High school in a small town is not always easy, and moving to a bigger city can be even more difficult.
Robby McGhee, a 2003 Shawano Community High School graduate formerly known as Robby Schuettpelz, has taken those feelings and turned them into a puppet musical called “The Burden of Being,” currently being performed in The Alchemist Theatre in Milwaukee. The show runs through Saturday.
“This is something I’ve always wanted to do, ever since I started doing musical theater at Shawano Community High School,” McGhee said. “The first musical I was ever in was ‘Oklahoma’ in the spring of 2000.”
McGhee’s remembers graduating eighth grade at Sacred Heart Catholic School in a class of 12 and then moving on to SCHS, where his class totaled more than 200.
“I joined every club there, and theater was a group that really stuck out for me,” McGhee said. “Growing up in a small town and moving to a big city is a huge step in someone’s life.”
Once he graduated, McGhee went on to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, thinking he was only a “decent” actor when compared with other thespians. He started college majoring in communications, but he eventually dropped out when he saw that type of career was not in his blood.
“I started doing theater while in Milwaukee, and I started getting offered really great parts,” McGhee said. “I always wanted to sit down and write something of my own, so I wrote a puppet musical, because for my first show I didn’t want to OVERSET FOLLOWS:be taken too seriously.”
“The Burden of Being” follows a monster named Aaron Bradway who has recently graduated from high school and is working toward accepting himself. The show takes place in a town called Flatville, which McGhee said has elements of Shawano in it, and Aaron is the only monster in town.
McGhee said only three of his classmates also went to Milwaukee after high school, so he had to learn to adapt without his previous support system of friends and family.
“I think the smaller the city, the bigger the dream,” McGhee said. “The lesson I wanted to share with the audience is you have to rely on yourself to get through life.”
McGhee is accustomed to coming up with good stories quickly, being part of a group called TIM, or The Improvised Musical. The group has to develop an on-the-spot, 90-minute musical every week, he said.
“I wanted to develop something more solid for my first show,” McGhee said.
The Alchemist Theatre came to McGhee to write a show, knowing his talent when he performed in two other productions. McGhee has been acting in Milwaukee for seven years.
McGhee is hoping to adapt “The Burden of Being” into a show that can go into K-12 schools and teach students about bullying.
“I’m hoping it will teach them to treat others with respect,” McGhee said. “I think they’ll listen to puppets more than they do humans.”
In the meantime, McGhee is still all smiles every time the show is performed. He said he always goes to the theater thinking he will relax and wait for the performance to end, but that never happens.
“I go and watch the first five seconds of the show, and all of a sudden I’m enthralled by the audience reacting to the words I wrote down,” McGhee said. “I’m finding myself laughing at my own jokes, feeling like an idiot, but I just can’t help it. It’s so addicting.”
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