PearlDamour and Shakespeare Walla Walla are sponsoring the local premiere of Milton, three-person performance comprised of spoken word and song that examines what it means to be American through the lens of small-town life, in this case, Milton-Freewater.
The performance is scheduled for 7 p.m. on June 16-17, as well as 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. on June 18-19, and will be performed at the McLoughlin High School (Mac Hi) Auditorium in Milton-Freewater. Admission is free for Milton-Freewater residents and a $5-$15 donation is suggested for other patrons. A community barbecue is planned for Saturday, June 18 at 5 p.m. prior to the show.
The production is a culmination of three years’ worth of site visits made by PearlDamour’s Katie Pearl and Lisa D’Amour to five towns named Milton across the United States. In Wisconsin, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Louisana, and Oregon, PearlDamour interviewed local residents and community groups about where they live and how they define their role in the world. The result is an experimental performance about American community spoken and sung by three Seattle-based performers. The production also includes scale models of the communities’ landmarks, artifacts from each town, and large video projections of the five skies over five towns, captured in each Milton. The Milton-Freewater production will be the only bilingual adaptation of the play and is written so that Spanish or English speakers can understand.
Part poem, part song, and part video installation, this intimate, surprising production showcases PearlDamour’s unique, adventurous aesthetic. The company has often created theater for unusual spaces; past performances sites include an empty office building and a bridge over the Mississippi River. With the production of MILTON, PearlDamour aims to bring experimental performance to communities that rarely have access to it, offering new perspectives on how to share stories of one’s history, town, and individual experiences. Later performances in larger cities will reveal the complexities of the small-town experience and draw connections between communities across America.
“As we prepare for our performance, we learn a lot about community needs and interests, and how our performance can become a catalyst for conversation and action around the issues that matter most,” said Katie Pearl, co-artistic director of PearlDamour. “There’s a lot of conversation in Milton-Freewater about the hyphen that connects their two names.
“We started asking: how can visual art and performance connect the two sides of town by creating opportunities for the Latino and Anglo residents to come out and dream together? Our bilingual show brings many different points of view into one room. We hope it will reflect back all the fantastic people we’ve met here, and the hard work all kinds of folks– adults and students, individuals and families, artists and civic workers– are doing to make Milton-Freewater an even more vibrant place to live.”
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Performances of Milton will take place at the McLoughlin High School (Mac Hi) Auditorium located at 120 Main Street in Milton-Freewater. Tickets can be reserved by calling 888-854-5698.
