Transcripts

text | pdf |

---

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: From Minnesota Public Radio, I'm Greta Cunningham. For Minneapolis City Council Member Joseph Biernat has begun serving his 21-month prison sentence at the Federal work camp in Duluth. Last weekend, a judge refused to allow him to remain free while he appeals his conviction.

Biernat was convicted last November of five felony charges relating to $2,700 in free plumbing work he received from a union official who was seeking an appointment to a city board. Federal authorities said Biernat projected release date is December 7, 2004.

The White House deputy drug czar was in the Twin Cities yesterday and spoke about President Bush's support for access to drug treatment programs. Scott Burns says the White House also wants to go after people who sell illegal drugs.

SCOTT BURNS: People that are telling our children and others it's OK, it's harmless, it won't hurt you. And they are spreading the disease of addiction. We are going after the carriers, some 10 million that are not addicted.

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: Burns toured the Turning Point drug treatment center in Minneapolis. St. Louis Park-based paper warehouse has filed for bankruptcy protection and closed 24 company owned stores in the Twin Cities area. The party goods retailer closed stores in Brooklyn Park, Coon Rapids, Crystal, Golden Valley, Richfield, and St. Paul's midway neighborhood.

The company's chief executive says some of the 30 employees who worked in those stores might be reassigned to other Twin Cities locations. Company officials say the bankruptcy reorganization would not affect its 51 franchise locations or its internet business.

The forecast for Minnesota calls for partly to mostly cloudy skies statewide with scattered showers possible in the north and southeast. High temperatures today ranging from 65 to 75 degrees. Right now in Moorhead, it's fair and 66. Duluth reports sunshine and 66. And in the Twin cities, partly sunny and 66. From Minnesota Public Radio News, I'm Greta Cunningham.

GARY EICHTEN: Thank you, Greta. Six minutes now past 12 o'clock and welcome back to Midday on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Gary Eichten. This hour, our Voices of Minnesota interview series with prominent Minnesotans resumes. Today, we're going to meet two of Minnesota's most prominent theater figures.

Vern Sutton will be talking about his career as a professor and performer. And Bonnie Morris will be talking about her nearly 30 years of work as a founder of the Illusion Theater in Minneapolis. Here's Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson.

DAN OLSON: Oklahoma City born Vern Sutton grew up with country Western music in his veins. Many of the themes in those tunes, Sutton says, are found in opera. So the University of Minnesota School of Music professor feels right at home, offering his interpretation of Bob Wills' "San Antonio Rose".

[BOB WILLIS, "SAN ANTONIO ROSE"] Deep within my heart lies a melody

A song of old San Antone

Where in dreams I live with a memory

Beneath the stars, all alone.

DAN OLSON: Vern Sutton retires this spring from his University of Minnesota job. However, he's not leaving the stage. He's back this summer directing the University of Minnesota showboat production. Sutton is one of Minnesota's most prominent opera figures. He's a veteran of the Center Opera company, which grew into the Minnesota Opera.

Sutton created the university's Opera on the Farm program, which brought productions to dozens of upper Midwest communities. Vern Sutton is a frequent performer on the a Prairie Home Companion radio show. I talked with Sutton recently in his school of music office in Ferguson Hall at the University of Minnesota and reminded him of one of his earliest roles when he was an elementary school student in Oklahoma City.

First grade, baby bear in Goldilocks. Was what-- what was the importance of that moment?

VERN SUTTON: The importance of that-- boy, you've done your research. The importance of that moment was that I was applauded for the first time. I have never forgotten that. I loved it. And I can't wait to get out on stage every time now to recreate that moment.

DAN OLSON: You were a first grader.

VERN SUTTON: I was a first grader. That's right.

DAN OLSON: What happened then? I mean, did it take off from there?

VERN SUTTON: Yeah, it did. I always did plays and musicals and any time I could get on stage because I really liked being on stage. Thus, I have never had stage fright. I don't even know what that is. And that's the difficulty as a teacher because I just tell those kids, what do you mean you're afraid? Just get out there. Now, I don't do that. At first, I thought this was really stupid. But now, I understand there are people who don't share my love of getting out there.

DAN OLSON: Did you turn into something of an impresario in the neighborhood? Were you lining up shows? Come on, kids, let's do a show.

VERN SUTTON: I did. In the garage, I staged shows in the garage. And I actually started a sixth grade chorus. We didn't have a chorus in my elementary school so in my sixth grade homeroom class, we just sang a cappella. But I taught them all the Hit Parade songs because we listen to the Hit Parade on the radio.

And so I took those in and we actually gave a concert. And also in the sixth grade, I started my own marionette company because I had marionettes and I had done marionettes for about four years. And then I got some of my classmates interested.

And the principal of the school himself built me a theater, built me a theater that we get in. It was beautiful. And the art teacher stenciled and painted puppets on it and so on. And we gave all school shows with my marionettes in the sixth grade.

DAN OLSON: You were not people of means, so there wasn't a thought that you'd be sent off to a boarding school or conservatory where you could really cultivate your talent.

VERN SUTTON: Well, no. I did audition. When I was nine years old, I auditioned for the Apollo Boys' Choir in New Mexico, which was a famous school. There was the Columbus boys school-- the Columbia Boys Choir and Apollo. And I actually was accepted. But I didn't want when-- I was just singing an audition.

But when I found out I had to leave home and live away from home for a whole year and tour around the country, which might have been a fun thing to do. At nine years old, I was not ready to leave home. And I remember when they told me that I had won. I just burst out into tears.

They thought I was happy. And I was-- and they tried to talk to my mother to get me. And she would not. She said, no, he's not ready to go.

DAN OLSON: What brought you to Minnesota?

VERN SUTTON: I actually came here to be a choir director.

[LAUGHS]

DAN OLSON: Church choir?

VERN SUTTON: Well, I was going to go to school to be a choir director. I already-- I had directed church choir since I was 15. I'd had a job as a church choir director since I was 15 in Oklahoma. And then I put myself through college actually directing choir in Sherman, Texas where I went to college.

And I'm here specifically because in my senior year, a Minnesotan joined our faculty, a man named Bruce Lunkley. And he had gone to school here. He had lived, been brought up here.

In fact, his father was Elmo Lunkley, a name which conjures many memories for many people because he conducted the band at the Harriet Bandshell-- Lake Harriet Bandshell, and was also the band director at Edison, I think, one of the northeast high schools. He was legendary.

And Bruce was also legendary as far as I was concerned. He was a choral director. He was our choir director at college, my senior year. But he convinced me I should come up here. And in fact, he drove me up here in his little Volvo. We drove up here during spring break of my senior year.

I interviewed and got into graduate school, had a little theory test from Dominick Argento. And Bruce got me his choir job also at Salem Lutheran Church in North Minneapolis. So I was able to come up here and put myself. I had a job as the choir director and youth director actually at Salem Lutheran Church.

DAN OLSON: But at some point, you found yourself on the boards at the stagecoach in Shakopee. How did that come about?

VERN SUTTON: Well, as a graduate student here, there were several things I did. And besides my graduate work, I also did radio. I went over to KUOM every Saturday. And we did live radio dramas.

David Jones was his name. He stayed. We did Hedda. And we did-- I played Ariel in Midsummer Night's Dream. And we did all kinds of wonderful-- Ariel in Tempest, I mean.

Every Saturday, we did live radio drama. That's where I met Garrison, as a matter of fact, because he was an undergraduate and was an announcer there. And shy guy-- he was shy. He sat in the corner. He and Connie Goldman shared an office. And I would go in and talk to Garrison-- talk to Connie. And Garrison was sitting in the corner just looking at us. It was very strange.

But I had a theater minor in my master's. So I had a class in the history of theater from Bob Moulton, which is where I met Bob Moulton. And then we all had to give lectures. And he loved my lecture so much he decided I should be in a show. And so a show came up and he suggested that I play a part in it.

So I did a role here at the university, university theater. And then he and Wendell Josal, who founded the Stagecoach saw me do that and hired me to be in the first season of the Stagecoach in 1962.

DAN OLSON: You're listening to Voices of Minnesota conversation with Vern Sutton. He's retiring this spring as a University of Minnesota School of Music professor. His goal, like many operatic tenors, was to sing the classics. He also hitched his star to the Center Opera company where he landed a role that gave Sutton more exposure than he bargained for.

The advice given to you as a graduate student at the University of Minnesota by the late, great Roy Schuessler. What was that advice? And why did it lead to your never singing very much Puccini, if at all?

VERN SUTTON: Well, like all tenors, I wanted to sing Puccini or Verdi and so I would try it. And finally, he sat me down. He was a great teacher. And he just said, I think we just need to face it. You're never going to sing it. It's just not in the pipes. You're not the kind of voice. You don't have that kind of voice.

But he said, what you need to do is do what you do very well and do it better than anybody else. And he said, you can sing early music. And you sing contemporary music like nobody else. So why don't you just make a market for yourself doing that? Because nobody's doing that, and everybody's singing the other stuff.

DAN OLSON: There was an early opera company in Minneapolis I think called the Center Opera company. You'll tell me the history. It was affiliated perhaps with the Walker. Did it morph then into what we now know as the Minnesota Opera company? And what was your role?

VERN SUTTON: Well, that is a history not very many people know, except those of us who have been here for 40 years. Yes, it belonged to the Walker Art Center. Several people in the Walker Art Center, well, actually the curator of the Walker Art Center and Norman [? Hintz ?] and Dominick Argento got together and decided that we needed to have an opera company that did 20th century opera.

Because at that point, opera was St. Paul opera in downtown St. Paul at the civic center there, the old St. Paul auditorium, which did only traditional stuff. They did musicals, but they did Lohengrin and Fidelio and things like that. And no one did 20th century opera. And they thought we should have one.

Well, the Guthrie had built-- actually, the Guthrie had come to town. And the Walker Art Center owned that building, as they still do. We all the controversy over that. So they decided-- the Walker Art Center decided since the Guthrie at that point in its first couple of years was only a summer program, here sat this theater open nine months of the year.

So they started the opera company that would have an emphasis on the 20th century. And not only would we be doing 20th century operas, but instead of hiring theatrical designers to design the shows, they would hire contemporary artists who were exhibited in there. So we had Robert Indiana do a show, Rauschenberg do a show.

I mean, these people who knew absolutely nothing about the theater and what works on the stage and doesn't, what works on the human body as a costume and what doesn't, were creating strange boxes for us to wear and things. But it was avant garde. And it was spectacular in many ways and we became famous internationally.

When I went to Europe, when I went to Europe for my year abroad in '66-'67, opera people there knew who I was. They knew my name simply because I had sung with the Center Opera company. Because we were internationally famous because we were doing what nobody else in the world was doing. And we did perform in the Guthrie during those nine months.

DAN OLSON: Why do you think that got started in, of all places, flyover land Minneapolis?

VERN SUTTON: Well, I think the Twin Cities has always been a hotbed for 20th century music ever since Ernst Krenek and Metropolis started those programs at Hamlin, where they were doing Webern and pieces like that, which were avant garde then. And nobody was and nobody else was doing them.

It was when Krenek was teaching at Hamlin and Metropolis had just started. Those series of chamber music concerts, actually, I think started the whole atmosphere, the whole environment where contemporary music and new music is tolerated in this part of the country where it isn't anywhere else.

DAN OLSON: Costumes, you mentioned wearing very strange things. I'm told you played a role in Faust Counter Faust where you had to wear what?

VERN SUTTON: Well, originally, Wesley Balk wanted me to wear nothing because that was the rage at that point. And I said, I think there are some people going to want their money back. And I said, besides, I'm a university professor. I really don't think I can appear nude on stage just as a matter of decorum.

And my students may come. Because at that point, I was teaching music appreciation course, had 500 students in it, non-music majors. I said, they will come and they will see me. And I just don't think it's proper.

So we compromised on a very small white bikini, which I wore. Well, of course, I had to lose 40 pounds in order to do this, which I did. I went to the gym every day for about six months. And I lost 40 pounds because I was in no shape to wear a white bikini on the stage.

And I was on the stage for the entire time. I started before the audience. They wheeled me in unconscious supposedly before they opened the door. So I was on stage as people were getting in their seats.

Then I collapsed, supposedly, so they could all have an intermission. I lay on the stage for 15 minutes. They came back, supposedly gave me a shot to revive me, and I did the rest of the show.

And of course, I never had anything to drink during this time, which is a good thing because I never left the stage. From 7:30 until 11:00, I was out there all the time, whether I was singing or not.

DAN OLSON: This seriously must be one of the opera world's most unusual and demanding roles.

VERN SUTTON: Yes, it was very demanding because I also had to sing not only this modern stuff, but I had to sing Berlioz and Gounod and all that other stuff, all the other Fausts that he didn't like. And at one point, there was this ceremonial thing in my opera that I had this ceremonial thing. And they poured water on me. So not only was I naked, I was wet part of the time.

[LAUGHING]

DAN OLSON: You're known to thousands of Minnesotans and Iowans, you and your fellow University of Minnesota opera colleagues for taking opera to the farm, taking opera to rural areas. Where did that idea come from?

VERN SUTTON: Well, it actually came to me. It was my idea. But it came to me when I saw a production of The Tender Land at St. Catherine's. Marguerite Hedges did a production over there. In fact, Miss America Dorothy Benham, Dorothy Benham, she was a student at that point. And she was singing she was singing Gloria.

It was a nice production. It was a very nice production. But the curtains opened and there was this farm on the stage. And I remember sitting there thinking, they've built a farm on the stage. We are surrounded by farms, and they've built a farm on the stage.

And then I thought, why couldn't this opera be done on a farm? It takes place on the front porch of a farmhouse. Why not? Well, one of the reasons was acoustically, it would have been difficult at that point. And the orchestra was too large.

But in the meantime, within that decade after that, there was the chamber orchestra version made that uses the Appalachian Spring orchestra. And portable microphones and body mics and so on were so developed that you could do it. And so when that came about, I decided we would do it.

DAN OLSON: What kind of reaction did you get when you went out to these rural areas and folks saw and heard opera?

VERN SUTTON: They loved it. And they drove hundreds of miles to see it. We did it in small towns. And we did it in farms near small towns. For instance, in North Dakota, we did it in a town of less than 1,000 people. But there were about 3,000 people who drove from all over North Dakota to see it.

DAN OLSON: And you recruited. I believe, Beth, the lead, was recruited from among the local folks in almost every case?

VERN SUTTON: Yes, the little girl. We used the little girl. And the chorus were always from local, the local people. So it became a community.

It wasn't a tour. It was a community project because the Rotary Club would arrange to sell the tickets and the local Lions Club. And the future farmer boys would get together and help the farmer prepare the field for parking because they had to use a field for parking and did parking on the day.

They also devised-- many towns thought that parking wouldn't be an-- it would not be adequate. So they devised using the school buses. So people would park at the school and they would drive the people out.

But in the meanwhile, you had to have activities. So they had petting farms and they had ceramic displays and quilt shows and all kinds of things on the farm and other buildings while people gathered before the opera.

DAN OLSON: Wasn't it taking a big chance to recruit some of the important parts from among the local talent?

VERN SUTTON: Well, we always had contacts in each of the towns. There was always a music teacher who helped get the chorus together. And in almost every case, that happened to be the high school choral director, who was also the choral director at the Lutheran choir-- Lutheran church.

It was a pattern and just universal. And they got together. And I wanted intergenerational. So we had from eight-year-olds to 80-year-olds in this choir.

DAN OLSON: But wouldn't the actors, wouldn't the singers be disrupted by, well, thunderstorms, lightning maybe, or walk-ons by farm animals or mooing in the background?

VERN SUTTON: Exactly. We had all of that as a matter of fact. And we weren't disturbed by it at all. I was always watching the sky.

And we actually had to cancel a couple of performances, one in Iowa because there was a huge tornado actually. We moved that one actually into Des Moines to Urbandale. It was supposed to have been at the living history farms. But mostly, it was drizzle. They actually sat there and watched it.

And I tried to cancel the one in Red Lake Falls. And the audience came to me. We were setting up at the high school. We were going to do it in the gym. And some members of the audience came to me and said, could we do it at the farm?

I said, it's drizzling. It's raining. They said, we plant in the rain all the time. What's a little rain? And so they set there in the drizzle. And one of the choir-- one of the chorus members actually owned one of the pizza restaurants in town. She brought this big box of huge garbage bags, which she passed out to the audience.

They tore holes in them, put them over there. And so they sat there looking like a bunch of leaf bags with heads on those bleachers watching the opera, sitting in the drizzle. Some people with umbrellas. Luckily, this house where we performed had this huge porch, so mostly the singers could play up on the porch out of the rain. But the chorus had to dance out in the lawn. But they didn't care. They just danced in the drizzle. So no weather didn't really stop us except once or twice.

DAN OLSON: You're listening to a Voices of Minnesota conversation with Vern Sutton on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Dan Olson. Sutton retires this spring as professor of music at the University of Minnesota. Vern Sutton has performed classical and avant garde opera. He's made many appearances over the years on the A Prairie Home Companion radio show, including a memorable performance with Freckles, the singing dog.

History of opera always, I guess, in among lay people associated with Italy and Germany and tracing its roots to Greece way back. But tell us about the history of opera and how it has evolved to our time in a minute and a half or less.

VERN SUTTON: I used to teach a course in this for a whole year. Actually, it did start in Italy as an imitation. They were thought they were imitating Greek drama, which was sung. Greek drama was sung. But we don't have any of the music, only little fragments of several plays.

But these academies in Florence were experimenting with drama and decided to sing it the way the Greeks would have. And they had simple accompaniment. And so they actually came up with what we know as opera. And it started in the academy. In other words, in an academic environment, which I've always felt comfortable doing opera in academic environment because that's where it actually started.

But it soon became a popular thing. And within a couple of centuries, it was still elite. It was still a part of high society. It was not for-- it was not for everybody. It was even-- when it got to Venice, there was a public that wasn't courtly. There was a merchant republic. But even there, they were rich merchants. It wasn't peasants who came to the opera.

So there are people who think that opera needs to be done for the masses. Historically, it's never been a part of the masses. Historically, it's actually been an elite art form. And it remains to that day, to this day to be that, I think.

DAN OLSON: And that's OK you think?

VERN SUTTON: I think it's OK because it's only one form of musical theater. There are others. And there are-- I think opera is making inroads because of television. I think a lot of people are now seeing opera who wouldn't have seen it otherwise.

Because live from Lincoln Center meant a lot to my audiences in rural Minnesota and North and South Dakota and Iowa. They may never get to the metropolitan, but they've seen it on television. So they know what opera is.

DAN OLSON: Apparently, you have a love of country and Western music. Is that so? And is there a connection between opera and country Western music? Are storylines or lyrics or themes the same?

VERN SUTTON: Well, yeah, I think a lot of it. Well, I grew up in Oklahoma where country Western music was music. And I actually went to high school with Wanda Jackson, which means nothing to most people. But I went to-- and Wanda is still singing actually. It's just there's been a recent revival of interest in her.

DAN OLSON: She'd be about 41 now, wouldn't she?

VERN SUTTON: Well, yeah. Yes, Wanda would love to hear you say that. But in fact, we did a show together. She did Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes in high school when we were in the show together.

But nevertheless, as far as themes, absolutely! Revenge and all kinds of unrequited love and oh, I think many of the themes are the same in country western. And some of the emotions are just as maudlin.

DAN OLSON: And as a part of Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion, you've been asked to fulfill a multiplicity of roles. I mean, what are some of the things that have happened when you've walked into a rehearsal room and been handed a sheet of some kind of script? What have you been asked to do?

VERN SUTTON: Well, particularly in the early days of the show, and I was on the very first show. And on the first 13 years, I was on about once a month. It was unrehearsed. And in fact, we would just go in. He would ask me to come over. And he said bring some music. And I would sing some songs.

They weren't even rehearsed. We just went on and did them. Philip Brunelle or somebody would be playing for me. And we might run through them. But as far as timing of the show and all that, it wasn't and not in the early days. And then particularly, those are the days when there were more people on the stage than there were in the audience over at Park Square Theatre and so on.

What doesn't change is that there is a spontaneity to that show. And you have to be able to go with whatever is going, even when you're live. And I've seen people who've not been able to do that and been on the show once because they just cannot cope with Garrison's absolute demand for flexibility and spontaneity.

DAN OLSON: Your good friend and co-performer many, many times. Janice Hardy and the Freckles, the dog story. What happened there?

VERN SUTTON: Well, Freckles was a musical dog. He loved to sing along. And several times when we were rehearsing, we'd rehearse at Janice's house and Freckles would join along always on Victor Herbert's "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life." No matter what key we sang it. No what-- no, right. All you--

In fact, it finally got to the point all you had to say to Freckles-- you didn't even have to sing. You just said, "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life" and he would start howling. But it was this musical kind of woo! Like he was singing along.

And we've done several performances, including one on the Prairie Home Companion where Freckles came out and actually sang along with us on "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life." It was a stupid pet trick that we did several times.

[LAUGHS]

DAN OLSON: Well, we should try to find something serious to end on here. Any final thoughts Vern Sutton on the state of American culture? You know we wring our hands so much about the culture of this country and our propensity to watch it on television instead of creating any of our own. Do you share any of that alarm or not?

VERN SUTTON: Well, I'm not alarmed by it. I wish there were more attention to live things. But I actually think they're-- my experience is that there are audiences that do like live performances still. I think we've created a culture in which you can experience things in this recreational way rather than a participatory way. And you just sit there and watch rather than actually go and be a part of the event.

And I think there's one thing I sort of mourn about what we've lost, and it's the sense of event. Even when people do go nowadays, I don't think it's as much of an event as it used to be. It's still more like a spectator sport. And people don't realize the audience is an essential part, participating by giving energy to the performers.

The more fact the more audience-- more energy you give to a performer as an audience, the more you get out of that performer. I think it's an electrical charge kind of thing that we feed one another. And I don't think people realize that as much. That's why participatory activity is so important in the arts.

I'm not cynical about the state of the arts as some people are because I think America is such a mix of cultures that we have to realize that if we're going to talk about American culture, we're talking about many different things. And there are some people who want to keep one particular kind of activity or art alive. I think it will gradually be replaced by whatever America turns out to be.

DAN OLSON: Dr. Vern Sutton, thank you so much for your time. A pleasure to talk to you.

VERN SUTTON: Thank you, Dan. It's great to talk to you.

DAN OLSON: Vern Sutton, he retires this spring from his job as music professor at the University of Minnesota. He returns this summer to direct the University of Minnesota showboat production. You're listening to Voices of Minnesota on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Dan Olson.

Bonnie Morris helped start Illusion Theater as an educational project and a stage for new works. In the early 1980s, the Illusion drew national acclaim for the production Touch, which helped reveal the extent and causes of child sexual abuse.

In the late '80s, the Illusion educated audiences about HIV and AIDS. In 1990, the Illusion staged a production about the Tuskegee experiments and the African-American men who were denied treatment for their venereal disease.

I spoke with Morris recently in the lobby of the illusion Theater on Hennepin Avenue in downtown Minneapolis. Our conversation was at the height of the US-led war in Iraq. Morris and her colleagues were in the midst of a statewide tour presenting a play about peace.

You're just back from a dash to Crookston. What were you doing up there?

BONNIE MORRIS: We were commissioned by a group called Pax Christi to create a play about peace and waging peace. And we've been performing it around the state. And we've been in Rochester, Willmar, St. Cloud. Tonight, we actually have a performance in St. Paul. And we were invited to perform it in Crookston.

DAN OLSON: Oh, what is the story?

BONNIE MORRIS: Well, it's the story of five people that are involved in the peace movement, and they're all very different. There's a grandma who's been a part of the movement since she carried her babies. There's a housewife who's struggling with a clutter in her home and trying to reach for peace not just in the outer world, but in her inner world.

There's the angry young man who is ranting at everything that's wrong with our world, our country, our politics, our military machine. He's just angry at everything. There's a retired man who's volunteered to be a bodyguard for an organization in Guatemala to be an American, who's without weapons guarding this woman against what could be terroristic threats.

And then there's a young student, a student who has been in Kenya and has seen the desperation and the poverty there and is trying to make sense out of her life here and how to weave it all together. So you hear these different stories of these people.

To me, what it is, in a way, it lets you see who are our heroes of people that are waging peace. We see so much in the paper, on the news, on television about heroes of the war and soldiers who are fighting the war and are very brave and wonderful. But we don't always see the other side, people who are choosing an alternative way to reach peace and keep peace.

DAN OLSON: What's been audience reaction? What do you hear from people?

BONNIE MORRIS: Well, I think people are really happy to see these stories. I think they don't see enough of them.

DAN OLSON: Are they a little testy about it? Do they challenge your patriotism by bringing these stories forward?

BONNIE MORRIS: Well, I think many of the people who've seen the play have been in the movement. And so they've been challenged. We have had some interesting questions. We had a question where people asked if they thought-- if we thought Iraq was better off now than it was six weeks ago.

There are people who have questioned the patriotism of peace people. And these nuns who are members of Pax Christi are just wonderfully articulate about how important in our democracy it is to be able to speak and to speak out. And that is what this country is all about. And if someone starts to tell them that they can't speak for peace and not be called an American and not say that they're supporting the troops, then something's really troubled about our country.

DAN OLSON: Why are you taking this production to fairly far flung places in Minnesota?

BONNIE MORRIS: Well, the Pax Christi people asked us to, so that's really why we're doing it. My hope is that-- Pax Christi, as I said, commissioned this. And our hope is that maybe other faith-based groups will request performances.

And when we were in Crookston, we had a teacher there who said, can you come back and can we do it for the high school? And of course, they were interested in the ideas that are in the play. And then I always say that the second act is really the questions and the comments to the performance.

There was one man that was very-- I thought he was extraordinary last week who said, I think the question here is, what is our response to 9/11? 9/11 we had-- the world was at our feet. They were offering themselves to us. What can we do? And he said, these stories are stories about people who choose peaceful ways to give a response to 9/11 rather than using military and movements of troops.

DAN OLSON: Are you a totally cause-based theater endeavor? Will you take on, if you will, anyone's cause who comes to you and says, Bonnie Morris, I'd like to put on a play about Marines fighting in Iraq. I'm choosing that, obviously, because we just talked about the peace movement.

BONNIE MORRIS: I don't think-- I think the way that we choose our projects is full of mystery. And I don't think I could name it as specifically. One of the things that we've done is we've often gone to places where other people haven't done work. There are so many people that do work about different kinds of issues.

The Illusion Theater tends to go into places where it's untrod ground. And we really are trying to give language to things that haven't been talked about or put into words. When we did the sexual abuse of children Touch piece, really we were the first who transformed the language of that issue into something that everybody could relate to.

Before it had been medical language, language of the court, language of the nurses and the doctors who saw cases of sexual abuse, it wasn't a language that we could relate to. And I think one of the things that's so wonderful about the Illusion Theater is we're a theater first. So we're really interested in an audience feeling their way into something.

And once you feel your way into an issue, or you see an issue through the eyes of someone, then I think there's a possibility-- then you have an experience. Then you have the possibility to take action and maybe move towards change.

DAN OLSON: Did the production about sexual abuse bring action? And do you go into your productions with that idea? You're not content with just the words from the stage. You want to see action?

BONNIE MORRIS: I think one of the things that was so startling with the sexual abuse piece was that the incidences of sexual abuse were high and people couldn't crack the silence. When I grew up, I was told to avoid strangers. And there was some image of a man who might jump out of bushes. It was a very different idea of what sexual abuse was than what was really happening.

And now, we know that most sexual abuse happens between people that know each other. And what we did is we really cracked that silence and empowered kids to be able to talk about it. We gave them language to talk about it. We said it was OK for them to say no. We were trying to empower them to be able to reach out to somebody, even if the first person they told to keep on telling.

And of course, what happened is people started to tell and people started to be able to stop. At least they could say, this isn't right. Something is wrong. And of course, we changed things. I mean, there were all kinds of incidences that were spoken about that had never been spoken about.

Child abuse teams began to be trained in our state, but all over the country. Schools had a mechanism for if there was someone that they suspected of some kind of abuse, then there was a way for the school to talk about it, to put them in touch with people in the community that could help them. I mean, there was suddenly a support system and a safety net for these cases that hadn't been there before.

DAN OLSON: Bonnie Morris, one of the founders of the Minneapolis-based Illusion Theater. The Illusion's production about the Tuskegee experiments prepared the way for a long overdue apology from the federal government.

In 1930, federal health officials recruited 399 African-American men with syphilis from Macon County, Alabama. The Tuskegee Institute volunteered its hospital. The men were research subjects for decades, but they were denied effective drug treatment, even after the cure for syphilis became known.

Another cause production that you took on, which got a lot of attention, Miss Evers' Boys, portraying the Tuskegee studies. Why did you take that on? What's the story?

[LAUGHS]

BONNIE MORRIS: David Feldshuh was a director at the Guthrie. And we asked him to work with us in our early days, our salad days at the Illusion Theater. And he had decided to go to medical school. And he was going to the University of Minnesota Medical School. And he read this book called Bad Blood. And the book was about the Tuskegee syphilis experiment in Alabama.

It started in 1932 and it lasted till 1972. Originally, it was meant to be a way to treat syphilis in America. And it was for good intentions. This was where the syphilis epidemic was all over our country, and people were experimenting with different ways to treat it.

And Nurse Rivers, Eunice Rivers was the nurse who managed the study in Alabama. And in our play, it was Miss Evers. She takes care of a number of these rural men from Alabama. There wasn't a hospital in the area where they hadn't-- they didn't really have a doctor. They had home nursing from some of the very skilled families and usually women that would birth babies.

But this was a promise to try to help them get rid of syphilis. And some of the syphilis had been in their families for a long time. Well, the money stopped. The stock market, everything fell apart. And there was no money for the study. So for a while, the doctors thought we'll keep it going until we get money.

And then money didn't come. And then the doctor said, well, let's keep it going to see how syphilis affects African-Americans or Black tenant farmers differently from Caucasians. And there had been a study of Caucasians in Norway, Oslo. But at the time, they believed that diseases affected races differently.

And then penicillin was discovered. And again, the Public Health Service kept the medicine from these men in the study. And the only way that the whole thing came apart was that a public health worker himself saw what was going on.

This was published. People were talking about it. People would brag about this. But this worker saw it and went, this is crazy. This is immoral. We have to stop this. And then he took it to the papers. And then it was stopped.

DAN OLSON: But when you brought it forward at Illusion Theater, had people really heard much about the story?

BONNIE MORRIS: No, and what I wanted to do is-- I'm sorry. I wanted to pick up on-- David Feldshuh was doing his medical studies. And he was interested in how physicians make choices. The story really appealed to him. So he started to write it.

And we worked with him on it for a number of years. And then we produced it. And then we had Art Caplan, who used to be-- he's often on the radio. He used to be the head of the biomedical ethics at the University of Minnesota.

I asked him to come and do a discussion after the show. And there were all these questions that came out of the performance. And then we decided to do a symposium. And what happened is it was the first national event to talk about racism in African-American health care.

We had the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Louis Sullivan, came. He made an apology from the government. It was the first time the government acknowledged responsibility as a public health service. Then what happened is other theaters across the country did this play. And then they replicated what we did with a symposium in their own town.

So they took their experts. We had people who spoke about racism in medicine. We had people that talked about racism in research, like how to study diseases. It was fascinating. And then we ourselves talked about just here in our local community, what could health care systems do to overcome some of the legacy of the fear and distrust of the health care system, which is absolutely appropriate given what happened in Alabama.

So what happened is this play was eventually made into a movie. In 1997, President Clinton apologized to the heirs and the survivors of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. And I don't believe any of that would have happened without the play. And we really were a place where people-- again, they saw their way into this story. They saw what happened through the eyes of these Black tenant farmers and this nurse that was trying to do her job.

And then they saw the way, it's not just right and wrong. It's not just Black and white. It's much more ambiguous and complicated. And then the questions about how can we recover from this. What else can we do started to collect and be found out and continue to this day.

I think theater always has looked at questions, the questions of our times and let people wrestle with things and not have all the answers. I don't think theater is supposed to have the answers. I think it's really supposed to illuminate the questions. And then the audience is supposed to-- is supposed to come up, wrestle with it themselves and then see what they might have to feel in terms of what the issues are, what the questions are, what the solutions could be.

DAN OLSON: Bonnie Morris, a founder of the Minneapolis-based Illusion Theater. You're listening to Voices of Minnesota on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Dan Olson. In the late 1980s, the Illusion Theater's production about people with HIV and AIDS drew protests. Morris says the controversy worked to their advantage as it brought more attention to the issue.

Another production about women with breast cancer almost didn't make it to the stage because of a lack of money. Morris says the theater held living room fundraisers to finance the performances. Have you ever been shut down? Have people uninvited you because they have thought that the nature of your productions is too controversial?

BONNIE MORRIS: Of course. I suppose the most striking example is we were asked by the community to do some work about HIV and AIDS. And this was very early on in the AIDS crisis. And this was where fear about AIDS was really rampant. And there was so much concern about schools and about if kids were in school with HIV, would other kids-- would they be able to get it? Was it contagious? What would happen?

And so we created a piece that was about a community responding to HIV. And it was a high school community. And we toured that all over Minnesota. One of the performances up northern Minnesota, there was a prayer circle the night that we were performing. And they were praying for us because they thought the devil was in us.

Another time we were performing and there was a discussion after the show with many different faith-based people and medical doctors answering questions. When we did that performance, people were asking us, well, actually, people were telling us that we weren't talking about-- we weren't talking about HIV. What we were trying to do was recruit homosexuals.

Then we had a performance in Mora, Minnesota, and this was all over the news. There was a pastor there who after our performance, he got really angry and started a campaign against us. They dropped their sex ed curriculum. They started to study it over the summer. We performed in the spring.

We were concerned because we had these bookings to other towns. And we thought if we had this much controversy, other towns wouldn't-- they wouldn't keep their contracts with us. The pastor started to get on all the radio talk shows. He was on the TV talk shows railing against us.

Then what happened is other people in the community started to demonstrate against his church. So ACT UP, which was an awareness organization about HIV, went to Moore, Minnesota. They had demonstrations that would start immediately as the church service would let out.

People would be holding placards that said, I'm gay and I live in a small town, trying to have people understand that the hatred against people who were gay, well, it's just not OK.

DAN OLSON: How did this affect you?

BONNIE MORRIS: One of the lessons I learned is that you never know-- in catalyzing change, you don't always know how change is going to come. And sometimes change can be assisted by having an enemy. And this pastor actually-- I mean, in other words, there were people that started to put pressure and clarify and clear up some of the myths that he was promoting. And in a way, some of what we were trying to put out simply that he distorted got very, very clear.

By the end of the summer, the superintendent reinstated the sexuality education program that had been dissolved. And some of the controversy eventually ebbed away. But the epilogue of the story that never gets told, the kids that saw the show, hopefully, they got some language to talk about their fears.

Got some language to understand what the disease is and isn't so they didn't have to be afraid of it. And hopefully, get some compassion about how to deal with somebody who's facing this illness.

DAN OLSON: Why do funders stick with you? Do some of them get squeamish and say, Bonnie, this stuff is a little out there. It's a little edgy. It's a little too controversial.

BONNIE MORRIS: We have had some funders that have-- have been somewhat uncomfortable. It seems like there are times when there are certain issues that are a lot harder to raise money for, the work we did on breast cancer For Our Daughters, that was challenging. We got disappointed.

We looked up, as we always do, we were trying to find resources that might be interested. And of course, people believe that the people who make the drugs that combat breast cancer would be interested in having people understand what happens when you get a diagnosis of breast cancer.

DAN OLSON: Why don't you tell that story? This was how you make theater out of breast cancer treatment. And how did this come about?

BONNIE MORRIS: Well, Joan Wernick and Gail Hartman. Joan got a diagnosis of breast cancer and went through the process. And Gail went through it with her as her friend. And one of the things they said is that no woman should go through this alone.

And they came to us. And they said, could we work on a piece about this? Well, my own mother had passed of breast cancer, actually very early in the Illusion Theater's life when we just begun work in the Illusion Theater. You store things up and you wait until the moment appears.

So what we did is we took 11 women's stories, women who had gone through this journey. And we asked them to pick someone to tell the story with them, and we filmed them. So Joan and Gail told the story. So it was a friend.

There were other women who-- a woman who had her doctor, a woman who had her son, a woman who had her husband, a real variety. And we didn't say this out loud, but one of the things we were trying to get across is that there are all kinds of ways to go through this, but go through it with someone.

And then the play was a mother with her father and her daughter. And she went through the different stages of a diagnosis. And in a way, what the play really does is the songs hold the emotional journey of the play and our immediate. And the film part is more reflective.

I mean, there's a song about being behind that thin white cotton curtain and all of the thoughts that go through your mind when you're waiting to hear what the doctor's going to tell you. Or there's a song called "Just This Moment." And when you're recovering or in that question between recovery or not, you become so much more aware of the moments and of really celebrating the preciousness of those moments.

So the songs, in a way, were emotional handholds of what the journey is. And the way we raise money for that was by having coffees in individuals' homes where we ask people to give money to make this production happen. And so it was-- we weren't able to get the drug companies interested in supporting it so we went to the individuals. And that's the way that production came into being.

DAN OLSON: Bonnie Morris, Illusion Theater has survived and grown. You've come from very humble beginnings. And here, you have a wonderful eighth floor facility in what is now called the Hennepin Center for the Arts in downtown Minneapolis on Hennepin Avenue. But I think, as you have said yourself, these are hard times. You do a lot of work in the schools. Their budgets are tight. What is your future look like?

BONNIE MORRIS: Well, I'm sure that we will find ways to continue and to thrive. But these are hard times. And I think they're hard for everyone and in the arts especially.

I get to work in the schools and I'm working with a group of kids at southwest right now. And I worked with a group of kids from south earlier this year and from Highland Park in the fall.

These kids, they come from a lot of different cultures, who is in the classroom represent probably 10 or 12 different countries. And they really see the strength of all of that diversity. And I don't think the adults get it at all. And I don't think the adults who are in power get it at all. I mean--

DAN OLSON: What do you mean by that?

BONNIE MORRIS: Well, these kids take it for granted that we-- in a way, you have to be a person who is more fluid in another culture than just your own. That's like a given in the schools that I'm working in. And you do. You are.

It's like if you aren't, you're I don't know. I feel like you'd be abandoned to a third floor isolated little dormitory or something. But these kids are really living out what our future is going to be. And I want some of their vision to come into the mainstream more.

I think they have real keys to what America can look like, the possibility of America. And some of these kids are immigrants. Some of them come from families that have been in Minneapolis for a long time, real variety of kids.

But, boy, they understand so much more than just the PC correctness of language about what diversity is. They really are living it. And I feel like some of what they have is something that I want to usher forth.

I think these questions about what kind of a democracy we're going to have in America suddenly are more critical than ever. And I think-- at this performance last week, we had a woman who said I felt like it was safer for me to speak out and speak my mind 25 years ago than it is now. I think our theater will continue to be a place where different voices are heard and different perspectives are heard.

And I hope we'll be able to keep on holding up that torch for what America is here for. This place where opposing views coming together and colliding yields something much more potent than any one way of looking at things.

DAN OLSON: Bonnie Morris, thank you so much.

BONNIE MORRIS: Thank you. Thank you.

DAN OLSON: Bonnie Morris is one of the founders of the Minneapolis-based Illusion Theater. You've been listening to Voices of Minnesota on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Dan Olson.

GARY EICHTEN: And that does it for our Midday program today. Dan, of course, is the producer of our Voices of Minnesota series. Glad to have the series back on the air. You can hear all of the Voices of Minnesota programs. In fact, you can hear all the Midday programs simply by logging on to our website.

Our web address is minnesotapublicradio.org. Go to the programs section. Fiddle around there, find the Midday program, and listen to your heart's desire at minnesotapublicradio.org. That's it for our Midday today. Gary Eichten here. Thanks for tuning in.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

LORNA BENSON: On Tuesday's All Things Considered, the next installment in our week-long series, The Fight Against Fat. For years, scientists have looked for the causes behind obesity. We'll examine recent advances in neuroscience that have given researchers an unprecedented look into the brain's important role in the equation. I'm Lorna Benson. We'll have that story plus all of the day's top news on the next All Things Considered, weekdays at 3:00 on Minnesota Public Radio.

GARY EICHTEN: You're tuned to 91.1 KNOW-FM Minneapolis and St. Paul. Partly cloudy skies, 66 degrees in the Twin Cities. Maybe an isolated shower this afternoon sayeth the Weather Service. We can look for a high temperature in the low 70s.

Tonight, an isolated shower is possible, but for the most part, partly cloudy skies with an overnight low in the low 50s. Then tomorrow should be another nice day. Partly cloudy sky in the Twin Cities with a high temperature in the low 70s. It's 1 o'clock.