UW-Milwaukee play derived from multi-generational letter writing

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When older adults in a day care center and students from an Intro to Women’s Studies at UW-Milwaukee started writing letters to each other, careers and dreams shifted. The letters written by students revealed deeply personal matters that involved family issues and their range of dreams, dreams that the older adults in the day care center weren’t able to envision when they were the students’ ages.

The results not only impacted the students to understand gender roles across generations, but they also shaped an interactive play Professor Anne Basting wrote with student Tina Binns called “Slightly Bigger Women.” 

Basting, from the UWM Department of Theater, spoke as part of the Academic Adventurer Series on Oct. 23 Friday afternoon in the American Geographical Society Library where she presented  “How To See Beyond Age: The Story of The Creative Trust And a Remarkable Exploration of Women’s Lives Across Generations.”

Professor Anne Basting talked about her experience with The Creative Trust and how the alliance and the workshops was integrated into her play “Slightly Bigger Women” in the American Geographical Society Library Friday afternoon on Oct. 23, 2015. Photo by Pakou Lee.
Professor Anne Basting talked about her experience with The Creative Trust and how the alliance and the workshops was integrated into her play “Slightly Bigger Women” in the American Geographical Society Library Friday afternoon on Oct. 23, 2015. Photo by Pakou Lee.

Basting is an author and producer for numerous of plays and public performances.  She founded and directs a project that’s focus on using art to build community through creative engagement with people with memory loss called TimeSlips Creative Storytelling. She is also the founder and coordinator of The Creative Trust, an alliance of people in different aging services program in the care community that focus on fostering life-long learning through the arts. Basting holds a Masters in Theater from the University of Wisconsin and a PhD in Theater Arts from the University of Minnesota.

“One of the overwhelming things we heard from Casey about the young women’s experiences with the letters was this sense of support and discovery of the changes and opportunities that men and women have today,” Basting said.

The title of “Slightly Bigger Women” came about when the novel Louisa Alcott’s “Little Women” was chosen to be a musical by the seasonal selection committee for the Theater Department. Basting thought it would be a great to use it as a prompt in the community. To further explore the gender role issues in the novel, Professor Basting organized activities such as the group discussions and the letter writing.

The audience was a mix of faculties, older adults from the care communities and young students from Professor Basting’s classes. Photo by Pakou Lee.
The audience was a mix of faculties, older adults from the care communities and young students from Professor Basting’s classes. Photo by Pakou Lee.

One of Basting’s students from a Play Analysis course was sitting in the audience intrigued at how the activities affected the development of the “Slightly Bigger Women.” Ron Lee read the entire script to the play and was inspired to joined the event. As a Theater major himself, he realized how important art plays a role in who we are and what we do on a daily basis. He wanted people to think about their own dreams.

“Dream big,” he said. “If you don’t dream big, then how are you going to achieve anything big?”

Basting’s newest project is about the exploration of the value and meaning of childhood at any age called “I Won’t Grow Up” based on Peter Pan. She is aiming for an interactive museum that involves stories, objects, written audio stories about what childhood means at any age. She is working with a class called Performing Community on that project and the workshops will involve younger children from the after school program at Our Next Generation and older adults from East Castle in Milwaukee.