Milwaukee theater professionals have been working with local veterans through intensive weekend workshops that allow emotions to boil from the cauldron of conflict within, using the words Shakespeare.
The Feast of Crispian program, run out of the Milwaukee’s Veterans Affairs hospital, has been such a success that last week it received a $50,000 grant from the Helen Bader Foundation to launch an all-veteran, fully-staged production of Julius Caesar.
In the hospital’s community room, professional actors stand next to the veterans to help them act out the dramatic scenes. They feed them the lines and story plot points, freeing them to concentrate on the emotions without having to memorize or hold a script. The process helps the veterans to strengthen the resources needed to overcome service-related trauma and daily stress. [keep reading…]
