2021-2022 SEASON
STEW
by Zora Howard
Directed by Malkia Stampley
Featuring Olivia Dawson*, Krystal Drake*, Malaina Moore, and Sola Thompson
October 22 - November 7 | Cabot Theatre
The memories made in the kitchen last longest
Midwest Premiere
The Tucker women have an important meal to prepare and barely enough time to pull it together, and long-simmering hurt and unhealed wounds threaten to make a mess of Mama’s special plan. Three generations of women must work, listen, and learn together—the next generation depends on it. A celebration of the special bond between women and family, the hilarious and heartfelt breakout hit from the 2020 Milwaukee Black Theater Festival reveals how the secrets we keep can shape the lives of those closest to us.
THE THANKSGIVING PLAY
by Larissa FastHorse
Directed by Laura Gordon
Featuring Cassandra Bissell, Neil Brookshire, Torrey Hanson, Hannah Shay
November 19-December 19, 2021 | Studio Theatre
The funniest Thanksgiving roast you'll attend this year
Wisconsin Premiere
A team of terminally woke teaching artists’ good intentions collide with absurd assumptions in this blistering satire, now live on stage after a celebrated run in MCT’s 20/21 virtual season. Logan is a high school drama teacher who loves to push limits. But she runs the risk of getting carried over the edge with her next play: a celebration of the first Thanksgiving that also honors Native American Heritage Month. With the help of her yoga-teaching busker boyfriend, an elementary school history expert determined to make all his theatrical dreams come true, and an “authentic” actor from Los Angeles representing all Native Americans, what could possibly go wrong?
MALA
by Melinda Lopez
Featuring Rána Roman
Directed by Artistic Director Brent Hazelton
January 21 - February 13, 2022 | Studio Theatre
What does it really mean to be there at the end for those we leave most dearly?
Wisconsin Premiere
Mala means “bad”—not just to do bad, but to be a fundamental and irredeemable failure at your human core. In this irreverent, funny, and deeply cathartic exploration of how the changes in the lives of those closest to us deeply impact our own, a daughter strives for grace in the face of her mother’s growing fragility as she nears the end of her life. Grounded in rich and emotionally evocative language counterpointed with sharp and surprising humor, this powerful one-woman show starring Milwaukee’s own Rána Roman opens the door for conversation about our universal struggle to support those we love in dying—and especially when every choice makes us feel more mala than that last.
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INDECENT
by Paula Vogel
Directed by Artistic Director Brent Hazelton
Featuring Elyse Edelman, Angela Iannone, James Pickering, James Ridge, Eric Damon Smith, Rachael Zientek
March 10-27, 2022 | Cabot Theatre
An essential affirmation of the resilience of the human spirit
Milwaukee Premiere
A sensation from its 1906 premiere onward, Sholem Asch’s THE GOD OF VENGEANCE became the first play to be translated from Yiddish and professionally staged across Europe. Hailed on the continent for its rebuttal of religious hypocrisy and its honest, joyous depiction of a same-sex relationship, the play was shut down upon its Broadway debut. Following Asch’s play through the first five decades of the Twentieth Century, Pulitzer Prize-winner Paula Vogel’s celebration of love and art, featuring an onstage klezmer band, honors those who brought THE GOD OF VENGEANCE to the stage—and who paid for it, in some cases, with their lives.
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THE ISLAND
by Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona
Directed by Mikael Burke
Featuring Dimonte Henning, Sherrick Robinson
April 8-May 1, 2022 | Studio Theatre
An apartheid-era masterpiece with smoldering contemporary resonance
In a notorious maximum-security political prison, two cellmates toil at brutal hard labor by day and rehearse Sophocles’ ANTIGONE for a prison entertainment by night. When one is unexpectedly granted his release, envy and empathy, triumph and loss, and hope and despair all collide in the concentrated atmosphere as they dig into a two-thousand-year-old play that explores every human’s moral obligation to defiance of unjust government. Presented by popular demand after a critically acclaimed run in MCT’s 20/21 virtual season, this modern classic from South Africa’s most esteemed theater-makers celebrates the depths of human resilience and offers a scathing indictment of the injustice of white supremacy.