EQUIVOCATION

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Mike Fischer

See “Equivocation,” by all means. It is a stupendously good play that takes major risks with form, of a sort we don’t see very often on Milwaukee stages.


Play On Milwaukee, Jeff Gryngy

If any director can pull off this Mount Everest of a play, with its sophisticated language and whiplash changes of tone, it’s Michael Cotey, who has proven himself adept both with serio-comedy and dramatic rhythm. Cotey leads his actors in a style that’s often quite farcical— which can sometimes feel like you’re looking at a cartoon composed of aphorisms, or a stained glass window with a few comic panes. The King’s Men come off as a Renaissance Rat Pack. Cotey, who staged this play at Northwestern University not long ago, throws in some wonderful bits of stagecraft, such as when manuscript pages shower down over “Shag” while he tosses off a script that will later be known as Macbeth; or giving us a graphic lesson in the exact meaning of “drawn and quartered.” When the players re-enact scenes from one of the plays, they do it in a vivid “you are there” style that uses sound and lighting effects to re-create the excitement that must have attended their first performances.”


On Theater, Dave Begel

Mr. Cotey had an exquisite cast of actors to work with in this production and he shows his roots as an actor by giving them space and pace to do their finest work....A word must also be said about Mr. Cotey, who cut his teeth on theater in Milwaukee and has moved to Chicago where he has earned his Masters at Northwestern. He is an actor of experience and talent but the path he is paving as a director is filled with the kind of skill you rarely see in such a young director.”


Small Stage, Russ Bickerstaff

“Director Michael Cotey gives The Globe an earthiness with an excellent cast playing an excellent cast....More than simply historical, Equivocation is an important exploration into the importance of getting the story right...not just for now, but for those people who have to live with the stories we tell once we’re gone.”





NEXT ACT THEATRE

by BILL CAIN

Set:

Sotirios Livaditis


Lights:

Alexander Ridgers


Sound:

Grover Hollway


Costumes:

Amanda Gladu


Fights:

Christopher Elst


Stage Manager:

Jessica Connelly


Assistant Director:

Jennifer Vosters


Cast:

David Cecsarini

T. Stacy Hicks

Josh Krause

Eva Nimmer

Jonathan Smoots

Mark Ulrich


Photos:

Ross Zentner

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