Theatre X

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Broadway Theatre Center

Theatre X was an American theatre company based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Until its demise in 2004, it was one of the oldest continuously operating experimental theatre ensembles in the U.S.

[edit] History

The group was founded in 1969 as an informal workshop, by a group of UW-Milwaukee faculty and students, and became a professional company by 1971, touring throughout the United States and to Europe and Japan. It was named for the algebraic symbol x, 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 Center soon included an art gallery and small press bookstore, which years later became Woodland Pattern Book Center and a grass roots outreach theatre Friends Mime Theatre which years later became the Milwaukee Public Theatre.

Much of its early work was created improvisationally as an ensemble, with influences including The Living Theatre and Jerzy Grotowski. The company created over 60 new plays among its 180 productions. In its last two years, Theatre X's board of directors gave then Producing Director David Ravel and Artistic Director John Schneider more control over play selection and casting, which had previously involved the entire group. This move away from an ensemble structure led to a public dispute within the company when Scheider fired ensemble members John Kishline, Deborah Clifton and Marcie Hoffman. During this time it performed from the Broadway Theatre Center in Milwaukee's Third Ward.

Willem Dafoe 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, who later was one of the founders of The Violent Femmes. Delorenzo was replaced by David Rommel. Two of Theatre X's founding members, Conrad Bishop and Elizabeth Fuller went on to form The Independent Eye.

Theatre X won a 1978 Obie Award for the set design and lighting design for the New York production of their original play A Fierce Longing, based on the life of Yukio Mishima.