APT tries out plays in the dead of winter

By Aaron Conklin, Madison Magazine Arts & Culture

February 15, 2018

Carey Cannon still isn’t buying my sports metaphors, but at least this time we’re a little closer to the mark.

Today’s subject is Winter Words, the series of staged play readings American Players Theatre runs in the dead zone between January and March each year. I point out that, in a sense, it’s kind of like a farm team system where plays get test driven to see if they might eventually be summer-season worthy. Cannon, the company’s assistant artistic director, just laughs.  

“I might give you that, this time,” she says. “Some of it is getting a sense of how these plays might work in front of an audience. The other part of this is practical for us. What else are you going to do on a Monday night in February?”

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