Vinegar Tom merges the past and present at UW-Green Bay

Backed by live punk music, history will play out on stage in an upcoming production from UW-Green Bay’s Department of Theatre and Dance.

Vinegar Tom follows a 17th-century woman named Alice who is accused of witchcraft alongside her mother by the pair’s neighbors.

While not typically classified as a musical, Vinegar Tom features a handful of songs, which the company has chosen to interpret through a punk rock lens and which will be performed by Green Bay band Modern Haunting.

Vinegar Tom was written in 1976 by British playwright Caryl Churchill, who noticed similarities between the treatment of perceived ‘witches’ in the 17th century and attitudes toward women in the modern day.

“The stories from 400 years ago can seem so immediate and relevant to us today,” said director Alan Kopischke, an assistant professor at UW-Green Bay. “Our fears and our prejudices may take different forms, but they play out in very similar ways.”

Kopischke described the play as “an enthusiastic selection” by the entire department committee.

“Caryl Churchill is a marvelous playwright with many great plays that she’s written,” he said. “The setting of it is witch hunts in the 17th century, which we felt had so much to do with the potential curtailment of women’s rights, the persecution of those who are different, and we felt that it was a very timely piece to be producing, with some really good opportunities for our students.”
Such opportunities included a combination of acting and singing roles, but that isn’t all. “One of our students wrote some music – or to be more accurate, arranged some music for the show,” said Kopischke.

“The original music is fairly bare bones in how it’s written out,” he explained. “So how you orchestrate it, how you arrange it, is gonna be dependent on each production… We’re using a local band called Modern Haunting and taking an early feminist punk approach, which both reflects the period it was written in – the 1970s in England – and also allows us to highlight the emotional content of the songs in a pretty entertaining and visceral way.”

Of the production’s 10 student actors, only two of them – Ava Brewer, who plays Alice – and Mia Bolyard – credited as “Vocalist” – sing. Theo Forster, Ben Hansen, Mollie Paquette, Liv Wiesenberg, Sam Willis, Asia Goodwin, Hailey Wessels and Izzy Cieslewicz make up the rest of the cast in solely speaking roles.

Modern Haunting, who were brought in by musical director Ben Olejniczak, were “very enthusiastic about coming on board for this,” said Kopischke, “so we’re really thrilled to have them.”

Overall, Kopischke said, Vinegar Tom is one that theatergoers aren’t going to want to miss. “I think it’s very entertaining as it’s got the spooky element. As we’ve just completed Halloween season, we’re extending a little further into the fall with the spookiness of the witch doings and the hunt for them.

“We’re just wrapping up an intense political season where there are misunderstandings [and] misinformation, and the play is also funny, the music is outstanding, there are gonna be some great performances, some hopefully really exciting visual effects,” he continued. “It’s just gonna have a lot of fascinating elements combined into one play.”

Tickets for Vinegar Tom, which will run at UW-Green Bay’s University Theatre for three 7:30 p.m. showings from Nov. 14-16, can be purchased from Ticketstar at https://www.ticketstaronline.com/events/detail/vinegar-tom.

Admission is free for UW-Green Bay students, otherwise tickets cost $20 for adults and $18 for students and seniors.