Check out these South Milwaukee headlines, including word that the Rawson Elementary principal has accepted a position in Pewaukee, and details on the latest production of a proud product of South Milwaukee schools.
- Colin Jacobs Named Pewaukee School District New HR Director (NOW)
- “Deathtrap” Brings Rising Star Michael Cotey Back to Director’s Chair (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
- Third Woman Sues Over Jail Birth Conditions (Journal Sentinel)
- Wisconsin Schools Raised $217M Above Tax Caps for Green Projects (Journal Sentinel)
- Community Newspapers — Rebuilt for the Reader (NOW)
As the parent of a current and former Rawson student, we’ll miss you Mr. Jacobs!
And here is more on Cotey, a true rising star …
In his professional debut as a director, Cotey helmed a now-legendary Youngblood Theatre Company production of Mickle Maher’s “Spirits to Enforce” (2010), about actors playing characters from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” now trapped in a submarine and doubling as superheroes trying to once again become relevant.
Ensuing productions he directed with Youngblood, for which Cotey was the founding artistic director, included one play set in a psychiatric ward and a second unfolding within the disturbing interior landscape of a sadistic child’s mind. Both plays were preoccupied with how stories can be used and abused.
Then it was off to Northwestern, one of the most prestigious graduate programs for directors in the country.
Cotey is now concluding a four-year stint there that included directing three more plays – adaptations of “Frankenstein” and “The Great Gatsby” among them – suggesting his ongoing preoccupation with stories that can alternately impede and expand one’s definition of self and world.
I saw all three of these Northwestern productions; collectively, they confirm Cotey’s status as one of the most promising young directors to emerge from Milwaukee in the past 15 years.
