Wausau Daily Herald

"FLEDGLING COMPANY TAKES THE STAGE"

Theatre student makes directing debut with quirky production

By Keith Uhlig
A new theatre company has emerged in Wausau, making its debut with a strange and challenging piece.

Silver Sparrow Productions will bring playwright Charles L. Mee’s bobrauschenbergamerica to the stage next week in the Black Box Theatre at Wausau East High School.

The driving force behind it all is Laura Lamansky, 19, a 2007 Wausau East High School graduate.  Laura will be starting her second year as a theatre major and a television and film production minor at the University of Southern California.

Lamansky has been steeped in theatre her entire life.  Her parents, Carol and Greg Lamansky of Wausau are well known in Wausau-area stage circles and they helped found Wausau’s Oasis Theatre Ensemble.  Laura performed in the Oasis production of Tartuffe last year and she also played roles in production such as The Tragedy of King Richard III at Wausau East and Les Miserables through Central Wisconsin Educational Theatre Alliance.  She also danced in several productions of The Nutcracker, produced by Wausau Dance Theatre.

One of her dreams has been to make a project come to life and be in control of it from start to finish.  “I guess I really wanted to direct,” she said.

Silver Sparrow Productions was hatched this spring when Laura made the decision to form the company and produce bobrauschenbergamerica.  She was the dance captain, an assistant to the choreographer for the USC production of Carousel.  She kept talking with the director of that play about bobrauschenbergamerica, a play she saw a couple of years ago while attending a theatre workshop at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

As she discussed the play, she decided it would be fun – and a learning experience – to produce the play this summer in Wausau with the help of her theatre friends here.  She’s receiving no credit for the project, but she’ll be able to add it to her resume.  She’s also hoping to establish Silver Sparrow Productions in California when she returns to Los Angeles for college.

bobrauschenbergamerica is named after the influential artist Robert Rauschenberg, who is credited for helping to usher in the pop art era.
“It’s different than anything else I’ve ever done before,” said Joe Feltz, 21, who will play “Phil the Trucker.”  “It’s very random, very quirky.  A lot of things happen so unexpectedly.  It’s something that makes you think.  I think you can relate it to your own life, or American life.”

The play won’t appeal to everybody, Feltz said, “but that’s the fun of art, you know?  Some people will get it right away, some people, it takes a little while, and some people never get it.  That’s the fun of art, I think.”

There’s really no plot, either.

“It’s a series of vignettes and monologues,” Lamansky said.

The play has music and singing, but it’s not a musical.  It’s funny, but it’s not a comedy.  It doesn’t have a story, but Lamansky sees it as an exploration of the cultural gap between generations.  Her version is set in the 1950s and ‘60s, during the era of Civil Rights and the wars in Korea and Vietnam.

“It’s a weird play.  It’s definitely avant-garde and experimental,” she said.

Lamansky has what it takes to make the play a success, said Annaluna Karkar, executive director of Wausau Dance Theatre.  Lamansky consulted with Karkar about producing bobrauchenbergamerica.

“This is a very challenging production, but if anybody can do it, she can,” Karkar said.  “She really understands how to put things together, and then step back from it…I know she’s incredibly meticulous and incredibly organized.  You have to see all the details, but you also have to see the big picture.”

Center for the Visual Arts

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