The Milwaukee Post

By Tom Jozwik Special to The Post When "The Color Purple" officially opens at the Milwaukee Repertory's Quadracci Powerhouse Theater tonight, a seventh-grader from Waukesha will be per- forming as young Celie. Chantae Miller, who will turn 13 during the musical play's nearly six-week run, gives way to an adult actress as each per- formance progresses. "The Color Purple" covers four decades in Celie's life. The adult Celie is the musical's main character, some- thing of a poster gal for ill-treated African- American women in the Deep South during the first half of the 20th century. Film buffs may well remember that Whoopi Goldberg was nominated for a best actress Oscar for playing Celie on the big screen in 1985. The Steven Spielberg movie also garnered best supporting actress nominations for Oprah Winfrey and Margaret Avery. Chantae, the home-schooled daughter of Chuck and Cathy Miller, takes on the cameo role of a picnicker as the musical moves along, after her turn as Celie has ended. Once the play itself has ended production, Chantae will find herself rehearsing for the 2014 edition of the Rep's annual holiday extravaganza, "A Christmas Carol." She's already been cast as one of the Cratchit children for that Dec. 2 to Dec. 24 run. Although she hasn't performed in a Rep "Carol" to date, Chantae more or less prepped for the experience by acting in a similar Menomonee Falls Patio Players production in 2012. In fact, the beloved Charles Dickens story of the transforma- tion of miserly Scrooge is what piqued Chantae's interest in things theatrical. She saw the Rep's 2011 "Carol" and recalled in a recent telephone conversation that, from the perspective of an audience member, enacting the classic story "looked like so much fun." In her own words, the soon-to-be teenag- er has "been going nonstop" virtually ever since. Among other productions, there have been "Oliver" and "Kiss Me Kate" on the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha stage, "A Midnight Cry" at First Stage Milwaukee, and "Oklahoma," and "Candy Cane Tales and Holiday Carols" at Waukesha Civic Theatre. Chantae described WCT as "kind of like a second home." In the last show mentioned she sang "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer." "Singing is my first choice," Chantae said, her preferred-even-to-acting method of performing. "Actually, I never thought I was very good at acting. Apparently I've been proven wrong." Chantae, who expects she'll continue to be taught at home as a high schooler, said she'd like to major in musical theater in college. To the young singer-actress, pop songs "all sound the same." She expressed a pref- erence for "slower songs," such as the band Passenger sings. "I like that sort of music," Chantae said. Things are very busy for her right now. Chantae has 12-hour rehearsal days (com- plete with breaks, of course) about to yield to a series of "The Color Purple" preview performances. The busyness will continue for some time. After "The Color Purple" and "A Christmas Carol," Chantae is slated to take on the role of Gina in "Big Nate: The Musical" at First Stage Feb. 27 to March 29. The very thought of all that acting would be enough to thoroughly fray a lot of people's nerves. But Chantae? "No, I'm not really nervous" when per- forming, she said. However, she admitted she can get a little nervous when audition- ing. Then again, you just wouldn't expect a whole lot of butterflies in someone who took up dancing at the age of 2 — and per- formed in a Chicago production of "The Nutcracker" even before her acting days in Waukesha and Milwaukee. "The Color Purple" runs Sept. 26 to Nov. 2 at the Milwaukee Rep's Quadracci Powerhouse Theater, 108 E. Wells St. September 26, 2014 • Milwaukee County Post • 19 I was thinking about how far removed animated movies are from real life as I walked away from a screening of the 3-D film "The Boxtrolls" earlier this week. And then, virtually the first human being I saw outside the theater was dressed in a gorilla suit and marching around with a placard that touted some local TV show. Oh well. Maybe truth is at least as strange as animated fiction. "The Boxtrolls" — adapted from the Alan Snow kids' novel "Here Be Monsters!" — certainly boasts skillful animation, details of which include changing expres- sions on character faces that not infre- quently feature a bad set of teeth; realisti- cally tiled roofs and cobblestone streets that could've been photographed; garbage cans filled to overflowing, doors as laden with locks as actual inner city portals and well-worn staircases. There are also voices that invariably fit the characters, music that fits the mood, language-based humor that adults especially will appreciate, a plot likely to engage viewers of various ages (pre- and early grade-schoolers may be a wee bit young for this one) and a worth- while message or two. The creatures of the title are regarded as "filthy" and "grotesque monsters" by the cheese-loving denizens of a town whose slo- gan is "A Gouda Place" (like we said, lan- guage gags). A box, not surprisingly, is an integral part of a boxtroll's body, rather akin to a turtle's shell. These movie crea- tures, whose existence is largely subter- ranean, are scavengers, but they are not the baby-eating producers of "rivers of blood" the townspeople believe them to be. Antagonist Archibald Snatcher (voice of Ben Kingsley), the movie's villain, is most responsible for the boxtrolls' unsavory image. Having demonized the boxtroll pop- ulation, Snatcher has been put in charge of creature control and vows that he "will destroy every last boxtroll in this town." Such a complete destruction, you see, would earn him membership in Lord Portley-Rind's (Jared Harris) exclusive cir- cle of civic leaders/cheese testers. Never mind that Snatcher's face reddens and bloats in an allergic reaction whenever he consumes more than a couple bites of the dairy product. Snatcher heads a small group of boxtroll "exterminators," two of whom simply seem misguided. (The one minion who, like his boss, is just plain evil looks like Jerry Lewis in "The Nutty Professor," only hair- less.) The Snatcher gang meets its match in Eggs (Isaac Hempstead-Wright), who "dresses like a boxtroll but looks like a boy." Young Eggs is indeed a boy, one raised by a very likable boxtroll called Fish (Dee Bradley Baker), and Lord Portley-Rind's daughter becomes the boy's puppy love interest. The daughter, Winnie (Elle Fanning), takes it upon herself to teach boxtroll-oriented Eggs the ways of humani- ty; one result is a comedic party sequence which, unfortunately, includes a brief regurgitation scene. Eggs, the protagonist, gets to recite a moral, which is arguably hackneyed and frankly comes out of left field. Shakespeare famously conveyed the same sentiment as "to thine own self be true." A more appro- priate "Boxtrolls" message, although it is implied rather than spelled out, approxi- mates the proverbial Danish warning "Sight before hearsay." "Boxtrolls" attendees are hereby encour- aged to stick around for the film's closing credits — a practice that's becoming more and more advisable at the movies. 'Boxtrolls' has much to offer young, old moviegoers MOVIE REVIEW BY TOM JOZWIK POST MOVIE CRITIC 'Boxtrolls' ★ ★ ★ Starring: The voices of Ben Kingsley, Isaac Hempstead-Wright, Elle Fanning, Jared Harris, Dee Bradley Baker,Toni Collette, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade,Tracy Morgan, Max Mitchell, Laraine Newman Running time: 100 minutes Directed by: Graham Annable, Anthony Stacchi Rating: PG Release date: today Showings: www.marcustheatres.com In this image released by Focus Features, a scene is shown from "The Boxtrolls." Young Waukesha actress plays role in Rep play Miller to play young Celie in 'The Color Purple' At a glance "The Color Purple" Where: Milwaukee Repertory's Quadracci Powerhouse Theater, 108 E.Wells St., Milwaukee Show times: 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday; 6:30 p.m.Tuesday; 7:30 p.m.Wednesday; 7:30 p.m. Thursday; 8 p.m. Oct. 3 Contact: www.milwaukeerep.com or 414-224- 9490

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