Boulevard Theatre

“Planning a season is like planning a dinner party,” Mark Bucher tells me, facing away from the window. The passersby are distracting him from our conversation, taking place at the TCD offices in Grand Avenue Mall. He tells me about the need to have your light, comedic salads, your dramatic, hearty entrees, a sweet, charming dessert play – and then a couple walking past has caught his eye, and we’re talking about PDA and heteronormativity and watching mall cops walk by.

Talking to Bucher is exhaustingly fun, if you can keep up with him. His “dinner parties” at Boulevard Theatre are much the same. The company’s 28th season may open with Tigers Be Still, a modern, semi-absurdist comedy, but their offerings jump from there to an emotional drama set at the beginnings of the AIDS epidemic, Dylan Thomas poem-readings and a comedy of manners from A.A. Milne without a second’s hesitation.

It’s an eclectic season, and that’s the way Bucher likes it. “We’re trying to meet a demand for familiarity while also still staying true to challenging our audience. You know, who does A. A. Milne? Who does Dylan Thomas? Some of these plays probably could and should be done by better-funded companies.”

Nonetheless, Bucher and company plan to open their 28^th season with a roar. Their first production, Tigers Be Still, opens tonight (July 31), getting a large jump start on the Milwaukee theater season. The play, by Kim Rosenstock, centers on Sherry, an unemployed art therapy graduate who finds herself back home dealing with her bedridden mother, heartbroken sister, a new boss whose son is her first and only client and – to top it all off – a tiger who’s escaped from the local zoo.

Bucher calls the play an optimistic, slightly absurdist comedy, which eventually delves into serious issues of mental illness and depression. “It starts off as a real Fuddy Meers/David Lindsay-Abaire-style comedy, and some of the issues deepen and steepen,” he said. “The play is really about healing, and how to mend family rifts and the awful calamities that life sometimes gives you.”

The play is structured somewhat untraditionally: Shannon Tyburski, playing Sherry, serves as an Our Town-esque narrator speaking directly to the audience, the action is divided into 24 scenes of radically different lengths and Rosenstock makes a point of not tidying up every loose end or supplying every single detail for the audience. “She does not tie everything together neatly,” Bucher said. “Some of it you have to make the jump.”

Boulevard’s season as a whole seems sort of like that: a series of leaps of faith. Mark Bucher tells me it’s worth it. Sitting across the table from him, it’s hard not to believe him.

Check out these capsule previews for the rest of Boulevard’s full eclectic, literary season; all performances are at the Boulevard Theatre unless otherwise noted. For even more information or to get tickets/subscribe, visit the company’s website and Facebook page or call (414) 744-5757.

Tigers Be Still, by Kim Rosenstock
Dates: July 31 – Aug. 18
Synopsis: Finding herself aimless after graduating with an art therapy major, Sherry returns to the home of her bedridden mother and alcoholic, heartbroken sister Grace. Her mother is able to help her get a job as a high school art teacher for Principal Moore, and he gives Sherry her first client, his kleptomaniac son Zack.  And there’s a tiger on the loose.
Production Notes: Mark Bucher will direct this Wisconsin premiere. The cast includes Shannon Tyburski (Sherry), Brooke Wegner (Grace), Jaime Jastrab (Mr. Moore) and Josh Wallace (Zack).
Mark’s Thoughts: “This isn’t a black comedy, but it flirts with absurdism; it scampers over the border to a little bit of the strange. … I think it’s funny – I honestly do think it’s funny. I’m not just snowing you.”

Jerker, by Robert Chesley
Dates: Sept. 18-22, at the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center, 1110 N. Market St.
Synopsis: A story told through nothing but phone conversations, Jerker follows two gay men, J.R. and Bert, who “meet” in the early days of the AIDS epidemic and build a connection that begins with phone sex but ends with a strong friendship and relationship.
Production Notes: Mark Bucher will direct the play as a pseudo-staged reading, with Bill Jackson and Marty McNamee playing the two men and an undetermined narrator. Boulevard will ally with the LGBT Community Center for the production.
Mark’s Thoughts: “It’s a scurrilous, rather licentious piece. … We wanted to do it because 28 years ago, Robert Chesley wrote this play in response to the AIDS epidemic. And sadly, A: it hasn’t gone away, and B: in [this] generation it’s coming back. … The play’s power is in the poetry, and in the relationship of the two men, who never meet.”

Shooting Star, by Steven Dietz
Dates: Oct. 9 – Nov. 3
Synopsis: Two former lovers bump into either other, 20 years later, at a snowed-in airport. Over the course of the evening, they reflect on their relationship and where their separation has taken them in the intervening years.
Production Notes: The two-actor play is a Wisconsin premiere, and Bucher suggests he may bring on an undetermined guest director.
Mark’s Thoughts: “I hate Steven Dietz, but I picked it up and I was reading it, turning the pages thinking, ‘When is this going to suck?’ It is tender; it is beautiful; it deals with familiar subjects in a totally non-trite manner. … What he’s writing about is: If you had the chance to go back, could you reconnect? Would you reconnect? Do you regret letting a person that you said you loved go away?”

Wales & Tales, by Dylan Thomas
Dates: December 2013
Synopsis: “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” by poet Dylan Thomas, is retold in this holiday show that blends shades of It’s a Wonderful Life with the tone of Charles Dickens.
Production Notes: Mark Bucher will fill the role of Narrator for Thomas’ words. Plans are also in the works to append a second act of different material, with possibilities including a reading of David Sedaris by David Flores or an original piece by Beth Monhollen.
Mark’s Thoughts: “We are answering that cliché or demand for holiday fare, but hopefully it’ll be more challenging. … This Dylan Thomas piece is exceedingly rich, and you have to meet it, because the language – it is poetry.”

Mr. Pim Passes By, by A.A. Milne
Dates: February/March 2014
Synopsis: A British family is thrown into chaos by the arrival of a stranger named Mr. Pim, who suggests that the lady of the house’s dead first husband isn’t really dead after all.
Production Notes: While Milne is of course best known today for his Winnie the Pooh stories, he was also a prolific playwright who wrote dozens of plays. While the comedy of manners was written and originally set in the 1910s, Bucher is strongly considering adapting it to the present day.
Mark’s Thoughts: “It’s a three-act play, although it flies by. It’s charming, it’s humorous – this was a different time, so it’s not comedy-comedy-comedy-comedy-comedy. … What is so fascinating about the A.A. Milne piece is how proto-feminist it is. The wife’s character is really strong, and ultimately she gets her way.”