TONY CLEMENTS

fletch.

i couldn't have said it better myself. but i'll try:

i'm no longer a part of the milwaukee theater community, per se.
but in my years away from milwaukee, i've done nothing but talk about what an amazing theater community milwaukee has.

i recall sitting backstage during a "mamma mia" understudy rehearsal, telling a group of fellow understudies about the great actors i had the honor to work with in wisconsin. i named them. i talked at length about each and recounted my favorite performances. my bragging on milwaukee always ended with what a supportive community it can be, and in fact i often mentioned that there "are no awards, no great honors, just great actors." it's a phrase i came to enjoy.

i've seen crap at the milwaukee rep and brilliant stuff at broadway baby dinner theater (and vice-versa.) i've seen so-so performances at the chamber theater, and performances that moved me to tears at waukesha civic theater. which of those establishments, which of those actors would be included, or rather, EXCLUDED from these awards? looking back, would theater tesseract have qualified? or clavis? how about charmaine denoyer, or dale gutzman? ray bradford? tom marks and michael wilson? john bohan? josephine busalacchi?

you wanna have a party? good god have a party. celebrate the season. celebrate each other. make fun of each other -- norman moses is ripe for the picking. and invite EVERYONE (even those folks from the whitefish bay players.) giving a few select folks an award seems to me to be just the opposite of wanting to come together as a community, as a group of friends.

seriously, have a barbecue for crying out loud.

i'll end by including a quote from one of my favorite films, "all about eve" (shut up.)

"The Theatuh, the Theatuh. What book of rules says the Theater exists only within some ugly buildings crowded into one square mile of New York City? Or London, Paris or Vienna?

Listen, Junior, and learn.

Want to know what the Theater is? A flea circus. Also opera. Also rodeos, carnivals, ballets, Indian tribal dances, Punch and Judy, a one-man band -- all Theater. Wherever there's magic and make-believe and an audience -- there's Theater. Donald Duck, Ibsen, and The Lone Ranger, Sarah Bernhardt, Poodles Hanneford, Lunt and Fontanne, Betty Grable, Rex and Wild, and Eleanora Duse. You don't understand them all, you don't like them all, why should you? The Theater's for everybody -- you included, but not exclusively.

So don't approve or disapprove.

It may not be your Theater,
but it's Theater of somebody, somewhere."


MOST SINCERELY,
TONY CLEMENTS