Seven things Strini’s been meaning to tell you

The arts are calming down a little going into the July 4 extended weekend. So I have enough of breather to catch up on items that have been bouncing around in my head like the ice scrapers still bouncing around in the trunk of my car.

1. A little ray of good news: UPAF beat its fund-raising goal this year. Sure, the goal was a modest $9.65 million to support 34 of our town’s performing arts organizations. But they still beat it. The final tally is $9,743,651. Good for UPAF, and good for all of us.

2. I can’t personally review everything that happens on Milwaukee stages. For example, I’m grateful that  Matthew Reddin reviewed Youngblood Theatre‘s An Apology earlier this month, and Marianne Kordas covered the Skylight’s treatment of Mozart’s Così fan Tutte on March 21. Both shows were of great interest to me, but I couldn’t get to them early enough in their runs to publish timely reviews. But I did see them.

Great shows. I caught Così on the last day of the run. Director Dimitri Toscas completely rewrote Lorenzo da Ponte’s libretto, not only to update the story to Chicago 1958, but also to put the women on equal footing with the men and make the comedy more pointed. I was skeptical going in, but Toscas had the wit to make it work. It’s cheeky for anyone to think he can improve a Mozart opera, but Toscas did. Inertia will certainly keep his version out of wide circulation, but it definitely deserves life after the Skylight.

Every seat was occupied on June 6, so my wife and I had to stand to watch Youngblood’s production of Mickle Maher’s An Apology for the Course and Outcome of Certain Events Delivered by Dr. John Faustus on His Final Evening. The play is brilliant, and Michael Cotey is brilliant as Faust in this virtual monodrama. It was gripping at first sight and I’ve been thinking about it ever since, and the more I think about it the more remarkable it becomes. Maher’s retelling of the Faust legend is the portrait of a man who erased his life in his obsessive effort to beat the devil. The company met popular demand by extending the show. I knew right away on June 6 that An Apology would be our first TCD.tv video feature.

3. The Milwaukee Symphony will lose five veteran players to retirement next season. Stephen Colburn, principal oboist for 45 years; Judith Ormond, piccolo specialist for 30 years; assistant principal flutist Glenda Greenhoe, 41 years; bass trombonist Richard Kimball, 47 years; and percussionist Joseph Conti, 39 years all retired after the 2010-11 season. Colburn is the best known, because prominent oboe solos abound in the repertoire. His particularly focused sound has been a big part of the MSO sound over the years. They are all very good players and served the orchestra well, and I’ve at least met them all over the years. They’re nice people and I wish them well.

I can’t recall so many retirements in one season, and it would be natural to worry about the departure of so much talent and experience. But I’m not worried; American music schools from Juilliard to Indiana to USC are cranking out vast numbers of extremely skilled musicians every year. The MSO has always been good, but every principal personnel change in the last 10 years has meant an improvement. Also, the younger players have tended to find ways to enrich the musical scene beyond the MSO. (Ilana Setapen is a prime example). So I’m not worried; on the contrary, I’m eager so find out what the new faces will bring not only to the orchestra but to musical life in the city.

4. I am concerned about UWM’s Dance Department. Over the last 20 years, the department has become a powerhouse of creativity. The department has produced enormously skilled, boldly entrepreneurial and daring dancers in large numbers. Many of them have stuck around and given Milwaukee a fascinating dance community. But two key people will be missing this fall. The dynamic Janet Lilly is leaving to head the dance department at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. Ed Burgess, department chair at UWM, died suddenly this spring at age 58. They will leave a gaping hole at UWM and in the dance community.

Just before he died, Burgess did the department a great favor by hiring Gerald Casel, a dancer and choreographer with strong international credentials, to fill Lilly’s spot on an interim basis. Casel knows Milwaukee well. While he was living in New York, running his company there and teaching part-time at NYU, Casel earned his MFA at UWM, in a program designed for active professionals in the field. He has since returned as a guest teacher and choreographer. By all accounts, the students respond to him extremely well. I saw student dancers premiere Casel’s Mt. Hope, with music (in part) by Milwaukee composer Seth Warren-Crow, at the Summerdances program on June 2. The dancing was top-notch and the dance is ingenious. I’m very pleased that UWM could get Gerald Casel.

5. A year and a half ago, I met with Christine Harris, executive director of the Cultural Alliance of Greater Milwaukee. At the time, Harris — whose prior posts included the executive director of UPAF and of the Milwaukee Ballet — couldn’t really articulate what she was trying to do with the Cultural Alliance. Something about a “creative economy.” Frankly, it made not one bit of sense to me.

In the last year, it’s all become much clearer and pretty exciting. Harris commissioned a survey of all the area businesses that develop intellectual property of all sorts, invent things and design things. She’s made countless connections among creative types and between creative types and investors, and she’s tried to keep the non-profits relevant and in the mix. But frankly, the alliance has evolved from a service organization for arts groups. Now the focus is more on business, but that would include finding ways to connect businesses with the non-profit creative sector. Jill Morin, the bright and inventive young CEO of Kahler Slater, has been a key player and now chairs the board of the organization.

It has a new name: the Creative Alliance of Greater Milwaukee. I’m still not sure where this group is going, but Harris, Morin et al. are onto something. The core of it is the notion that creative people aren’t frills, civic charity cases to be supported by real industry, which is by nature plodding, penny-pinching, stubbornly uncreative and suspicious of anyone who is creative. Creative Alliance wants to change the way Milwaukee business thinks. I hope that happens.

Now that the ball appears to be rolling, Harris is leaving the Creative Alliance to open her own consulting firm. I’m not saying good-bye to her in this column; I’m sure she’ll be in the middle of things.

6. John Kishline and Edward Morgan wrote and staged A Rising Wind: The Lady Elgin Story at Best Place Tavern last fall. Their tale about one of the worst maritime disasters on Lake Michigan will get a second life July 6-10 at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, in Sheboygan. Tickets and details here.

7. Katie Doral is the new general manager of First Stage. Doral joined the children’s theater company in 2007. She was promoted from patron services manager. In her new role, Doral will ill head Human Resources, serve as the administrative director for the Education Department, and oversee all business operations. Doral, a native of Rochester, Mich., Doral holds a B.A. in Speech Communication and Theater from Albion College. She is a graduate of The Purple Rose Theatre Apprentice Program and a member of the Actor’s Equity Association.