Two Flags For Marco
Daniel Mannheim, an autistic high school savant, is introduced to Mark Flour, a retired German teacher living in a local nursing home, ostensibly to learn German. But what the senior in high school finds is a World War II POW veteran with a secretive past. Encouraged to improve his social skills, Daniel joins the writing club at the nursing home and works with the reluctant POW hero as a subject for an upcoming writing contest. Mark and Daniel develop a strong bond that probes their previous lives. Mark detests being thought of as a hero, and Daniel has much anxiety over graduation, future fears of living on his own, and parental pressure to attend the senior prom. Secrets are revealed by young and old alike, and the truth hangs raw emotions out like pictures at a public exhibition.
The action slips back and forth from battlefields of World War II to the farmlands of central Wisconsin in the 1940s to the contemporary dayroom of a modern retirement home and the halls of Oakwood High School, in Oakwood, Wisconsin.
The Exchange
The American Bund, a thriving pro-German, pro-Nazi organization in the decades leading up to the Second World War is determined to create an Aryan-first society subjugating people of color, trade unions, Communists, and Jews. When America declares war on Germany, the American Bund as a visible organization disappears, but the loyal Bund members do not.
The Exchange highlights the friendship between two college students-James O'Malley, an Irishman, and Ulysses Higgins, a black man determined to make his way in the world-who are harassed and threatened by the local Bund and decide to make a change.
With timelines alternating between World War II and a modern-day college student learning about his family history, The Exchange explores exactly what it means to be a soldier, and more importantly, what it means to be human.
Critics' Choice
Playwright, Patrick Phair
Patrick Phair is the author of several novels, poems and "Critics' Choice." This is his third play performed in the Waupaca area, following "Photoshop" and "Two Flags for Marco." Phair previously taught English for nearly forty years at the high school level and is an adjunct English Professor for UW-Oshkosh. He lives with his wife Mary in Appleton, Wisconsin.
Stage Manager, Bob Tevis
Bob, a native-born Wisconsinite from Racine, moved to the Waupaca area 8 years ago. As a board member of the Rural Historical Society, he organized the most recent Rural House Walk. He’s a humorist (Professor Smart4z on WAUP) and recently debuted a radio interview show on WAUP called "Curiouser". He co-produces the Waupaca Community Arts Board’s "Summer Nights" concert series and is a contributing member of the Arts on The Square activities in August.
Director, Barbara Laedtke
Critics’ Choice is the third play Barbara has directed for WCT. The support she received from the Waupaca Community Theatre Board while she produced Luna Gale and Frankenstein (twice during the pandemic!) gave her the confidence to bring Patrick Phair’s original work to the stage. She is amazed at the caliber of actors that have brought their talents and experience to Critics’ Choice. In 1981 Barbara appeared as Mitzi in Plaza Suite and has stayed involved with WCT for 4 decades!
Two Flags For Marco
Note: This is a play adapted from the book with the same title
In the years 1943-45 nearly half a million World War II POWs from Europe were shipped to the United States and imprisoned until the end of the war in 1945. Wisconsin housed anywhere from 5 to 15 thousand POWs, in over 30 camps in rural areas around the state where they were put to work on farms, canning factories, orchards and the like. Many of the POWs were young draftees who had never been out of Germany before, couldn't speak English and were fearful of this strange land called Wisconsin.
I have always been fascinated with the idea that WWII POWs were housed in our "backyard" and most Wisconsinites then were unaware and even today much of the story has not been told. I wanted to tell one veteran's story from that experience and used a brash, autistic high school senior to discover it and in the process form an unlikely and yet wonderful bond.
PATRICK PHAIR
Etwell (Eddy) Hanson
A perspective from Eddy Hanson
written and performed by Patrick Phair
Pat Phair
About the Author
Patrick Phair is a retired English teacher who has published poems, plays, and this his debut novels. His writings explore what happens to normal people when they collide with those whose experiences are driven by conflict or ostracism. He lives with his wife Mary in central Wisconsiin.