Wisconsin Public Television	University Place		Wisconsin Academy Fellow:	David Frank		4/27/14	UP5772  cc [APPLAUSE]  >> APT has always been blessed with an incredible clarity of artistic mission. Too, I think it's fair to say that is true for any great organization, that a very specific fervently believed in, fervently practiced and held culture has been part of the tools that have made it possible to pursue that artistic mission. And also, you can have the greatest artistic goals and all the culture that supports it, but also, I think, those values have to be aligned with an effective business model that is closely related to this glorious community here in Madison. I'll get to that at the end if there's time. [LAUGHTER] Let me touch briefly then on those three things. From the beginning, APT has always been founded on one premise, that these glorious plays that we practice are, in and of themselves, immensely valuable and capable of appealing to an intelligent, non-specialized, contemporary audience. From the beginning, the founders rejected the notion that the only thing that would shield an audience from their dull incomprehensibility, does that word exist, yes, would be heavy-handed concept, huge production values, great visual spectacle. The founders believed, and we still believe, that these plays, in and of themselves, have the ability to excite modern audiences. Now, the specifics of that have evolved over the years, of course. And how exactly you do that and what exactly makes these plays live for an audience is a debate that could take us weeks. 

And if you want to start it right outside, Brenda and I will be glad to begin. [LAUGHTER] But not now. Let me just say one thing, though. It is one of the privileges, obligations, if you work in a classical theater company to be acutely aware and respectful for the unique voice that every great artist and every great playwright has and that one of the joys has been trying to explore what that unique voice is and to see if we can bring it to life for contemporary audiences. In particular, that would be true for Shakespeare. And of course Shakespeare, the most brilliant, well-rounded playwright any of us can imagine, but above all, a playwright known for an extraordinary ability with language. So it has become a very specific mission for us to see if we can develop techniques that make words that, at first glance, can look obscure and dusty and incomprehensible something that is alive, or you could hear the poetry in Pat -- and how spoken poetry can work, to make that alive and available, unpretentious, necessary, a vital form of communication. Only words sometimes used as poetry can take over when the quantifiable aspects of communication words fail and we need art, we need poetry, and that has been an area that has been a great delight for us to explore. Two paradoxes. One, people matter. 

That treating each other with charity, respect, honesty is, one, infectious, two, self-perpetuating, and three, thoroughly self-serving. [LAUGHTER] The only real path to freedom, we believe, is through discipline and rigor. And if you are Sarah Day or any other actor out there in that vastness of the night with only those words and one other actor's eyes to depend on, the only thing that gives you the courage to jump into the abyss are years and years of training and discipline, with a technique so secure you know it will be there without you even thinking about it. Applies also to budgets. [LAUGHTER] So, manners matter, but, for APT, so does mathematics. [APPLAUSE]