Mark Clements and Michael Pink Discuss CABARET and Life in Milwaukee

Michael Pink and Mark Clements during a CABARET dress rehearsal in the Quadracci Powerhouse. Photo by Michael Brosilow.International, and award-winning director Mark Clements is The Rep’s newly-appointed Artistic Director. The British-born Clements is directing CABARET, the first-ever full-scale musical on the Quadracci Powerhouse stage. Mark is joined in his directing debut by fellow Brit, Milwaukee Ballet Artistic Director Michael Pink, who is choreographing the production. This is the first time that the artistic directors of these two leading Milwaukee cultural organizations have collaborated together. Michael Kroeker, Artistic Assistant, interviewed the two busy creative leaders during rehearsals for CABARET.

Michael Kroeker: [to Mark Clements] I’ve heard that you come from a theater family – can you talk a little about growing up in that household?

Mark Clements: No.

Michael Pink: (Laughing) He’s going to sing you a song.

MC: (singing) “I was born in a trunk…”

Yes, my parents were actors – struggling actors – for the early part of my life. When other children were going to . . . [to Michael Pink] well, we don’t really have summer camp, do we?

MP: Because we don’t have summer!

MC: When other children were going away to Boys’ Brigade or scout camps, or other things that kids did, like school trips, I was usually away with my parents, who were, in my very early years, doing weekly rep – they would do 22 plays in 24 weeks – which I find a mind-blowing statistic. And they brought me up, and I was never really aware of theater. I always had meals on the table, and I was always taken out for trips and treats – a spoiled-brat only child, you know.

Theater was always around for me. Then my parents, when I was about 12 or 13, created their own company and they became producers. And they were touring and doing pantomime – which is a big deal in England – at one point my dad had about 10 or 12 pantomimes around the country.

I grew up in the theater and I was always interested in the technical side of it. I started my career as a stage manager, and it was originally my intention to go into location and floor management and producing in TV. I wasn’t really focused on the theater, but I think it had just become more and more a part of my life. Once I realized that theater was part of my life and that I had been resistant to it as a kid, because . . . well, that’s what you do when you’re a kid – especially a curmudgeonly 14-year-old British teenager. I just realized how important it was to me. I then went into technical theater. And then I started directing - I was given the opportunity when I was a company manager at 21 years old, so I did everything five or six years before everybody else. And when I was about 23, I was given the opportunity to direct something and I thought, “Oh, no. My dad does that. I don’t want to do that.” But I did. I did a couple of little shows – Harold Pinter’s THE DUMB WAITER was my first play, HESS by Michael Burrall was my second play – and it kind of exploded from that. Everything was just coming my way. I was one of those people who never – well, I’m not saying that I didn’t have to work hard for it initially – but I was there at the right time and opportunities came at me and I was able to cherry-pick from quite an early age. I’ve had a blessed time, and I’m very grateful for that.

MK: [to Michael Pink] As someone who has lived here in Milwaukee for nearly a decade, what were your first impressions and how have those impressions evolved?

MP: It’s hard to believe that it’s actually been eight years – two years shy. It’s interesting that as a community . . . from the very get-go, when we arrived here, people were very friendly. In reality, of course, you would expect that, because we’re coming into high-profile jobs, and because everything is governed and run at the discretion of generous people who support the arts. You get to socialize and mingle with them, and they want to make you feel good so I often wonder about the reality aspect of it – we’re seeing a side of the city that really is the crème-de-la-crème. But then even the people on the street and the people that get to know you and the people that come to the performances – they are all just genuinely committed – otherwise I don’t think this city could support the volume of arts organizations that it does.

And as much as it reminds me of a northern English city, and as much as it plays poor relations to Chicago or any of the other major cities, I think there is a lot of discretion here and a lot of commitment to the community. So having young children living and growing up here – it’s a good place to do it. There are plenty of other places where one can live, but, from the very beginning, my wife and I were very surprised about the whole make up of this city and the fact that it has a very European feel to it. There are really fabulous people here. And now Mark’s joined, and we have another Brit in town, and it’s great. When I first arrived here, we met many, many Brits who’d been here, and all of them told the same story: “We came for just a few years, and I’ve been here 21 years,” “I’ve been here 30 years,” and so on. Milwaukee has that ability to capture people and you end up making your life here. Whether I’ll do that, whether Mark will do that, we don’t know, but it seems a perfect place to be now, to evolve and grow and make a lasting commitment. I think people do feel the advantages of really committing themselves to us as individuals – it took me three years to build a bit of trust and confidence with a lot of people, and, again, that’s very English.

People don’t just open their arms and say, “Yes. Anything you want.” They’re skeptical and they stand back. That’s a good thing. It makes you think twice about certain things and you spend the time getting to know them. Certainly, in the ballet, which is a very exclusive art form, you try to find ways to open it up to everybody and move the art form forward. And not just give them what they perceive they want, but slowly encourage them to experiment more and become more discerning about quality and standards.

MK: Why CABARET now, both in terms of your tenure as new Artistic Director and in terms of national and perhaps even world history?

MC: CABARET presents a good opportunity to make a big splash, which we felt was important in terms of consolidating our current audiences as well as inviting those who we hope will come to theater but have perhaps not had the opportunity to come to The Rep before.

CABARET is an iconic piece of theater like Shakespeare or Arthur Miller. And for good reason – it withstands the test of time, is cross generational and is composed of central themes that are open to many different types of interpretation.

One of the things that interested me – and that Kander and Ebb have alluded to in interviews – is the constructing of a musical in which the protagonists were struggling to find how to do the right thing – when is the right time to speak up? A lot of us in our lifetimes, thankfully, haven’t had to do that. We’ve never been put to the test, in terms of having the barrel of a gun placed against our head, or the threat of our family or loved ones or friends being taken away from us in the middle of the night, never to be seen again. I think the dichotomy that people are faced with when trying to do the right thing under very difficult and challenging circumstances is a fascinating dramatic theme to explore – one that resonates for all of us. When we hear a racist or homophobic comment in the street, when do we stand up and say something about that? How do we put ourselves to the test?

These are the questions that I would like to explore with our production of CABARET. I’m also looking forward to exploring them with the multi-talented cast that we’ve assembled. It includes members of our Resident Acting Company, Lee Ernst and Jon Daly, as well as other favorite Milwaukee actors, Angela Iannone and Linda Stephens, and talented actors and musicians from across the country. I’m thrilled to be directing this production to begin The Rep’s 2010/11 season. I couldn’t be more delighted to be doing this production right here, right now.

Michael Pink and Mark Clements during a CABARET dress rehearsal in the Quadracci Powerhouse. Photo by Michael Brosilow.