Lakeland to screen alum's award-winning documentary for Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and more Sheboygan news in weekly dose
SHEBOYGAN — An award-winning documentary directed and produced by a Lakeland University graduate will be the centerpiece of Lakeland’s annual Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
Lakeland will screen 1996 graduate Shannon Kring’s film “End of the Line: The Women of Standing Rock” from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Oct. 9 in the Campus Center Event Space.
Kring and one of the film’s stars will join the audience virtually after the film to talk and answer questions.
“End of the Line” tells the story of the indigenous women who established a peaceful camp in protest of the multi-billion Dakota Access Oil Pipeline construction that desecrated ancient burial and prayer sites and threatened their land, water and very existence.
The documentary was a 2022 Emmy Award nominee for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary, the industry’s highest honor for national documentary programming. It won a 2022 Hollywood Critics Association Television Award for Best Broadcast Network or Cable Documentary.
Other awards and honors include a 2022 Humanitas Prize Nominee and Special Mention, 2022 Sandford St. Martin Award Runner-Up (the UK’s most prestigious broadcast awards for radio, TV and online programs), 2021 Clio Visualizing History Prize for the Advancement of Women in Film, 2019 Stella Artois-Women in Film Finishing Fund Award Winner and 2018 Finnish Film Foundation Award Winner as Kring became the first American and only third female director to receive this honor in the Finnish Film Foundations’s 69-year history.
Kring is an Emmy-winning producer/director/writer and humanitarian who amplifies the experiences of those left vulnerable and voiceless through years of systematic oppression. After living in places as diverse as Helsinki and San Pedro Sula, Honduras (then the Murder Capital of the World), she returned to the U.S. in 2016 to begin production on “End of the Line.”
Wielding the transformative power of storytelling, she amplifies the experiences of those left vulnerable and voiceless through years of systematic racial, economic, gender, geographic and religious oppression. Her work changes minds, opens hearts and inspires social and policy change.
Kring’s documentaries have been presented by dozens of governments, top international broadcasters and institutions including the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the Smithsonian Institution Museum of the American Indian, NASA, MIT and the British Museum.
She works with the U.N., U.S. Department of State, USAID, UNEP and other global bodies concerning the Indigenous and other marginalized members of society, environmental sustainability, animal welfare, human rights and cultural preservation. She is a UNWTO Liaison and serves as Honduras’ Official Goodwill Ambassador.
While in her 20s and on a $300 line of credit, Kring created a culinary empire including a national, Emmy-winning PBS food documentary series, award-winning and bestselling cookbooks and memoirs, and acclaimed restaurants and culinary schools for home and professional chefs.
After a decade in the public eye, she left it behind to document Indigenous elders, world leaders and global change makers in 70-plus countries. She has conducted more than 3,000 interviews.
Kring’s first feature documentary, “2012: THE BEGINNING,” was the most-watched of 1,600-plus programs at MIPDoc, aired on 20-plus TV networks worldwide, and was an official selection at nearly 100 film festivals.
Memoirist: ‘We are all connected:’ Memoirist returns to Sheboygan to share journey of love and grief
Welcome to your weekly dose.Here is more news from throughout Sheboygan County.
Take Back the Night Rally in Sheboygan Oct. 12
Oct. 12, community members will gather along the lakefront in Sheboygan to honor those who have experienced domestic violence and those who lost their lives to domestic violence in Wisconsin.
The Take Back the Night Rally will begin at Peace Park at 6 p.m., followed by a walk to Rotary Riverfront Park.
The rally will feature local poets, a resource fair, a Hmong dance performance and speaker Toni White, president of the Black American Community Outreach of Sheboygan. White also serves as the chief operating officer of WRTP BIG STEP, a non-profit workforce intermediary in Milwaukee. She is a native of Sheboygan and attended Urban, Farnsworth, and graduated from Sheboygan South High School. She holds two master’s degrees, one in business management and the other in non-profit management and leadership.
There also will be a display about the victims included in the upcoming 2022 Wisconsin Domestic Violence Homicide Report and a flower release into the Sheboygan River in their memory. This event is free and open to all community members.
With the anticipated release of the 2022 report from End Abuse WI, shining a light on this type of violence statewide is more important than ever. In 2021, 80 Wisconsin residents ages 3 months old to 77 years old died in domestic violence-related homicides. This is the highest number since the year 2000, when End Abuse WI began recording these reports, and leaping well past the 2020 record of 65 deaths. Domestic violence homicides took place in 21 Wisconsin counties, with a rate of about 1 death every 4.5 days.
In 2021, firearms were the weapons used in 67% of domestic violence homicide incidents. At least 13 of the 36 perpetrators who used a firearm to commit a domestic violence homicide that year were legally prohibited from having firearms. Many of these homicide cases reflect the risk factors that research has found to be associated with lethal violence. These include, among other factors: threats to use or actual use of a weapon, threats to kill, stalking, strangulation, obsessive jealousy and sexual assault.
Safe Harbor of Sheboygan County provides services to reach out to those affected by sexual assault and domestic abuse; provides support to those in crisis; and provides education to individuals, families and the community. The organization’s 24/7 crisis helpline (1-800-499-7640) is available to connect victims with local resources and support.
‘Kea and the Ark’ at John Michael Kohler Arts Center Oct. 13-15
Kea Tawana had powerful hands and a long stride. In the 1980s, she built a three-story-tall and 86-foot-long ark on the highest point in Newark, New Jersey, using materials from abandoned houses.
The John Michael Kohler Arts Center will present “Kea and the Ark,” a multidisciplinary theater work exploring Tawana’s incredible life of loss and resilience, Oct. 13-15.
“Kea and the Ark” tells the story of a woman who — in an act of protest, a test of ingenuity and tenacity, and the fulfillment of vision for the perfect vessel to take her home — single-handedly built a 20-ton ark in Newark’s Central Ward.
Created and performed by Philadelphia-based White Box Theatre, “Kea and the Ark” incorporates movement, puppetry, storytelling and live music. Audiences are taken on a journey across the map — from a Japanese internment camp to a Hopi reservation, through the South via boxcar, and into Newark during the uprisings of the 1960s.
Following each performance, there will be a talk with the artists and walk-through of the stage installation.
Show times are 7 p.m. Oct. 13 and 2 p.m. Oct. 14-15. Tickets are $15 ($10 for Arts Center members). To purchase tickets, visit jmkac.org/events, call 920-458-6144 or stop at the Arts Center.
In addition to the performances, the community can explore themes and ideas ignited by Tawana’s story through writing and performance workshops. Visit jmkac.org/events for workshop times and registration. There are also self-guided tours of the exhibition “Kea Tawana: I Traveled into the Future in a Dream,” on view through Jan. 28 at the Arts Center.
The John Michael Kohler Arts Center is at 608 New York Ave., Sheboygan. Free parking is available in the Arts Center lot.
Kohler-Andrae to host Big Sit Birding event Oct. 14
Kohler-Andrae State Park, 1020 Beach Park Lane, Sheboygan, will host a Big Sit Birding event from 9 a.m. to noon Oct. 14.
A description states: “Bring your camp chair, binoculars, field guides and apps and join the Moraine Shores Audubon for some casual birding from a perch at the Sanderling Nature Center. Anyone who likes birds is welcome to help identify the many bird species migrating through the park. A list of birds seen and heard will be created. Come and go as you wish. Some binoculars are available for use. Program happens weather permitting.”
Those attending should meet at Sanderling Nature Center, parking lot P3. Vehicle admission is required. Call 920-451-4080 for more details.
Theater for Young Audiences to stage ‘Gooney Bird and Her True Life Adventures’ Oct. 20-22
Theater for Young Audiences closes out its season by mounting the raucous production “Gooney Bird Greene and Her True Life Adventures” at Berkshire Sheboygan Falls.
The curtain opens Oct. 20 and runs through Oct. 22
The play, based on the book “Gooney Bird Greene and Her True Life Adventures” and adapted for the stage by Kent R. Brown, takes place in the little town of Watertower when summer comes crashing to a halt and the kids have no interest in the start of the school year. Suddenly, the classroom door bursts open and there, wearing an outlandish outfit, stands Gooney Bird Greene. The class is never the same again.
By blending funny and memorable characters with colorful details and her distinctive flair for suspense, Gooney Bird’s outrageous, “absolutely true” stories awaken the students’ dormant imaginations. They come to realize their lives are as unique as Gooney Bird’s and they, too, can cast themselves as the heroes in their own true tales of discovery and adventure.
TYA has assembled an accomplished team to bring “Gooney Bird Greene” to life, including stage director Tegan Hermann, stage manager Joe Wilsnack, set designer Brandon Otten, costume designer Brooke Hess, sound designer Rick Klein and lighting technician Meg Bemis.
Shows are at 6 p.m. Oct. 20, 2 and 6 p.m. Oct. 21, and 2 p.m. Oct 22. They are held at Berkshire Sheboygan Falls, 101 School St., Sheboygan Falls. Tickets are $5 for children ages 3-12 and $10 for anyone 13 and older and may be purchased at tyasheboygan.org.
The cast includes students from Horace Mann, Urban, Farnsworth, Roncalli, Lake Country Academy, Pigeon River, Kohler, Elkhart Lake, Lincoln Erdman, Cleveland, Etude, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Sheboygan South, Sheboygan North, Random Lake and UW-Milwaukee. The title role is played by Zelra Geldenheuis.
Other key roles are played by Bobbi Norlander (Mrs. Pidgeon), Audrie Hall (Mr. Greene) and Addison DuBois (Mrs. Greene). The classmates are Callie Bemis, Tesla Van Price, Luna Tasche, Sophie Vodicka, Aaleaze Levy, Zack Perez, Alex Hernandez, Elizabeth Jonsrud, Lily Ziegler, Calliope Clinge, Corrin Ross, Briella Heimerl and Addie Norlander.
Rounding out the cast is Ena Formolo, Olivia Federspiel, Brynn Heinen, Lizzie Bemis, Vivian Prahl, Katie Tipton and Meg Bemis.
‘Get into the Halloween spirit’ with Studio Players’ ‘Misery’
Sheboygan Theater Company’s Studio Players will present the stage adaptation of Stephen King’s thriller “Misery” Oct. 26-29 at The Taproom adjacent to 8th Street Ale Haus, at 1132 N. Eighth St., Sheboygan.
Written for the stage by William Goldman based on his Oscar-winning screenplay, “Misery” tells the story of romance novelist Paul Sheldon, who is rescued from a car crash by his “No. 1 fan,” Annie Wilkes. When she discovers Paul has killed off her favorite character in his latest book, her obsession takes a dark turn.
“I love that Studio Players chose ‘Misery’ – it’s such an engaging story and psychological thriller,” said director Michelle Bestul. “Seeing this play is the perfect way to get into the Halloween spirit.”
The intimate three-person cast of “Misery” consists of Amanda Ellis in the role of the obsessive Annie Wilkes, Dave Payton as the unfortunate novelist Paul Sheldon and David Quinn as Buster.
For tickets or more information, go to STCshows.org or call 920-459-3773.
Original poetry sought for Sheboygan’s second annual Sidewalk Poetry Program
Mead Public Library and the City of Sheboygan Public Works are again soliciting original poetry from local residents as part of the city’s second annual Sidewalk Poetry Program.
Up to three poems will be selected and stamped onto public sidewalk squares that are slated for repair throughout the city.
Submissions for 2024 are being accepted online at www.meadpl.org/sidewalk-poetry through Jan. 2, 2024. Paper forms are also available at Mead Library.
The program is open to city residents ages 16 and older. In addition, students ages 16 and older who attend school in Sheboygan but live outside the city are also eligible.
Submissions must be original poems written by the entrant. Applicants may submit one poem per year.
Poems must fit within a maximum of 10 lines, including any title and stanza breaks; have no more than 35 characters per line, including punctuation and spaces; and have no more than 225 characters overall, including punctuation and spaces.
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This article originally appeared on Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter: Indigenous Peoples' Day in Sheboygan: Lakeland to screen documentary
