Your overall theatre experience is expanded with art exhibits in our lobby gallery. Be sure to check out the beautiful work of these visual artists on your next trip to Next Act.
Curator Jim Toth creates a unique collection of works to complement each Next Act production.
Home Grown
The Art of Rachel Catlett
Like Peg in SWING STATE, our featured artist, Rachel Catlett, has an intimate relationship with her rural environment and the people who inhabit it. Her own words best express this dynamic:
My paintings combine vibrant color, nuanced light, gestural marks, and the depiction of figures at their real and humble work.
My goal is to share a poignant reminder of our connection with the environment through stewardship. The central theme of my painted stories is that there is inherent beauty in our labor; both externally, in how well we steward our surroundings, and internally in how we tend our purpose and well-being.
My paintings are about this story.
My work is grounded in the shared understanding of agrarianism -that our existence holds purpose- we are created to tend our Eden.
It is always rewarding to find an artist whose work resonates so well with the themes of the play. I am thrilled to showcase Rachel’s art as a vibrant part of the SWING STATE experience.
Rachel Catlett is an artist and a shepherd, living and working on a small regenerative sheep farm in Sugar Creek, Wisconsin. With an MFA in printmaking from Colorado State University, she went on to a 30-year career in ornamental horticulture, beginning at the Chicago Botanic Garden and continuing on as a professional gardener in the Chicagoland and Southern Wisconsin region.
Inspired by a lifelong desire to return to her family’s rural heritage as ranchers, she pursued her interest in regenerative agriculture. She and her husband Ed purchased Brown Dog Farm in 2016 where they raise heritage-breed sheep and goats for wool and meat, and rotationally graze livestock to build soil and sequester carbon.
Her artwork tells the story of rural life and the work of ranchers and farmers. Rachel has continued her painting practice through multiple careers and shows regionally in the Midwest. She accepts commissions and maintains her studio practice in her farm studio. She enjoys teaching painting and drawing in her rural community, gardening, tending her livestock with the help of her brown dogs, and working with her woodworking husband, restoring their old farmhouse and barns.
Since the 2014-15 season, Jim has been curating and installing art exhibits for Next Act’s lobby gallery. Drawing on his connections as an artist and retired art educator, he has brought in a wide variety of local artists whose work complements our productions and enriches our patrons’ theatre experiences. He is especially pleased when the art and the play seem to have been meant for each other, as with Michael Andrysczyk’s detailed drawings of winter scenes paired with ALMOST, MAINE and Coree Coppinger’s powerful black and white photographs of MMA fighters paired with THE ELABORATE ENTRANCE OF CHAD DEITY. Before retiring, Jim had a two-career history, first as an Art Teacher and K-12 Art Coordinator for the South Milwaukee School District and then as the Director of Exhibits for the Betty Brinn Children’s Museum. In addition to his volunteer work for Next Act, he serves on the board for the Milwaukee Area Teachers of Art and as president of the south side community choir Cantare Chorale. He is also an artist who has show his sculpture at numerous art fairs including MAM’s Lakefront Festival of Arts and in many small group and gallery exhibitions. Jim and his wife Karen are long-time residents of Bay View.