Sketchy Ideas

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Randall Berndt

An illustration of someone with a test tube.

A section of a "Sketchy Ideas" illustrated letter.

TNW Ensemble Theater brings Madison artist Randall Berndt's illustrated letters to the stage in Sketchy Ideas. With the art and text projected behind them, actors Anthony Novich Leonard, Liz Light, Andrew Lonsdale and Patrick Mahoney will present monologues for 15 of the illustrated panels. Topics range from COVID-19 to the poetry of Emily Dickinson. Read Richard Ely's interview with Randall Berndt here. Performances are at 7:30 p.m., Feb. 10; and at 3 p.m., Feb. 11-12.

media release: Join us for TNW Ensemble Theater's theatrical interpretation of Sketchy Ideas, a series of illustrated panels by Randall Berndt.

“Sketchy Ideas” began as a series of illustrated letters Wisconsin-based visual artist Randall Berndt started experimenting with more than four years ago. Now TNW Ensemble Theater is presenting this exploration of the relationship between narrative and image on stage in a multi-disciplinary production in Overture Center’s Wisconsin Studio on Friday, Feb. 10 at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 11 at 3 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 12 at 3 p.m. Tickets ($30) are available at overture.org or by calling the ticket office at 608.258.4141.

As Berndt’s drawings are projected, four actors (Anthony Novich Leonard, Liz Light, Andrew Lonsdale and Patrick Mahoney) share Berndt’s droll perspectives on everything from “the secret life of plants” to “extravagant thinking in a time of plague.”

“Sketchy Ideas” is produced by TNW Ensemble Theater under the direction of Danielle Dresden and Donna Peckett with staging by Peckett and lighting design by Patricia Micetic. Violinist Paran Amirinazari underscores and enhances the words and images, making this a thoroughly mixed media event.

These upcoming performances are the second time TNW has presented this mix of theater, music and visual art. The first round of “Sketchy Ideas,” the multi-disciplinary production, took place at the company’s Studio Theater on Winnebago Street. They were so successful that the company decided to take the work to a larger venue.

Berndt’s “Sketchy Ideas” series operates in the tradition of artist’s letters that flourished in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Berndt sent his own missives across the country in this century. The production came about because Donna Peckett and Danielle Dresden were among the nearby recipients of Berndt’s “Sketchy Ideas.” After enjoying the artist’s mailings for years, one day Peckett decided, “More people need to see these,” and the show began to take shape. Coinciding with the live performance, Berndt’s “Sketchy Ideas” can be seen as an online exhibit through Overture Center’s online digital display: Sketchy Ideas - Overture.

A studio artist, Berndt is a former curator of the James Watrous Gallery in Overture Center and worked as an art conservator in the Wisconsin State Capitol restoration project. He has designed sets for several TNW Ensemble Theater’s productions.

TNW Ensemble Theater, founded in 1985 by Danielle Dresden and Donna Peckett, creates, produces and performs new, multi-disciplinary works for theater. The company has performed across the United States as well as in Canada, Mexico and Scotland.

Berndt's description of the project is as follows:

Sketchy Ideas: The Origin

Three or four years ago I began sending illustrated letters to a circle of friends.  I called these clever, quirky missives Sketchy Ideas.

The various topics of these gentle screeds sprang from news of the day, chance encounters on the street while walking my dog friend, and random brainstorms. The letters reflect a three-year period in my everyday life – the chaos of the ending of Trump time, haunting threats of Covid, and caretaking of my wife, Wendy, during her illness journey with ALS.

My laboriously hand-sketched and lettered, funny/sad life reports are also a somewhat subdued anti-digital world rearguard action. These cartoonish, illuminated manuscripts are at odds with the cruel speed of 21st century life. They come from a long-lost tradition of artists’ letters dating back to the 19th and early 20th centuries.

I hope their playful humor can be of some comfort in this time of bleak prospects.

Thanks for being here and having a look.

“Sketchy Ideas” is made possible by support from Pleasant Rowland’s Great Performance Fund for Theater at Overture, the Madison Community Foundation, the Wisconsin Arts Board, with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts; Dane County Arts with additional funds from the Endres Mfg. Company Foundation, The Evjue Foundation, Inc., charitable arm of The Capital Times, the W. Jerome Frautschi Foundation and the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation; the Neil Allen Peckett Memorial Fund; and RoseDot.

OVERTURE CENTER FOR THE ARTS in Madison, Wis., is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts organization that features seven state-of-the-art performance spaces and four galleries where national and international touring artists, nine resident companies and hundreds of local artists engage people in nearly 700,000 educational and artistic experiences each year. With the vision to provide “Extraordinary Experiences for All,” Overture’s mission is to support and elevate our community’s creative culture, economy and quality of life through the arts. overture.org