First performances this weekend at Ivan’s Backstage
By Tracy Ouellette
Editor
There’s a new venture forming in East Troy – the Square Players. The theater group is the brainchild of Chuck Dimick.
“We’re looking to liven up the square with the arts,” Dimick said.
Dimick, an East Troy resident, has won critical acclaim with his screenplays and stage performances in Michigan and touring with a theatre group through Western Europe and Japan. One of his screenplays was nominated for the Sundance Film festival.
Dimick’s passion for the arts includes but is not limited to teaching, directing and production design. He said he saw the need for entertainment without having to travel to Milwaukee or Chicago and found the perfect venue with Ivan’s Backstage.
Wanting to give back to the community and help promote local talent, Dimick said the idea of the Square Players was born.
The debut of the new theater group will be a 1960s musical revue with local talent called “A Cabaret a 60s Musical Revue.”
The revue, which runs Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. at Ivan’s Backstage, 2093 Division St., East Troy, is going to be a nightclub theme with interactive performances.
Dimick said there are backstories for all the characters relevant to the year 1969.
“I’ve created personas for the actors,” he said. “If they were alive in famous in 1969, this is who they would have been and the things they would have done.”
Starring in the debut production are: Margaret Stewart, Antioch, Ill., as the evening’s emcee; Peter Donald, Milwaukee, guitarist and keyboardist, who grew up in East Troy; Angie (Lucy) Walker, acclaimed 60s songstress and lead female singer from East Troy’s 4 Lane Hwy; Mike Hobbs, South Milwaukee, as Nick Starlight, 60s heart throb; Calyn Fidler, East Troy, as Kitty von Monroe; Lloyd Sineni, East Troy, as Spike Carmichael, owner of the club and Sue Frohling, East Troy, and Caryn Rodmanm, East Troy, as the Go Go dancers.
Future plans
Dimick said plans for more shows this year are already in the works with a Memorial Day production up next.
“Peter Donald is doing a folk music show Memorial Day weekend at Ivan’s Backstage with at least two performances of “America, I love you! (but it’s complicated),” Dimick said.
And they are already preparing a Halloween production for October.
“It’s going to be about Frankenfurter, from Rocky Horror Picture Show, and what he would do if he could host his own Halloween show,” Dimick said. “It’s going to be gory, overtly dramatic and definitely have beautiful zombies, and of course slightly blue. Definitely not for the kids.”
Dimick said he’s on the lookout for local talent, kids and teens as well as adults for future productions. He said one of the challenges for people wanting to be in something like this is finding the time commit to a full rehearsal schedule, so he’s working on ways to accommodate the players’ busy schedules.
“Anybody with any type of talent is what I’m looking for,” he said “My job it take what’s out there and turn it into a show for six to eight weeks, and make it fit around people’s everyday, busy schedules – that’s the challenge for me.”
Dimick said he was committed to keeping the prices for the show reasonable, “less than $20 a show.”
“You can look forward to many more music and theater productions from The Square Players,” Dimick promised. “East Troy is now in the ranks of Mukwonago’s Village players, Elkhorn’s Lakeland Players and Burlington’s Haylofters.”
