Milwaukee Rep Founder Mary John Dies

Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Repertory Theater.

Although she moved to New York in 1959, Mary Widrig John left this city with an enduring legacy as the founder of what is now the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, where her photograph has hung for years in its lobby. John, a native of Green Bay, died in Florida on February 26th. She was 96. According to a statement issued by the Rep’s Artistic Director, Mark Clements:

We send our deepest condolences to Mary’s family and hope her meaningful legacy gives them solace. It’s hard to put into words the impact she has left us. Her vision and fortitude to create a professional theater in Milwaukee has changed the scope of the city and given so many an artistic home. We carry her vision and know that if not for her and the generous support of the community we wouldn’t have the opportunity to create thought provoking and entertaining work for the past 68 years.

The Rep’s Beginnings

In 1954 John organized Drama, Inc., a non-profit stock corporation. With the help of Jane Bradley Uihlein (later Pettit) and others, including Clair Richardson, its first employee, the group raised $115,000 to create a theater company in Milwaukee. The fundraising was led by Fred Miller, the chairman of his family’s brewing company, who was recruited by Uihlein. Following his death in an airplane crash that year, the old Oakland Theater (now Miramar Theater) was named in his honor. It opened in 1955, and John contributed to the program notes:

Drama Inc. was established by three thousand Milwaukeeans joined together, not for the glory of any individual or for the exploitation of the public, but for the purpose of bringing a permanent professional theater to Milwaukee. … We hope that each performance will provide enjoyable participation for you, make lasting impressions and give your life a little more pleasure and meaning. If that happens, then the effort will have been amply rewarded. …

During her tenure as managing director, John produced 37 shows. The inaugural season had two plays by women. The next season, six out of ten plays were by women. After her departure, it took years until the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, renamed in 1963, produced plays by women. One of John’s gimmicks was to allow Broadway stars to choose the vehicle in which they would perform while on their two-week residencies (later extended to three weeks). These included Uta Hagen in Cyprienne, Geraldine Brooks in The Philadelphia Story, Geraldine Page in Summer and Smoke, Florence Reed in Night Must Fall, and Eva Le Galliene in her own translation of Ibsen’s Ghosts. John also formed an educational component of the theater, aligned it with UW-Milwaukee, and was a founding member of the Wisconsin Arts Foundation — all before her departure from Milwaukee over six decades ago.

A Lifetime Commitment to Theater

Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Repertory Theater.

Mary Widrig John Sullivan was born in Green Bay on December 6th, 1925 to Read E. and Thelma (Melville) Widrig. The family moved to Milwaukee in 1929. Summers were spent in Chautauqua Lake, New York, an early artists’ colony. Her father’s family once owned a resort there, and her mother was a singer. Ten days after graduating from Northwestern University with a degree in Theater, Mary married Richard Curtis John in 1947, and moved with him to Madison, where he received his undergraduate degree, and she her master’s in directing. They later moved to Milwaukee. In 1948 she served as Director, Radio and Television at Louis Mark & Associates Advertising Agency, and a freelance producer at WTMJ-TV the first television station in the midwest, where she conceived and wrote a six-show series in 1948-49. (Jane Bradley was also an early television pioneer at the station.) The Johns then moved to New York, with a son, Richard, Jr., who was born in 1950.

Twice a week she would hire a babysitter, and pound the pavement, searching out the offices of Broadway producers. She got a job as a receptionist at one place, despite not knowing stenography, precious little of typing, and having never before encountered a switchboard. The next stage of her career involved a plot twist straight out of Broadway.

According to a 2018 profile in American Theater:

One day Bretaigne Windust, a prominent director known as Windy, came into the office. He had been hired to direct Carnival in Flanders and was looking for an assistant director. John jumped on the opportunity, with the blessings of her boss. John’s complete lack of qualifications to be a receptionist quite possibly helped her land a dream job. During the rehearsal process, Windy became ill and Mary took over many of the director’s duties. The show had a two-month run in California before he was replaced by the author of the play, Preston Sturges. The play ran for six performances on Broadway, starring Dolores Gray and John Raitt. Dolores won the Tony for best actress that year (and continues to hold the honor for shortest-lived Tony award-nominated performance in Broadway history). So began Mary’s career in the American theatre.

In 1952 Richard John returned to Milwaukee, while his wife was still working in California. She joined him shortly thereafter. According to the interview, “This presented her with a personal crossroads. As she put it to me, ‘I knew if I wanted to be happy and have a marriage that I needed to work in professional theatre.’ But as there were no options for that in Milwaukee at the time, Mary decided to make something that would not only satisfy her need for theatrical activity but would create something for the city she considered home. Thus the Rep was born, and enjoyed several successful seasons under her leadership.

Life After Milwaukee

In 1959 John left for New York, where she was an instructor at New York University from 1959-61. She earned a PhD from the school in 1965. In 1968, she divorced John. She produced a number of Off-Broadway plays, and even produced shows in Monaco at the invitation of Princess Grace, the former actress Grace Kelly. She was also involved with the Ballard School of Continuing Education in New York City and taught at New York University, the University of Denver and the University of Rhode Island. In 1973 she joined the Dallas faculty of Northwood University, a Michigan school with which she was affiliated until retirement in 1995. She is survived by her son Richard C. John of Illinois, and her husband, Robert A. Sullivan of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, whom she met at age 70 and married at 77.

John returned to Milwaukee three years ago to celebrate the Rep’s 65th birthday and shared her reminiscences in this lovely video. “She was in awe of the scope and shape the theater had taken over the years,” says Frances White, Rep Director of Media Relations.

Our Critic Weighs In

Veteran Milwaukee theater journalist Dominique Paul Noth, who reviews plays for Urban Milwaukee, shared some of his memories of the early days of the Rep:

I actually attended shows at old Fred Miller before it formally became Milwaukee Rep. Many people don’t know but the novice  American Conservatory Theater of San Francisco used Milwaukee’s Fred Miller Theater to launch its basic repertory concept as did Ellis Raab‘s New York theater — I recall seeing the likes of Raab, Rosemary Harris and Will Geer doing rep at the old Fred Miller, followed by William Ball and his fledgling ACT troupe doing Pirandello and more, all as Mary John and company moved away from celebrity stock company (with Edward Everett Horton and other notables coming in for a show) toward the Rep concept that Tunc Yalman finally formalized as Milwaukee Rep.

More photos can be seen in this biography of Mary W. John.