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NYTimes
New York Times
13 Aug 2024
Elisabeth Vincentelli


NextImg:An Unexpected Bright Spot in Theater? Look to Wisconsin.

For a regular theatergoer, a recent July evening in rural Wisconsin was peak surreal.

It could have been the sight of an amphitheater packed to its 1,075-seat capacity for a weeknight performance of the fairly obscure French comedy “Ring Round the Moon.”

Or maybe it was that the actors didn’t have mics, which is a rarity nowadays. From my seat, I could see audience members leaning in, transfixed by those unamplified voices.

“They’re here to listen,” Brenda DeVita, the artistic director of American Players Theater, said of the faithful who flock to Spring Green, about an hour west of Madison.

A.P.T., in its 45th season, describes itself as a language-based company, which explains why it has doubled down on idiosyncratic choices in the current theatrical landscape. One is not doing musicals. Another is eschewing mics.

That last is partly a practical choice since A.P.T. productions — nine this season, with the last closing on Nov. 10 — are done in repertory. This means the actors are always busy rehearsing or performing, leaving little spare time to add microphones to tech rehearsals. But banking on the glory of the human voice is primarily an artistic decision: Nothing comes between the actors, their words and the public.

ImageAudience members look on as two actresses wearing dresses stand on a second-level balcony onstage. Another actress can be seen standing in a window in the lower left of the stage.
“Much Ado About Nothing,” featuring Sydney Lolita Cusic, lower left, and Samantha Newcomb and Briana J. Resa on the balcony, is running through September at American Players Theater’s 1,100-seat outdoor amphitheater.Credit...Eric Ruby for The New York Times

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