Rep’s intern show, UWM matters and more

Saturday night, I caught the Rep Lab show the company’s acting, directing, design and stage management interns put on at the Stiemke Theater.

They put on eight miniature plays, all of them witty, most of them funny, two of them all of that and touching. I’m not sure if it was intentional, but all of the plays touched on the poignancy of the passage of time. Even the funniest of them had something honest to say about life. The theme took on particular resonance in the context of watching fresh young actors of boundless enthusiasm launch their careers.

They were all wonderful, and the production ran beautifully. The choreographed scene changes showed particular imagination and helped make a chronologically long evening psychologically brief. Artistic associate Brent Hazelton oversaw the whole thing and oversees the interns generally. I’m sure he’s proud of them and this show, and he ought to be. Hazelton and artistic director Mark Clements pitched in and directed a segment each, as did associate AD Sandy Ernst, artistic assistant Michael Kroeker and education director Jenny Kostreva.

Some of the actors are more polished than others, but this evening isn’t about polish. It’s about energy, commitement and presence, all of them palpable Saturday.

The show opened Thursday, but the Milwaukee Ballet and Milwaukee Opera Theatre kept me away until Saturday. Though the crowd was large that night, a planned Monday show has been canceled. So your last chance is 2 p.m. Sunday (April 3). Tickets are $20 and $15, $10 for students; call the Rep box office, 414 224-9490 or visit the company’s website.

I didn’t really mean for all the next items to relate to UWM. But they all do, in one way or another, which once again shows how important the school is to a vibrant arts scene in Milwaukee.

Former Rep AD Joe Hanreddy was in the audience Saturday. That reminded me that ambitious plans for Hanreddy and Rick Graham to head a special certificate program in directing and design at UWM have fallen through, at least for now, due to lack of funding. The UWM Peck School of the Arts, the theater department and Hanreddy are trying to work out an alternate relationship, but I’ve heard nothing specific.

At the Fine Arts Quartet concert on March 6, long-time cellist Wolfgang Laufer, a customarily vigorous man, looked frail as he announced that he would be retiring from the quartet and from UWM, where the FAQ is in residence. Both Laufer and his wife are facing serious and sudden health issues; I wish them both well. On March 6, Laufer said that the university would search for a new cellist and that the quartet would go on as always.

More UWM: Janet Lilly, a key faculty member in the superb UWM dance department, is entertaining an offer from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. Janet is a friend, and I would hate to see her go for personal reasons. Beyond that, the woman is a dynamo and contributed a great deal the university and to the dance community. Life will go on if she goes, the university and the dance community will be diminished.

UWM will award Kevin Stalheim, founding artistic director of Present Music, a Distinguished Alumnus Award on May 21. The school and the music department ought to be proud of Stalheim. He started Present Music with money out of his own pocket in 1982, a year after finishing his master’s degree in conducting at UWM. (His BMus is from Oberlin.) Today, Present Music is a Milwaukee institution and one of the most important new-music groups in the world.

The Milwaukee Arts Board named sculptor Richard Taylor and choreographer Debra Loewen its 2011 Artists of the Year. Loewen formed the Wild Space Dance Company in 1986. Although the next Wild Space show will be in a proper theater (the Rep’s Stiemke, April 14-16), Loewen and her company have become especially known for site-specific dances that celebrate Milwaukee and its history in marvelously creative ways. Taylor is a full-time artist with a long list of commissions.

What do Taylor and Loewen have to do with UWM? Loewen’s dancers mostly come from the UWM dance program. Both have taught there on and off over the years, and both earned masters’ degrees there.