Life is Short, Play in the Woods

Manon Gilles, The Yale Herald

There’s something electric about the moment right before a play starts. The susurrus of the audience quiets, and you feel like you’re being let in on a really big secret. At American Players Theatre (APT), no house lights dim to cue this anticipation. No grand drape sweeps upward to seize your attention. Instead, as the evening sun filters down over the outdoor Hill Theatre, a sweet fanfare sounds and you feel the energy shift. Something potent is about to begin.

A play at APT is like no other. This professional theater company in rural Wisconsin draws the finest artists from all over the country for a chance to ‘play in the woods.’ The company’s primary stage, the Hill Theatre—or “Up the Hill”—does nothing to undermine the natural beauty that encompasses it. It is built into a geological ‘bowl’ on the top of a hill in the Driftless Area, where the natural acoustics allow for an outdoor Greek-style amphitheater that needs no microphones. The theater offers sparse protection from nature’s interruptions. When it rains, actors don’t even blink out of character. It isn’t until the weather becomes a safety concern that the show pauses and the audience huddles under a slim awning to wait out the storm. Soon, napkins are passed out, seats are wiped, and people settle back in to watch the rest of the play.

The unflappable nature of APT’s audience is as old as the theatre itself. In 1986, just two months after the company announced they could no longer afford to operate, a grassroots effort raised enough money for the season to proceed. Forty seasons later, APT operates with an annual budget of over $1 million, and over 100,000 people flock to southwest Wisconsin for their plays every year. In June of this year, Brenda DeVita and Sarah Young accepted the Tony Award for best Regional Theatre on behalf of APT saying, “This is also for our extraordinary audience, our tenacious, radically committed audience.”

About thirty minutes before each show the audience begins its slow amble up the Hill. Everyone who is able walks in a ritual that evokes the communal nature of classical Greek theater. As they follow the winding gravel path upward, the audience leaves behind some of their own lives to enter on equal footing, united in their intention of seeing a play.

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