“In “Take Care- A Play for Our Time,” an original multi-disciplinary play about aging, intimacy and the complexities of race, class and caregiving, by TAPIT/new works Theater, will premiere at the CCE on April 26, 2012. By 2030, people over the age of 65 will represent 20% of the American population. The looming question on this fast-approaching horizon is: will society be prepared to take care of them? Informal “care-giving” structures, currently emerging below the radar, may be part of the answer, or even the norm, as a vast group of baby-boomers moves towards the last stage of life and confronts aging and its commensurate challenges. Even now, at this moment, if you have an aging relative, you might have already discovered this world of service providers for the elderly, the often unnoticed, unheralded, yet essential people who have devoted their work to caring for seniors in need: the “helpers,” the caregivers, “the girls.

Take Care was inspired by the personal relationship between producing artistic director Donna Peckett and her late stepmother’s caregivers. This friendship opened doors to another world for her, and prompted the examination of the issues of aging, race, class, death and dying in new ways.

Employing drama, comedy, rhythm dance and an original score, Take Care, by Danielle Dresden, explores the underground entrepreneurial world of “the girls” or “helpers.” The way this care-giving underground is structured – who participates and how, as well as who benefits and how – has worlds to say about how our society deals with aging, death, intimacy, race and class. Performances are scheduled for April 26, 2012 in Wausau, Wisconsin at the UW-Marathon County, and in Madison, at the Overture Center, May 3-6, 2012.

Based on outreach workshops and interviews with older adults, caregivers and family members in Dane County and Marathon County, Wisconsin, as well as in Georgia and Florida, Take Care follows the evolving relationships between elderly individuals, their children and their caregivers. As opportunities for the most profound human connection are grasped, acknowledged or ignored, the play’s characters must confront their capacity for connection and redemption.

The play will also feature TAPIT ensemble members, comprised of composer/director/set designer David Adler and actors Lorraine Jaki -Terry and Kay Dixon. The creation and perfomances of the play were co-sponsored by a grant from the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation.

The UWMC Lecture and Fine Arts Series has hosted many of the company’s original works and has sponsored a number of campus/ community residencies with the company throughout the years. For “Take Care,” Donna Peckett and Danielle Dresden conducted, in the central Wisconsin community, one-hour interactive discussion/workshop with caregivers, adult children, recipients of care, Hospice Care workers, in-home support personnel and more.

In these workshops, participants talked about their personal experiences with getting, giving, coordinating, finding and receiving care for older adults. Along with sharing stories and feelings, participants discussed specific aspects of care-giving, including the different people, activities, places and issues involved in the process. Workshop participants engaged their own creativity in age appropriate theater games and creative writing exercises.

Although the materials collected in the workshops were anonymous, when workshop attendees see the play based on their input, some parts will doubtless seem familiar. We welcome all to this unique and timely production.

Take Care: A Play for Our Time (is supported, in part, by the Pleasant Rowland Great Performance Fund for Theater, a component fund of the Madison Community Foundation; the Wisconsin Arts Board, with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts; the Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission; The Evjue Foundation Inc., the charitable arm of The Capital Times; Alliant Energy Foundation; UW-Marathon County, Center for Civic Engagement, Wausau, Wisconsin; the Neil Allen Peckett Memorial Fund of TAPIT/new works, Inc.

For more information on the TAPIT/new works Theater, visit their website at: www.tapitnewworks.org/ information coming soon.
Producing/Artistic Directors TAPIT/new works bios below.

Donna Peckett is an actor, choreographer, tap dancer and arts educator. She received two Choreography Fellowships from the Wisconsin Arts Board and was recognized by the Wisconsin Dance Council for her contributions to the field. Peckett earned a BA in Art History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1968 and trained with the Bread and Puppet Theater and at the HB Studio in New York in the 1960’s. She was born in Atlanta, Georgia and grew up in Homestead, Florida.
She serves as producing artistic director of TAPIT/new works Ensemble Theater, which she co-founded in 1985. In that time, she has performed in and co-produced 40 theater works, touring from Miami Beach, Florida to Toronto and New Brunswick, Canada, to Mexico, from Edinburgh, Scotland to Valdez, Alaska, as well as venues throughout Wisconsin, the Midwest and the U. S.
In 2010, Peckett co-produced, choreographed and performed in the Company’s 25th anniversary production, “Help Wanted: The Search for Security, True Love or at Least a Decent Part-Time Job.” In 2008-2009, Peckett co-produced and performed in the Company’s very successful production of Mangia Mangia, a play about Madison’s historic Greenbush neighborhood. The show continued its run in the Fall of 2009 in Madison, and in Three Lakes, Wisconsin in 2010. Peckett toured to Canada in February 2008 with the play Garden Party, which had its Madison premier in 2005 and went on to tour Wisconsin, Illinois and to Washington, D.C. in 2009. Her solo tap performance piece, “Mazel,” was part of the Break A Leg mini-ensemble theater festival at Madison, Wisconsin’s Overture Center, November 2007. Recent productions also include, Tear Up the Front Page, (Madison premiere, 2006), following a statewide series of listening sessions, with subsequent performances through 2009 in Milwaukee, Madison and Mineral Point, at the UW-Marathon County and a Purdue University.
Peckett’s acting and choreography were seen in Source Code: Candide, in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico in March, 2008 and at Madison’s Overture Center in 2005, the Syncopated Syndromes tour to Door County which included cameos and talkbacks with Dr. Zorba Pastor, and The Girls From Building B, performed in Ohio at the venerable Lakeside Association’s 3,000-seat theater.
Other key performances in the past 10 years include her work in Without Pity at the Krannert Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and at the AIDS Theater Festival in San Francisco, and in Soul Journey in Toronto for the International Festival of Madness and Arts.
Peckett is a committed arts educator and residency artist. She has produced and hosted workshops with leading figures in rhythm dance, including Roxanne Butterfly, Brenda Bufalino, Anita Feldman, Frankie Manning, Steve Condos, LaVaughn Robinson and many more. She is a specialist in creative movement and drama for young children. Through TAPIT/new works Ensemble Theater, she coordinates and teaches in three summer arts programs for school-age students.
She is on the faculty at Edgewood College, Department of Theatre, in Madison, Wisconsin, where she teaches cultural and social history, technique and choreography of America rhythm tap dance. She is an instructor for UW Education Outreach, and for the UW-Madison Department of Liberal Studies and the Arts. In addition to her acting work, she combines monologue and tap dance to explore social issues. She has taught tap dance for Danceworks in Milwaukee, for Ballet Met in Columbus, Ohio and in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. Peckett was a lecturer in the UW-Madison Dance Program (2006), and guest choreographer at the UW-Whitewater in 2003.
As a residency artist, Peckett has received training from Kennedy Center facilitators and co-developed a model format combining creative writing, movement and visual arts to teach hundreds of school-age students. For the past three years she has used this model to focus on stopping bullying in the public schools. In 2007 and 2009, she co-conducted theater arts residencies at UW-Marathon County, Wausau. She performed and taught in a National Performance Network residency, Alverno College, Milwaukee and served as a featured speaker at the Annual Meeting of the Georgia Association on Young Children.
Peckett, an artist and community activist, is devoted to arts education. She believes that positive social change can be fostered through arts activism. A founding member of the International Tap Association, member of the Network of Ensemble Theaters and the Wisconsin Dance Council, she enjoys gardening and cooking.

Ilia Guzei (c) 2010

Danielle Dresden, playwright, actor and residency artist, is producing artistic director of TAPIT/new works Ensemble Theater, which she co-founded in 1985.
Dresden has received numerous playwrighting awards, including the 1999 Finalist for the Yukon Pacific New Play Award at the Edward Albee Conference in Valdez, Alaska and the Council for Wisconsin Writers Drama Awards in 2001, 2003 and 2006.
Dresden is the author of 31 plays and has co-produced more than 40 productions. Her work has been performed from Florida to Canada, from Scotland to Alaska, as well as throughout Wisconsin and venues around the Midwest.
She has served as a panelist and presenter at the Last Frontier Theater Festival since 2002. Her play Changing Faces was produced at the Playwright’s Forum of the Looking Glass Theatre in New York City in 2003. A monologue from her play, Athena, Live!, was published in the collection, Young Women’s Monologues from Contemporary Plays #2 from Meriwether Publishing Ltd.
Her most recent play, Help Wanted: The Search for Security, True Love or at Least a Decent Part-Time Job, premiered in March 2010. From 2008-2010 Mangia, Mangia! a play about Madison’s historic Greenbush neighborhood, played to capacity audiences in Madison and in northern Wisconsin. Dresden toured to Canada in February 2008 with her play Garden Party, which opened in 2005 in Madison, subsequently touring in Wisconsin, Illinois, and in the Fall of 2009, to Washington, DC. Her short play, “Just My Luck,” was part of the Break A Leg mini-ensemble theater festival, at Madison, Wisconsin’s Overture Center for the Arts, in November, 2007. Her play Tear Up the Front Page, premiered in 2006, following a statewide series of listening sessions, with performances in 2008-2009, including Purdue University in Indiana, and Wausau, Mineral Point and Madison, Wisconsin.
Dresden has worked as a professional actor in theater, radio and video since 1980. Examples include performances in her play, Source Code: Candide, in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico in March, 2008 and at Madison’s Overture Center in 2005, the Syncopated Syndromes tour to Door County which included cameos and talkbacks with Dr. Zorba Paster, and The Girls From Building B, performed in Ohio at the venerable Lakeside Association’s 3,000-seat theater, in northern Wisconsin, twice touring the Miami Beach, Florida.
Other key plays from the past 10 years include Without Pity, performed at the Krannert Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the AIDS Theater Festival in San Francisco, Soul Journey at the International Festival of Madness and Arts in Toronto, and Questionable Origins at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.
An experienced residency artist, Dresden received training from Kennedy Center facilitators. In 2000 she co-developed a model residency combining creative writing, movement and visual arts which she has used to teach hundreds of children throughout the Midwest. For the past three years, she has used this model in conducting arts residencies focused on stopping bullying. In 2009 and 2007 she taught theater, playwriting and coached a college student theater group as part of residencies at the University of Wisconsin-Marathon County. She has also performed and taught as part of a National Performance Network residency at Alverno College in Milwaukee and served as a featured speaker at the Annual Meeting of the Georgia Association on Young Children in 2000.
Dresden graduated with distinction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with BAs in Journalism and Comparative Literature and a Masters in Business in Arts Administration from the Bolz Center. A former reporter, Dresden’s arts administration experience includes work as the acting editor for ACUCAA, now the Association for Performing Arts Presenters, and a three-year stint as a development director in community radio. Dresden was a contributing writer for DramaBiz Magazine.
She has served as a peer review panelist for the Wisconsin Arts Board, an Advisory Board member for Encore Productions and a member of the Overture Foundation Advisory Council. Dresden is a member of the Barrymore Theater Board of Directors in Madison, Wisconsin, the Dramatists Guild, the Theatre Communications Group and the Network of Ensemble Theaters.