Wisconsin Wrights 2017
September 21-23, 2017
Wisconsin Wrights Play Festival
Three New Wisconsin Plays!
The Wisconsin Wrights New Play Festival is supported by the Marcia Légère Binns Distinguished Playwright Residency. As a UW-Madison student in the early 1940s, Marcia Légère won the inaugural Wisconsin Playwrights Contest with a piece that her professor submitted secretly. Légère graduated from the university with a degree in Comparative Literature, going on to a successful career as a writer for documentary films and television.
Légère decided that she wanted to give back to the university that had provided her with one of her first great accomplishments as a writer. Saddened to hear that the Wisconsin Playwrights Contest was no longer in existence, she worked with the University of Wisconsin Foundation to bring the competition back to life, to support local playwrights, and to strengthen the relationship between the two. Today, Légère’s generous contributions continue to give students and local professional playwrights an opportunity to produce original theatre.
In March 2018, the Wisconsin Union Theater and Wisconsin Union Directorate Performing Arts Committee will host the 27th annual Marcia Légère Student Play Festival.
Overture Center for the Arts
201 State St,
Madison, WI 53703
About the show
Runtime:
N/A
Performance Dates:
September 21-23, 2017
Age Recommendations:
N/A
Accessibility
We strive to make our performances available to the entire community. This guiding principle captures the theater we aim to be.
We’re proud to be a resident company at Overture Center, which provides practical accessibility for a variety of needs.
Hamm in Love and War
by Eric Appleton (Madison, WI)
Thursday, September 21, 7:30 pm
Benton Hamm, condiment magnate, has come to the island kingdom of Rhipidos to acquire the world’s finest olive oil. This hysterical farce follows his travails as he braves chain-smoking artists, hard-drinking art dealers, amateur cookbook authors, tennis with the King, lusty Russian diplomats, and a coup d’etat.
Director: Samuel D. White
Stage Manager: Elliott Puckette
Cast
Lee Waldhart
Jason Compton
Karen Moeller
Paul Millisch
Francisco Torres
Samara Frame
Michael Herold
Elizabeth Cassarino
Dionysus on the Down Low
by Michael Proft (Cedarburg, WI)
Friday, September 22nd, 7:30 pm
LGBT activist David Okello flees his native Uganda after an anti-homosexuality bill is proposed in Ugandan parliament and his life is threatened. Settling in Boston, MA, with Matthew Teitman, an ACLU LGBT expert who helped him obtain political asylum, the two men embark on a relationship. The play explores where the sexual and political meet, and where disparate cultures, values and desires struggle to find common ground.
Director: Dana Pellebon
Stage Manager: Jo Chalhoub
Cast
Dave Durbin
Sherrick Robinson
Martha White
Marcy Weiland
No Wake
by Erica Berman (Madison, WI)
Saturday, September 23rd, 7:30 pm
With determination and a bullhorn, elderly Peter Michaels is on a mission to save the loons of Lake Winnipesaukee, who are dying in record numbers. His summer expectations are thwarted by Sarah, a townie teenager hired to clean the house next door. No Wake tells the story of an intergenerational bond sprung out of loneliness and loss that forces this unlikely pair to confront their fears and teach each other how to move on.
Director: Jake Penner
Stage Manager: Jo Chalhoub
Cast
Jim Buske
Jordan Watson
