Milo Cramer's SCHOOL PICTURES Begins Performances At Theater Latté Da February 5

Theater Latté Da will present solo show SCHOOL PICTURES, receiving its local debut at Latté Da starting February 5, 2025, now the recipient of a 2025 Obie Award.

Writer-peformer Milo Cramer and director Morgan Green were recognized with a Special Citation for their work on the show in a televised announcement by theater critic Frank DiLella on New York's NY1 "On Stage" program on Saturday, February 1. Created in 1955 by New York City's longtime Village Voice newspaper and now overseen by the American Theatre Wing, the Obies are the premier honors recognizing excellence in Off- and Off-Off-Broadway theater.

Of the honor for SCHOOL PICTURES, the Obie Awards judges noted, "Inspired artists have used any, and all facets of their lives to dramatize the human condition. This season, a playwright picked up a ukulele, composed, and performed a poignant recitative about their experience tutoring children. Intriguing, uproarious, and heartbreaking vignettes of their student's educational and personal hurdles were sung incisively and with dramatic flair, complemented by a startling riff on educational inequities in New York City. The event was shaped by pitch-perfect direction that imbued lightning-flash clarity to each vignette, unifying the whole in a cohesive and sublime production."

For the Minneapolis production, Morgan Green returns as director and Milo Cramer reprises the role they wrote and created, drawing inspiration from their experiences tutoring New York City middle school students to "explore questions about what is really worth knowing and what sacrifices warrant the effort in a system in which success seems so arbitrarily distributed." (The New York Times) SCHOOL PICTURES will play a strictly limited 4-week run from February 5 to March 2, 2025 at the Ritz Theater, 345 13th Avenue NE in Minneapolis.

"We are thrilled to be able to introduce Minnesota audiences to the charming, utterly unique Milo Cramer," says Managing Director Elisa Spencer-Kaplan. "In School Pictures, Milo captures our current moment with heart and humor-and in true Latte Da fashion, the show demonstrates the singular power of music to deepen our connection to onstage stories"

Directed by Morgan Green, this "extraordinary meditation on teaching and learning" is told in musical snapshots of individual teenagers. Solo writer-performer Milo Cramer, a former tutor, offers charming and keen observations of ten NY students fighting to get into competitive schools. At its heart are questions about what's really worth knowing and worth sacrificing in a system in which success seems so arbitrarily distributed.

Milo Cramer is the sole performer in SCHOOL PICTURES. The Theater Latté Da production brings together a creative team combining the show's original designers with local Twin Cities talent. Returning from previous productions is Jean Kim (Scenic and Costume Design), joined by Minnesota-based designers Marcus Dilliard (Lighting Design) and Madelaine Foster (Props Designer). Shelby Reddig is the Production Stage Manager, and Ajah Williams is the Assistant Stage Manager.

SCHOOL PICTURES begins performances on February 5, 2025 and will run through March 2, 2025 at Theater Latté Da's home at the historic Ritz Theater in the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District. Opening night is Saturday, February 8, 2025. Single tickets start at $36. Group, student and other discounts are also available. Five-ticket FLEXPacks and three-show subscriptions are also available starting at $33 a ticket and offer a range of subscriber-exclusive perks.

Tickets and subscriptions are on sale now through the box office at 612-339-3003 or online at latteda.org. In-person box office hours are Tuesday to Friday from 12-5:00 PM and Saturday from 12-5:00 PM when in performance. Post-show discussions, ASL/AD, Open Caption, and masks-required performances are available on select dates.

SCHOOL PICTURES follows the historic success of RODGERS + HAMMERSTEIN'S CINDERELLA, which recently concluded an 8-week run as the second best-selling production in Theater Latté Da's 27-year history. Following SCHOOL PICTURES will be the highly anticipated first Twin Cities production of the Tony Award-winning FUN HOME (Music by Jeanine Tesori, Book & Lyrics by Lisa Kron, Based on the Graphic Novel by Alison Bechdel). The season will conclude with the Stephen Sondheim epic PASSION, directed by Justin Lucero.

Theater Latté Da's 2024-2025 season is made possible in part by Ameriprise Financial, Elizabeth C. Quinlan Foundation, James B. Linsmayer Foundation, The MAP Fund, The McKnight Foundation, The Nara Fund, National Alliance for Musical Theatre, National Endowment for the Arts, RBC, Prospect Creek Foundation, The Ruth Easton Fund of the Edelstein Family Foundation, The Shubert Foundation; the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grants, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund; and numerous generous individual contributors.

ABOUT THE CREATORS

Milo Cramer (Writer and Performer) is a writer and performer. SCHOOL PICTURES, their one-person opera about the broken New York City school system, premiered at The Wilma in Philadelphia and Playwrights Horizons in New York, where it was featured on NPR's This American Life ("best theater of 2023... absolutely wonderful" - New York Magazine). Other works include CUTE ACTIVIST at the Bushwick Starr ("a brilliant match of material and theater... a fable for our times" - New York Times), and BUSINESS IDEAS at The Alliance Theater in Atlanta (winner of the 2024 Kendeda Award). With New Saloon Theater Company, Milo spent 5 years devising and touring MINOR CHARACTER: SIX TRANSLATIONS OF UNCLE VANYA AT THE SAME TIME, a kaleidoscopic riff on Chekhov's greatest hit, ultimately seen at The Public Theater's Under The Radar Festival ("delightful... a spring-green forum on youth's discontents" - The Village Voice). Milo is a MacDowell Fellow, a recent graduate of Naomi Iizuka's MFA playwriting program at UC San Diego, a grateful middle child, and an Aries. Milo is writing a musical about three old-fashioned sailors who are trying hard to have a Meaningful Life in their last 24 hours onshore before they're shipped to die in an offstage war, but the Big Problem is these sailors Never Do Anything Right because they're Just Too Silly.

Morgan Green (Director) is a director of plays, films, and dinnertime. She is currently a Co-Artistic Director at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia where she recently premiered HILMA by Kate Scelsa and Robert M. Johanson, ETERNAL LIFE PART 1 by Nathan Alan Davis, SCHOOL PICTURES by Milo Cramer and the Pulitzer Prize winning FAT HAM by James Ijames (digital version). She was a co-founder of the award-winning theater company, New Saloon, best known for MINOR CHARACTER: SIX TRANSLATIONS OF UNCLE VANYA AT THE SAME TIME (The Invisible Dog, The Public Theater, Sharon Playhouse). Other credits include: STAFF MEAL by Abe Koogler (Playwrights Horizons), THE MUSIC MAN (The Sharon Playhouse), THE WOLVES by Sarah DeLappe (Marin Theatre Company), and CUTE ACTIVIST by Milo Cramer (The Bushwick Starr). Her short film ONE MORE TIME WITH FEELING premiered at the Raindance Film Festival in London October 2023. Morgan has developed new work at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Bric, Baryshnikov Art Center, Mabou Mines, and Mercury Store. She is a New Georges Affiliated Artist and proud member of SDC. MorganClaireGreen.com

ABOUT THEATER LATTÉ DA

Theater Latté Da creates new and impactful connections between story, music, artist, and audience-exploring and expanding the art of music theater. Now in our 27th season of presenting new and reimagined music theater, Theater Latté Da is the leading nonprofit professional theater in Minnesota that exclusively produces new and reimagined music theater and is a national leader in the creation of new work. Some 40,000 audience members and over 300 theatermakers engage with us each season through five full productions, the NEXT Festival of New Musicals, special events and concerts, and a broad range of opportunities for music theater composers, lyricists and librettists to advance the creation of their new works. Since 2016, Theater Latté Da has made our permanent home in Northeast Minneapolis's historic Ritz Theater, enabling us to provide uniquely intimate arts experiences for our audiences.

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