(lighthearted music) - You've heard the saying, "The show must go on."

"Titanic the Musical", the massive production about the ship too big to fail, had to cancel the last two weeks of sold out performances in the spring of 2022, due to breakthrough cases of COVID-19.

But the Milwaukee Repertory Theater rallied and remounted the musical for a fall run.

Learn from the cast and crew about doing theater in a pandemic and how they've adapted to keep everyone healthy.

Get a guided tour of a Wisconsin Wonder: Doctor Evermors Art Park.

And see the largest free standing scrap metal sculpture in the world.

October is known as a spooky season, so you'll meet a couple specializing in custom Halloween decorations.

And basketball superstar, Giannis Antetokounmpo, of the Milwaukee Bucks, has reached fans around the world with his elite athletic skills.

Find out how Midwestern mural artist, Mauricio Ramirez, made the buck's most valuable player larger than life on the side of a Milwaukee building.

The Arts Page starts right now.

(upbeat jazzy music) - Welcome to The Arts Page.

I'm Sandy Maxx.

The abrupt cancellation of "Titanic the Musical" at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater in the spring, left thousands of ticket holders stunned and disappointed.

The Tony Award-winning musical tells the stories of the real people on board, the supposedly unsinkable ship coming to America.

And that cancellation was a tough call by the Milwaukee rep and one that had become all too common.

Last season, 68 rep performances were canceled due to COVID-19.

However, due to popular demand, the rep made the extremely rare decision to remount the production in the fall.

The performing arts have been hit especially hard by the pandemic.

And learn how the rep is being resilient in these tough times and their plan for the future.

- Theater in a pandemic is challenging, obviously.

- It's probably been the most stressful, you know, period of my career.

- It's a common, it's really a common misconception that we're out of the pandemic, I think.

- The thought process last year was the vaccines are gonna roll out.

A majority people are gonna get the vaccinations.

COVID is gonna become endemic and the world's gonna come back to normal, right?

- Theater is still very much, like, it is an everyday occurrence for us.

- I think now we've realized that COVID's probably not gonna go anywhere.

It's gonna be something that we continue to deal with year after year.

- As more and more people have said, listen, I'm gonna risk more.

I'm gonna do more.

I'm gonna get out there more and if I get sick, I get sick.

Those are not options for us as actors.

♪ This the very last call for boarding ♪ - If one actor gets sick, that causes a ripple effect that affects the entire production.

- [Chad] Performing arts provides some of the most easily transferable conditions for a virus like COVID.

Ended up having one case that was in the cast that quickly spread to several others.

And then at the end of a week, we had more than 20 people in the cast have COVID-19.

- It started where we would have one or two cases of COVID and then we were endlessly doing, put in rehearsals and mixing people around, sometimes at incredibly short notice.

And then the cases just mounted and we ran out of understudy configurations and options.

- [Chad] It did spread wildly and when you get to a place where more than half of your cast has COVID-19, it brings the production to a close.

- We try to stop for a week to come back, and then it became clear, not that we couldn't do that.

- So it was one of those like uh-oh, uh-oh, and it was like a gradual, that gradual, like, dread.

So once that happened, I like looked around me and we were all like, yeah, it's not gonna, it's not gonna happen.

This was one week to closing at that point.

- The question now becomes, what do we need to do to ensure that we can continue to perform on a regular basis without cancellations, even with COVID?

We're bringing on many more understudies than we typically would.

We have 10 actors that are just swings, so in any given night, they can go on at any given time.

In a normal environment, we would have one to two swings.

So we have to cover many different roles in many different ways.

- The challenges change from show to show and they are still present and we are adapting as we go.

♪ Everywhere ♪ - Remember that day where everybody, we had to tell the company that we just, there was no way that we could do it.

And it was devastating.

People were crying in the auditorium and and I was trying to be positive and say, hey, you know, let's look at, I'm looking into seeing if we can bring it back.

I dunno if that's a real thing or not.

- And then within a week, the theater made the decision to, um, to move forward with a remount.

- Yeah, it was a relatively easy decision to make.

And that's because the show had already gotten such great critical support.

It had already sold very well.

And when we had to close it down and tell the ticket buyers who were already came out and were looking to see it, they weren't gonna be able to see it.

There was a real outcry and they asked us to bring it back.

- We were surprised at how well it had gone.

It exceeded our expectations.

People were booking, seeing it again.

We've really got something special.

The company knew that.

- I did not see their remounting coming at all.

- We find that audiences right now are wanting to come back out, wanting to be reengaged, but they really want to see theater that they feel like they just can't miss.

That it's an event.

Titanic is an event, it's a huge undertaking.

- [Sophie] So it was like this mourning into like just total joy as everybody, you know, got their emails and got their offers and, you know, word was spreading like, like wildfire, that that Titanic was gonna, was gonna get a lifeboat.

♪ Brand new life can unfold ♪ - This production of Titanic is not based on the movie.

It actually was written right before the movie came out.

- You're not gonna have Celine Dion singing.

There's no Jack and Rose.

This is about the real people on the boat with an original score.

- The score is just amazing and you have these terrific performers that are just knocking it out, every single night for audiences.

- I play Kate Mullens.

And she is one of three "Kate"s that board the ship.

There's, there's Kate Murphy, Kate McGowan, and Kate Mullens.

My character wants to be a sewing girl and, and that's it.

Like, she's like, I'll, I'll sit in a factory and I'll sew.

And I, if I can make a couple of cents, you know.

That's, that's all I need.

I'll, I'll send it home to my family.

- And you have an intermix of different class levels, third class passengers, second class passengers, first class passengers.

They all have similarities and they all have differences.

- That's, I think, what this story is telling is, like, we are, we are all the same at the end of the day.

- The interesting thing about the Quadracci powerhouse is that you are never that far away in this three quarters in round, it's on a thrust stage.

It's an instantly more immersive experience.

So literally there are actors in and amongst and around you.

If you are on the first four rows, you are within feet away from those actors.

Even if you are on the back wall, you're actually not that far away from the action and that immediately creates a more visceral experience, I think.

- You can see Titanic, the musical on stage through October 23rd at the Milwaukee repertory theater's Quadracci powerhouse.

There are a lot of things to see and do around the Wisconsin Dells and Barboo area, but did you ever think a time machine would be one of them?

Tom Every, also known as Dr. Evermor, was a man full of imagination and spent years in the industrial wrecking business.

Rather than throw away the things he was wrecking, he decided to salvage and collect the scrap metal, old machines and rusted tools from his work to create steampunk and science fiction theme sculptures.

The most famous being the 'Forevertron'.

50 feet tall, 120 feet wide and weighing 300 tons.

Come with us now for your own guided tour to see the 'Forevertron' and other creations at Dr. Evermor's Art Park.

(quirky music playing) - Welcome to the Dr. Evermor sculpture park, also known as the world of Dr. Evermor.

That's what we like to call it, 'cause this is where we like to escape into his world.

This is the home of the 'Forevertron'.

It's one of the world's largest scrap metal sculptures.

Weighs around 300 tons, I think it's about 50 feet high and maybe 120 feet wide.

He started this in the mid 1980s and completed it, I believe it was around 1986.

So it's been here a long time.

Everything has that, some historical components to it.

A lot of the materials that you'll find in here were materials that he collected from being in the industrial wrecking and salvage business.

For example, over here, this big red, um, engine here, was something that he did take, collected, from a power plant that he tore down.

Right here, the center attraction, which is a stainless steel decontamination chamber from one of the Apollo missions.

The 'Forevertron' was something that my father, Dr. Evermor built to be able to project himself back into the heavens on a magnetic lightning force beam inside the glass ball, that's inside the copper egg there.

He wanted to harness the magnetic lightning force and if and the telescope he designed for the Doubting Thomas's to watch, those folks that didn't believe he could actually make it to the heavens.

Birds were his passion.

He was really tied into, it was kind of his religion.

These are his small phoenix birds that he designed in 2003.

You'll notice a lot of the creatures here have these type of blades.

These are, he collected, he purchased, a lot of reject blades from Fiskers when Fiskers was here in Sauk City.

The message that Dr. Evermor, was trying to communicate with the 'Forevertron', though, truly was a message of love more.

He used to say that this, the 'Forevertron' ran on level seven love energy and the purest energy out there.

If the world ran out of love energy, he did make a backup power supply, which is the 'Juicer Bug' over there.

So there's that big stainless steel bug that would be his backup power supply.

This is the 'Epicurean'.

This was one of Dr Evermor's favorite creations that he made.

He loved this because you can grill on it, you can eat off it, and it brings people together.

He built this in 1976 for Lady Eleanor.

- [Interviewer] Who was your husband?

Tell us about him.

- It was Thomas Owen Every, borned in Brooklyn, Wisconsin, and he was my husband.

And we had four children together.

And he was highlight of my life.

- So this is just one of his absolute favorite things.

A lot of these components, too, are things that he had collected.

This is a cheese kettle.

We have a grill inside here.

We refurbished it this spring.

This is Dr Evermor's extra spaceship that he built for the extra terrestrials to borrow when they come for a visit.

There's a lot of really cool components in there.

I believe the main center part there, the discs and stuff that came from Badger Ammunition Plant.

There's a lot of brass finials on there that were drapery rods.

And you'll notice that even on the Gawker birds here, these are called Gawker birds, that he also uses those as the eyes.

And he also incorporated the Fisker blades.

But these, the neck parts here are actually from commercial ice maker machines.

The park is really usually kind of non-politics, non-religious, non, it's just kind of a safety zone.

Anybody can come and just, just escape from the world.

But this is a actual political piece here, which is a missile, and those are his Mississippi mosquitoes.

And this piece is called 'Overkill'.

And it was just kind of something that represents how the government is really just over the top with their level of intensity on technology and, and in the military.

Although he had great respect, he was actually a veteran.

Well head over to the bird band here.

If you'll notice for over here we actually have a conductor conducting the entire band.

Each bird in the art or the band here, some people refer to it as a orchestra, They're all completely individual.

You can see how interesting they are.

The designs.

He, my mother, Lady Eleanor, had found the instruments that are in the birds at St. Vinny's here in Prairie du Sac.

The Prairie du Sac school system was turning over and getting new instruments and so they donated all their instruments to St. Vinny's.

And, and she happened to just find them.

And my dad immediately wanted to buy all of them and was inspired to build this fantastic band.

And this is a fan favorite here and, and people can lightly touch and play them.

(playing chimes) They are fantastic with the, watching the children play these is great.

(playing xylophone) But the kids are often making some drum rolls with that.

Then we've got these two.

(steel drum playing) He really loved bells.

Anything that he could, you know.

(ringing bells) We did recently had a wonderful team of people from Milwaukee.

Katherine Cannistra was the lighting artist who installed LEDs along with a group of five of her teammates.

They installed LEDs all over the 'Forevertron' here.

So we do light it up now and we call these events "Power on Events".

(quirky music playing) (quirky music playing) - If you're fascinated by Dr. Evermor's metal sculptures, find out more information, including the next time they will be powering on the Forevertron.

And plan your visit at the website worldofdrevermor.com.

From metal sculptures to spooky sculptures.

Since October is the scary season of Halloween, let's visit Scare Jo's Studios on the northeast shore of Lake Tahoe.

Joanna "Scarecrow Jo" Bailey and Yvette Taylor create paper mache Halloween decorations all year long.

And this couple shows us their creative process and explain why creating art together means so much to them.

(creepy Halloween music playing) - The great thing about Halloween is that there's no exclusivity to it.

It's completely inclusive to any kind of train of thought, or personality, or person, or your own personal background.

- With Halloween art, you can be gruesome, you can be vintage, you can make happy kind of sculptures, or really spooky and scary things.

And I always wanna create something bigger, something more monstrous or hideous.

(laughing) - [Johanna] Our theme for the studio is basically: "Scarecrow Jo's studio where every day is Halloween".

- [Yvette] We make all of our artwork out of paper mache.

- [Johanna] Our number one thing that we make are Jack-O-lantern sculptures.

We make trolls, monster busts, life size sculptures, like, witches.

Most recently we started making gargoyle sculptures.

- [Yvette] Scarecrow Jo Studio is a think tank for Halloween awesomeness.

- I basically start everything out with the old fashion newspaper dipped in paste.

And then I apply that over an armature that I build.

I use strips of cardboard to give it a three dimensional look, to the eyes, and the nose, and the mouth.

And then once that process is done, we make our own homemade paper mache clay and we sculpt in the details that way.

After that hardens, that's when Yvette goes in and works her magic with the paint and brings it to life that way.

- First thing it gets sanded to kind of even out the different layers and so that the paint goes on smoothly.

Then it gets a complete coat inside and out of a white primer.

Then it gets a complete coat of black.

And then after that all dries, it gets what's called a dry brush effect over top of the black with another layer of white to get a three-dimensional look.

And then from there, after that dries, it gets at least four to five layers of different colors of orange.

Each layer gets either brighter or darker.

And each layer gets less and less and less paint.

Then I finish the stems and then the whole thing gets sealed with poly urethane.

- And when I'm making that piece of art from start to finish, I get very involved in it.

- [Yvette] It takes months for a piece to be finished.

So I'm watching it come to life.

To watch something go from just a round ball of nothing to this caricature that is animated in a way, is something that kind of gets in my heart.

- Sometimes it's a little bit sad too.

You reach that point where you're, that piece is finished, - [Yvette] The pieces become kind of like part of the family.

They really do take on a personality and a life of their own.

It drives her crazy because I, half of them I want to keep all the time and she's constantly telling me we don't have room to keep them all, which is very true.

But I do, I get very, very attached to the pieces, especially by the time I'm finished painting them.

- I have a really great support system for my crazy art studio.

Yvette, my wife, She'll ask me, What crazy thing are you making?

And, and then of course, you know when I'm done, she's excited to take over from there and paint.

- Besides it being therapy and, and, and a way to meditate, it is a family affair.

My wife and I have been doing it together for six years, and the beautiful thing about that is that we still love each other, and we haven't killed each other yet.

- It creates kind of a strange bond when you have that partnership with the person that you're married to.

I mean, you're creating anything with that person.

It's very special and it makes me very happy.

I don't think I would be as happy if she wasn't involved in it, to be honest with you.

- It's not so much about the fact that it's Halloween, it's, it's about the fact that we do it together.

- Browse more of their creepy and creative Halloween art at the website, scarecrowjos.com.

The Milwaukee Bucks begin their 55th basketball season this month.

The team made our city proud and put Milwaukee on a worldwide stage in 2021, when they won the NBA championship for the first time in 50 years, that's when Midwest mural artist, Mauricio Ramirez started thinking about ways to honor Milwaukee Buck's Superstar, Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Antetokounmpo kind and fun personality, along with his elite athleticism, has given him the affectionate nickname, "The Greek Freak".

He's a larger than life figure who is now part of the Milwaukee landscape in an artful way.

Mauricio Ramirez, who you saw featured on the Arts page in 2018, specializes in murals and has many scattered throughout Milwaukee.

Dan Nelson Jr., the owner of the building on 600 East Wisconsin Avenue and a Buck season ticket holder, gave permission to Ramirez to paint a massive three story tall mural of Giannis.

You can see Ramirez's process as he puts his finishing touches on his very tall tribute.

(music playing) - [Gabe] When we were looking at different locations to tribute and honor Giannis, we wanted to be in the middle of downtown, the heart of downtown.

(metal clanking) (metal door shutting) (music playing) - [Mauricio] I think it's kind of magical, you know, to be able to transform a space where it just kind of lied vacant to this idea that it's now activated.

- [Gabe] To bring in activity or vibrancy to the street level, to increase foot traffic.

- [Mauricio] The Milwaukee Bucks wanted to create a mural of Giannis Antetokounmpo.

- [Gabe] When you think about the American dream: of coming to a new country, new city and making it your own, there's a lot of pride across the city, across the nation for Giannis.

And so what we wanted to do is pay tribute to Giannis, really our MVP here in Milwaukee.

- You know, I just happened to be on the radar.

They asked me and you know, I gladly, you know, said yes, you know, I'd love to do it.

It'd be a dream come true to do something like this.

And, and at this caliber.

(spray can spraying) When tackling a mural this size, there's a lot of prep work that goes on.

There's a lot of planning, a lot of mathematics, there's a lot of studying the image, before you just kind of step up to the wall and start painting.

You know, I think the first step is just taking measurements of the actual canvas, which is the building and using that as points of reference.

So, you know, just kind of blowing up the image through Photoshop or Illustrator.

And then just laying it up and, and kind of just using a, a graph system to kind of measure how big the artwork's gonna be.

(music playing) - [Mauricio] From the minute I picked up a spray can, I just wanted to go big and I think I was introduced to graffiti art, stylized letters through older cousins when I was younger and, and that just kind of evolved and kind of baptized me into the concept of just always painting large format.

You know, you see graffiti, you see stylized letters, you see murals, everything's pretty big.

You know, typically you would see a mural done in, you know, with brushes and paints.

For me and for my practice, I think the best thing that I could use is aerosol spray paint.

(paint spraying) - [Mauricio] You have to have a pretty good grasp on your colors and, and understanding color matching when you're doing photo realism.

The large format portrait is, allows me to really get into the most detailed, like places of the portrait, of the image of Giannis.

And, you know, I could get down to the, the very, very small skin folds in his like arm to, to make a look exact, because we're working on such a large scale.

One spray is just kind of a very, it's almost like a pixel, so I'm kind of thinking it as pixels and micro pixels.

It's gonna be about 45 gallons of paint on that wall, when the wall is done.

Roughly anywhere between eighty to a hundred cans of aerosol spray paint that are gonna be used for the entire project.

Without any touch ups, a mural like this behind me will last about 7 to 10 years before it needs some love and some attention.

(music playing) - [Gabe] It is beyond our expectations that it really has taken international attention.

And you know, I think elevating Milwaukee as an arts destination, what was so unique about this project is that we can intersect sports and art.

- [Mauricio] I mean, it already has an impact from the people walking by stopping, taking photos.

- [Gabe] And we've seen, since we installed, about 200 to 300 people per day, getting their photo in front of the mural.

- [Mauricio] And ultimately like make people's lives better, you know, by creating a better landscape, a city landscape with, you know, really cool vivid colors.

- [ Gabe] I mean really Mauricio is the, the guy behind the magic.

It is really cool to see it come together.

- [Mauricio] It's kind of this like shared experience of, like, watching sports, right?

You know, we kind of paint this huge icon and it's something that, you know, we could all identify with.

How Giannis has made so much for the city and produced so much for the Milwaukee Bucks.

- Visit the Giannis mural in downtown Milwaukee at 600 East Wisconsin Avenue.

Thank you for watching the Arts page.

I'm Sandy Max.

Please join us the first Thursday of every month for a half hour full of art on the Arts Page.

(lighthearted jazzy music)