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‘Change’ pace with Monologue Festival

Last summer, Clerk of the Wisconsin Supreme Court and Court of Appeals David Schanker passed away due to complications arising after surgery. Besides family and friends, Schanker was survived by a number of plays, stories and novels, both performed and not, published and unpublished. Discovered among his writings and work was a single, stand-alone monologue titled “An Evening With Jon Jones.”

Friday and Saturday, Madison’s Forward Theater Company will be performing “The Love That Changed My Life,” a series of monologues partly inspired by Schanker’s solitary manuscript. The performance is dedicated to Schanker’s memory and, showing just a few days before Valentine’s Day, is a testament to the complex and divergent nature of love.

“The Love That Changed My Life” is the first of what the Forward Theater hopes will become a recurring, annual event: A Monologue Festival drawing submissions from across the globe and auditions from the best local talent available.

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A call was made for submissions to playwrights around the country.

“It’s kind of amazing,” said Gwen Rice, Forward Theater’s Director of Communications. “We got submissions from all over the country: Seattle, California, New York, Florida, the Southwest, [in addition to] Canada, Australia and Israel.”

The company received over 120 submissions total, which went through an elimination process that brought about the 15 monologues being performed this weekend. The Forward Theater Company proclaims as part of its mission “to expand the economic and cultural life of the greater Madison area.” It is a place where local talent, both professional and non-professional, can come together to perform.

This year’s Monologue Festival features performances by actors and actresses from the Madison area – from high school age performers to veterans of nationwide theater tours.

“It is a mix of the experienced and the inexperienced,” Rice said. “We get to see performers at the beginning of their artistic journey alongside people like Michael Herold, who has been on stage for 25 years.”

Herold, a founding member of Forward Theater Company, will be acting out a monologue titled “The Nuts That Changed My Life” as part of the event.

“[The Festival is] a chance for the actors and directors to really shine – a chance for people to see the diversity of the artistic talent here in Madison,” he said.

“Part of Forward’s mission is to use the best of what we have here,” said Richard Ganoung, co-founder of the Forward Theater Company. Ganoung will be directing two monologues written by Christopher Durang, the award-winning playwright, friend and supporter of the new organization.

“It seems like this would be the worst time to form an arts organization, with this economy,” Rice said. “But we’ve said from the beginning that this is when people need the performing arts the most.”

“The Love That Changed My Life” will be a celebration of both the universal impact of love and the lasting resonance of art in times of transformation and duress.

“The array of love relationships that are important to people is so startling,” Rice said. “And where a lot of Valentine’s Day hype focuses on ‘boy-meets-girl,’ with roses and gold necklaces…this evening really shows us the diversity of love.”

The evening will consist of 15 short monologues, each under 10 minutes. It will be a rapid fire series, with all the dramatic and comedic ups and downs essential to an investigation of the many dimensions of love.

Opening with “An Evening with Jon Jones,” David Schanker’s posthumous piece of writing that gave the festival birth, “The Love That Changed My Life” is both elegy and celebration, as well as the Forward Theater Company’s promise for much more to come.

“It’s not the traditional way of looking at a Valentine’s Day evening – candlelight and love,” Ganoung said. “No. It’s love that a single person can experience.”

“The Love that Changed My Life” will be playing at the Overture Center, Friday at 8p.m. and Saturday at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. Tickets for Friday and Saturday evening are sold out, but extra seating may be arranged. Tickets are still available for Saturday’s 4 p.m. show for $20.

Corrections: Due to editing errors,”The Love That Changed My Life” was not created as a result of David Schanker’s passing. The Forward Theater Company created the festival to honor his memory.

The Forward Theater Company plans to host the festival every other year.

Schanker’s play was not first on the bill.

We regret the errors.

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