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| UW-GREEN BAY STUDENTS RETURN TO THE 'BIG STAGE' WITH A PRODUCTION OF CABARET |
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WPR News - UW-Green Bay students return to the 'big stage' with a production of Cabaret
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Thursday April 19, 2012
by Patty Murray
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After a twelve-year hiatus,theater students at the University of Wisconsin Green Bay are returning to the big stage...literally. A student production of "Cabaret" is set to open on Friday.
The Weidner Center on UW Green Bay's campus seats more than two thousand people. It's a different feel from where students are used to performing -- a 450 seat space.
Professor Laura Riddle is directing the production of Cabaret, the musical set in Germany's Weimar Republic of the late nineteen twenties, early nineteen thirties, "They are so excited about the idea of coming over here and being on that stage."
Riddle says it's a daunting prospect for students to step onto a stage that hosted travelling broadway musicals for years.
"I know as a performer that it will," she laughs. "But there's a difference between being scared and being excited. And it's quickly becoming a reality for them."
Students haven't performed on the Weidner Center stage since 2000. Actor Eric Lindahl was in that last production--of Pippin.
He now lives in Chicago but is back to perform as the emcee in Cabaret.
Taking a break from a rehearsal, Lindahl says being onstage at the Weidner Center gives students a peek at what it's like to really put oneself "out there."
"It's pretty intimidating because you're out there and see this house, this 2500 seat house and the stage is enormous and it goes through your head that you've got to fill this," he says. "It's just you and you've got to fill this whole house. But it's an invigorating feeling too. Because at the same time it's scary this is what I've been working for. It gives you a taste of what it's like."
The Weidner Center used to host many travelling broadway productions. Now most of those are staged at Appleton's Performing Arts Center.
But the memory of going to the Weidner remains with UW Green Bay Senior Molly LeCaptain who plays a lead role--Sally Bowles--in Cabaret.
"I used to come see the shows at the Weidner Center, the Broadway shows would come through when I was in middle wchool and elementary school," she says. "You'd go on field trips to see these wonderful musicals that I still, I saw Westside Story there that used to be my favorite musical and I'd think wouldn't that be cool if I could do that one day and now I actually am. It's sort of like a little mini dream come true for me. It's still my hometown but one of the great spaces we have in the state."
Director Laura Riddle says she chose to produce Cabaret because it resonates on a modern level with its themes of gay rights and economic hard times.
"Basically you could go to Germany with an American dollar or a British pound that was worth billions of German marks which were virtually useless," she says.
To be worthy of performing on a professional stage, the school set aside 50-thousand dollars to use on sets, costumes, and promotions. Now, Riddle says it's up to the students to make it work.
"The excitement is there because they're ready. If they weren't ready they'd be terrified."
Cabaret runs Friday and Saturday. If it's is successful it may mark a rekindled relationshop between the Weidner Center and students who attend theater classes just yards away from its doors.
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