School Pictures - Cast and Creative Team Announced for Local Premiere

Theater LattÉ Da - School Pictures 2025 - Photo by Dan Norman

Minneapolis, MN — Theater Latté Da (Justin Lucero, Artistic Director and Elisa Spencer-Kaplan, Managing Director) announces the cast and creative team for the local premiere of the thought-provoking, delightful solo show School Pictures, written and performed by Milo Cramer and directed by the show’s original director Morgan Green.  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. 

Twice extended in its Off-Broadway production at New York City’s Playwrights Horizons, School Pictures was named New York Magazine Vulture’s Best Play of the Year in 2023, with critic Sara Holdren noting, “Gentle, generous, seemingly simple in form but buzzing with complexity, writer-performer Milo Cramer’s solo show of songs inspired by the kids they taught was as riveting as it was sweetly funny.” The production premiered at Philadelphia’s Wilma Theatre in 2022, where it also received significant acclaim. The Broad Street Review observed, “Cramer takes the audience on an endearing and quietly moving journey...Part lecture and part song cycle, they disarm the audience with humor in order to ask pointed questions about the state of our schools.” 

“I love how boldly School Pictures pushes the boundaries of what we traditionally think of as musical theater,” says Artistic Director Justin Lucero. “This endearing work not only challenges our expectations, but also shines a spotlight on the voice of an exciting new writer.”

New York Magazine’s choice for Best Play of 2023, a “completely wonderful” musical portrait of modern school life is “as riveting as it [is] sweetly funny.” 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.

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 Cramerand 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 byMilo 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

Dates: February 5 - March 2, 2025

(Previews: February 5-7, 2025)

Venue: Ritz Theater, 345 13th Avenue NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413

Standard Tickets start at $36 and are on sale now. Group, student and other discounts are available. Order online at latteda.org, by phone at 612.339.3003 or in person Tue-Fri 12-5 PM at the Ritz Theater box office, 345 13th Ave NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413.