Theatre X
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
company based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Milwaukee is the largest city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, the 28th most populous city in the United States and 39th most populous region in the United States. It is the county seat of Milwaukee County and is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. According to 2010 census data, the...
. Until its demise in 2004, it was one of the oldest operating experimental theatre
Experimental theatre
Experimental theatre is a general term for various movements in Western theatre that began in the late 19th century as a retraction against the dominant vent governing the writing and production of dramatical menstrophy, and age in particular. The term has shifted over time as the mainstream...
ensembles in the U.S.
History
The company formed in 1969 as an informal workshop by a group of UW–Milwaukee faculty and students. It became a professional company by 1971, touring throughout the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and to Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and Japan. It was named for the algebraic symbol x
X
X is the twenty-fourth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-Uses:In mathematics, x is commonly used as the name for an independent variable or unknown value. The usage of x to represent an independent or unknown variable can be traced back to the Arabic word šay شيء = “thing,” used in Arabic...
, which means an unknown quantity, thus implying a theatre of unlimited possibility. The ensemble was a resident company at the Water Street Art Center in Milwaukee, where they rehearsed, performed and hosted traveling productions from other theatre companies. The site soon included an art gallery and small press bookstore that years later became Woodland Pattern Book Center, as well as a grass roots outreach company, Friends Mime Theatre, which evolved into the Milwaukee Public Theatre
Milwaukee Public Theatre
The Milwaukee Public Theatre is a professional outreach theatre company based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was founded in 1974 as Friends Mime Theatre by Barbara Leigh and Michael John Moynihan and has since created over 400 productions. The Public Theatre performs at over 400 events a year attended...
. Finally, it moved into offices in the Broadway Theater Center in Milwaukee's Historic Third Ward and remained there until its collapse.
Much of its early work was created improvisationally
Improvisational theatre
Improvisational theatre takes many forms. It is best known as improv or impro, which is often comedic, and sometimes poignant or dramatic. In this popular, often topical art form improvisational actors/improvisers use improvisational acting techniques to perform spontaneously...
as an ensemble
Ensemble cast
An ensemble cast is made up of cast members in which the principal actors and performers are assigned roughly equal amounts of importance and screen time in a dramatic production. This kind of casting became more popular in television series because it allows flexibility for writers to focus on...
, with influences including The Living Theatre
The Living Theatre
The Living Theatre is an American theatre company founded in 1947 and based in New York City. It is the oldest experimental theatre group still existing in the U.S...
and Jerzy Grotowski
Jerzy Grotowski
Jerzy Grotowski was a Polish theatre director and innovator of experimental theatre, the "theatre laboratory" and "poor theatre" concepts....
. The company created over 60 new plays among its 180 productions. In its last two years, Theatre X's board of directors
Board of directors
A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...
gave then producing director David Ravel and artistic director John Schneider control over play selection and casting, which had previously involved the entire group, and then dissolved the acting company. This move away from an ensemble structure led to a public dispute when the board gave ensemble members John Kishline, Deborah Clifton and Marcie Hoffmann a forced leave of absence from acting in hopes of re-structuring the company, leaving only Schneider and Flora Coker as the remaining founding members. Though litigation was proposed, the lawsuit was dropped after it became too costly. Theatre X continued for 2 seasons but chose to turn off the lights in 2004.
Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe is an American film, stage, and voice actor, and a founding member of the experimental theatre company The Wooster Group...
was an early member of the ensemble and, when he stayed in New York to eventually join the Wooster Group, was replaced by Victor DeLorenzo
Victor DeLorenzo
Victor DeLorenzo was born on October 25, 1954, and is best known as the drummer for the folk-punk band the Violent Femmes.He grew up in Racine, Wisconsin and has lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, since. He has been a drummer since the age of sixteen, but an actor since the age of five...
, who later was one of the founders of Violent Femmes
Violent Femmes
Violent Femmes were an American alternative rock band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, initially active between 1980 and 1987 and again from 1988 to 2009...
. Delorenzo was later replaced by David Rommel. Lory Lazarus, a member of Theatre X in the mid 1970s, went on to become a writer for Cartoon Network's "Courage, the Cowardly Dog" and a songwriter for "Barney & Friends" on PBS. Two of Theatre X's founding members, Conrad Bishop and Elizabeth Fuller, went on to form The Independent Eye
The Independent Eye
The Independent Eye is an American theatre company currently based in Sebastopol, California.The group was founded in 1974 by Conrad Bishop and Elizabeth Fuller, who were then performing with Theatre X in Milwaukee and had helped to found that group...
.
Theatre X won a 1978 Obie Award
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
for the set design and lighting design for the New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
production of their original play A Fierce Longing, based on the life of Yukio Mishima
Yukio Mishima
was the pen name of , a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor and film director, also remembered for his ritual suicide by seppuku after a failed coup d'état...
.