is keeping the paper afloat. On the edge of a potential millennium breakdown, the 1999 setting also prompts an uptick in ad sales, further demonstrating that finding love, or, as some advertisers suggest in their ads, just companionship, is more essential now than ever.

The lonely, secluded setting of northern Idaho and the desolate profession of traveling the country alone in a big rig embody the more recent history of the practice.

When we meet the characters, we also see remnants of other popular plays on the anonymous ad. The man in the letters becomes someone not only validated by your response, but he becomes larger than life, more ideal than the man standing before you. On paper, he’s piña coladas and getting drunk in the rain.

THE FEW gives us another insight, however, and presents an important counterpoint to my case.

If anonymity is the key to personal ads working, what we learn from Hunter’s characters is that it’s their desperation to no longer be anonymous that drives them. All lonely, all looking for connection, those who manage the personal ads may be the most in need of validation and acknowledgement. They are the most in need of relationships with another.

In fact, THE FEW becomes a case study in how those who enable the search for connection through this time-tested model come to quickly realize they, too, are also looking. For validation. For companionship. For love. 

American Misfits

by John M. Baker

Playwright Sam Hunter
Photo: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

Sam Hunter’s plays take us down roads not frequently traveled on the American stage. Anchored in small towns and cities throughout the landlocked state of Idaho, the plays are often set in unglamorous locations and populated by characters on the margins of society. From the tarnished evangelical in A BRIGHT NEW BOISE seeking employment at a Hobby Lobby craft store to the 600-pound online teacher in THE WHALE eating himself to death in his apartment, Hunter's characters find themselves in simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary circumstances, navigating big questions of modern life. With his growing body of work, Hunter is slowly mapping what he calls “a quotidian America that is often hidden behind curtains and doors.” In the process, he’s capturing the beauty and ugliness, the fragility and ruggedness, the banality and spirituality of living in America in the 21st century. 

Though New York City is Hunter’s home now, his roots are firmly planted in Idaho. Born and raised in the state’s panhandle, Hunter can trace his family’s lineage back six generations to the region’s first homesteaders. This deep-seated connection to the Northwest — like Horton Foote and the South — is only part of why Hunter frequently sets his plays in his home state. “Idaho has become a useful landscape,” he explains, “because people don’t have a lot of preconceived notions about it.” You’ve probably never set foot in the towns of Hunter’s plays, but there’s still something recognizable about the employee lounge in A BRIGHT NEW BOISE, the one-bedroom apartment in THE WHALE, and the lobby of the assisted living home in REST. “Which is really helpful,” he continues, “because it allows me to make something pan-American.” 

Morbidly obese writing instructor Charlie (Matthew Arkin) and his friend and caretaker Liz (Blake Lindsley) share a moment in this image from South Coast Repertory's West Coast premiere of THE WHALE (2013). Photo: Scott Brinegar.

Within these familiar and foreign landscapes, Hunter places characters from a particular walk of life. They’re Middle Americans: big-box store employees, nurses, a retired music professor, a former night watchman, a missionary. “I think the prevalence of upper middle class and upper class characters in our plays is surprising,” explains Hunter, “especially given the fact that the majority of America is not these people.” More specifically, Hunter is fascinated by the people living on the fringes of acceptability in these small towns. “The stories my dad told me about people from his hometown were just incredible,” he explained to David Rooney of The New York Times. “Like the guy who used to go to my grandpa’s grocery store: My dad had to deliver food to him, and his house was full of dead cats. You hear about somebody like that, and you think, ‘What is the story of that person?’” 

While a closeted gay teen in northern Idaho, Hunter attended a fundamentalist Christian high school and worked part-time at the local Walmart, which informs why so many of his plays center on characters living in quiet desperation, hungering for something greater. “Most of my plays are about seeking hope and meaning,” says Hunter, “and religion is the eternal well of hope and meaning for most Americans. It so shaped my childhood growing up in Idaho and going to a religious school, and so I see it in the larger cultural dialogue a lot. Mostly I write about it because people don't seem to want to talk about it.” Even when nonbelievers populate the plays, they still “point to the divine,” as Hunter says, whether it’s by way of Melville in THE WHALE or Estonian composer Arvo Pärt in REST. 

Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre pitted actors Michael Laurence and Tasha Lawrence against each other as former lovers Bryan and QZ in its Off-Broadway premiere of THE FEW (2014). Photo: Joan Marcus.

“Hunter’s characters live in an Idaho where the divine smacks up against the banal, where their expansive worldviews create a profound disconnection to their quotidian surroundings,” writes Adam Greenfield, director of new play development at NYC’s Playwrights Horizons. “They’re as lost within Idaho’s suburban sprawl as they are within the cosmos, each one struggling with a fundamental part of his or her self — whether it’s religion, sexuality, ethics, or a cocktail of all these things — that doesn’t fit into their surroundings or daily lives.” 

American culture is certainly a part of the topography Hunter is mapping, but he’s not writing “issue” plays. Although he weaves topics like obesity, the Rapture, and gay conversion therapy into his scripts, as literary manager Douglas Langworthy of The Denver Center Theatre Company puts it, “they are never about these issues.” Rather, at the forefront of Hunter’s plays are his emotional and spiritual misfits — drawn with sensitivity — mirroring back to us their experience of Middle America today.  


John M. Baker is a dramaturg and the Artistic Leadership Fellow at The Lark, an international theatre laboratory based in New York. He is also the associate producer of Partial Comfort Productions in NYC, interim literary manager and dramaturg at Long Wharf Theatre and has formerly worked at the Williamstown Theatre Festival and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. Versions of this article originally appeared in playbills for productions of REST at South Coast Repertory and Victory Gardens.

Review Roundup 2.0: LOBBY HERO

by Matthew Reddin, marketing director

It's been two weeks since we opened LOBBY HERO, and we've been thrilled to see such a positive response to the show from our audiences. We've also been fortunate enough to receive a second wave of critical reviews, each praising C. Michael Wright's production of this fantastic Kenneth Lonergan piece.

If you didn't catch our first Review Roundup, featuring press from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Shepherd Express, OnMilwaukee and more, you can find it here. For the rest ... keep on reading! And don't forget to pick up your tickets to LOBBY HERO! We close Dec. 18!

Chris Klopatek and Sara Zientek in
LOBBY HERO. Photos by Paul Ruffolo.

Paul Kosidowski,
Milwaukee Magazine
"Culture Club Review: Milwaukee Chamber Theatre's 'Lobby Hero'"

"Watch Henning project his confidence in the first scene, pacing the room in a crisp blue blazer as if he’s giving a Ted Talk to an audience of one. And watch those confident, studied gestures disappear as he learns more about his troubled brother."

"It’s no surprise that Lobby Hero is one of director C. Michael Wright’s favorite plays–every scene shows his skill in shaping dialogue to reveal the things going on beneath the surface."

"Lonergan lets the action evolve slowly, flavoring the events with smart dialogue that gradually reveals the knotty and very human struggles within each character."

Sara Zientek, Andrew Edwin Voss (C) and
Di'Monte Henning in LOBBY HERO.

Anne Siegel,
TotalTheater.com
"Review: 'Lobby Hero'"

"In Henning’s strong performance, we see William struggle with telling the truth while at the same time fearing that his brother won’t get a fair trial – just because he’s black and too poor to hire a 'good lawyer.'"

"In this delicately woven performance, Zientek both shuns and accepts her femininity."

"Director C. Michael Wright, the company’s producing director, keeps the audience so tightly focused on the progress of the characters’ difficult scenarios that the audience almost feels cheated when the play ends without any resolution. That’s the mark of a good play, and it’s one reason this production is a not-to-be-missed event."

Peggy Sue Dunigan,
BroadwayWorld
"MCT's LOBBY HERO pursues relevant ethical questions through bright comedy"

"Chris Klopatek's rhythm for comic timing fits perfectly into his character Jeff's gift of gab-or making jokes."

"A refreshing change while immensely thought provoking, MCT and Wright once again challenge audiences."