Revving Up Laughs and Artistry (Hour 1)

Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.

This is Night Light with Pete Schwabba.

Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

And now a guy who still likes to build a fort.

Pete Schwabba.

Welcome to Night Light folks.

I am Pete Schwabba.

It is great to have you with me.

It is finally Monday.

We're back on the air doing nightlight, talking about all the things that get our juices flowing and make us hit the ground running in the morning.

Movies, TV, comedy, music, some fun Wisconsin festivals, and lots going on.

It's a great night here at Nightlight.

Glad you're here.

We have a great show tonight, folks.

It is a beautiful night in Green Bay.

I hope it's beautiful where you are, and I hope you had a great day.

Conrad, what is your, do you have a five day forecast you could throw at us just so people listening know we're not just talking about, we're doing indulgent things like talking about show business, like what's the weather like around the state?

It's pretty nice.

Sweet.

All right, we'll be right back after this.

That's Conrad Krieger folks.

He's working the board and he had, you had a, did you have a good

weekend?

Yeah, I mean, basically all I did was sit at home.

I cleaned a little bit.

Okay.

I golfed and I wasn't so naked gun.

Yeah.

What was funnier?

You golfing or seeing Naked Gun?

Naked Gun.

I know you're a pretty good golfer, actually.

No, I had some pretty comedic shots, but, you know.

Yeah.

I saw Naked Gun, as you know.

Today, I came down to Green Bay early to catch the film.

We'll talk about that in just a couple of minutes.

We both have kind of a review of the film.

I know you had a harrowing issue.

I talk about, folks, I talk often about my drive down from Marinette to Green Bay on a daily basis.

And there's always some Knucklehead doing something that makes me want to talk about bad drivers or clueless drivers, but you had kind of a scary thing Happen to you.

Yeah, I did but you know last week after the show on Friday.

I Didn't take my usual way home.

I needed to go to the festival And on my way down the road is 35 all sudden I see someone right on my butt Bumper to bumper almost and I have my music blaring

And

also, I hear some beeps.

I'm like, is this part of the song?

So I turn

it down and then this guy just keeps honking at me.

I'm like, what's going

on?

Is

that part of the song?

I get to the stop light.

And as soon as it turns green, not a second after it, the guy honks at me.

Wow.

I'm going 40.

I'm like, I'm not going slow.

And then he goes, he passes me.

It's a two lane.

Not on the correct way he's supposed to pass me He goes into oncoming traffic and passes me and where in

Green Bay is this

those you know I think on main just right if you just keep going on the strip towards festival and Where I see he passes me and we get to another stop light Stop behind it.

I see two like I don't even know they're two modified cars

That the mufflers, you know, you

can hear really loud.

We do that all the time here.

There used to be racing on the street Yep, I found myself in the middle of like an illegal race in Green Bay

And the guy was trying to get around you to race this other idiot.

Yep So let me ask you this did you join the race with your 12 year old Mercury?

You should you could have smoked him how sweet would that have been?

Um, they were probably going about 70 on that 35.

So I think I'm good.

Oh my God.

It really makes me mad.

You know, it's like, it's like, if he just waited a second, he could have gone around the right way to pass me, but

he wanted to

win.

He wanted to win.

Here's the other thing.

They could have not dragged race right in the middle of town.

Right?

Like

go to the country.

Yeah, exactly.

But

no, it's more fun like that.

We've been out of traffic, I guess.

And risking everybody else's life.

Yeah.

Honestly, you could, you could drive 10 minutes and you're in the country and go down some country road and crack up your own car.

I'm glad you're okay, buddy.

Yeah.

Did you flash him the brights?

I should have.

They actually, they did flash their lights at me too while honking.

I mean, it just takes guts, you know, like to behave like that when you're, when you're driving.

You know, I wanted to

give

them the magic bird.

Yeah.

But I didn't know what I was doing whatsoever.

I just kept going.

Well, listen, you're smart not to do that.

Yeah.

It's not like I used to do that sometimes like 25 years ago.

I'm sure as hell wouldn't do it now.

No, I was, I was like, you know what?

I'm just going to go grocery shop.

Yeah, you don't know.

I mean, listen, I own tons of guns, but I don't keep one in my car when I'm

driving.

That's

my issue.

So I wouldn't flip them off either.

Well, that worked out all right.

I drove down here early because I wanted to get down here today so I could see the naked gun.

It's the first

Not first and I'm sure someone will point out there's been another big comedy in the theaters Semi recently, but this is notable because it's a comedy.

It's on the big screen It's not going right to Netflix like happy go more to or even kind of friendship.

I guess friendship did spend a little bit of time in the theaters But the naked gun was highly anticipated a reboot if you will not necessarily a remake but a reboot of the naked gun from the 90s and

Liam Neeson stepped into the Leslie, Leslie Nielsen role.

And I don't know, here, my overall thoughts about the movie, it's like an hour and 10 minutes long.

It's like barely feature length.

You could argue it's not really feature length.

It was strange and like the credits went on for like 15 minutes.

So at the end of the day, it was probably an hour and 20, hour and 25 minutes, but the movie itself,

I bet 70 minutes, an hour and 10 minutes maybe.

So, and I know you messaged me over the weekend and you said there were big laughs throughout.

There were some big laughs.

It got a 90% on Rotten Tomato.

I love the original Naked Guns with the Wisconsin native, Zucker Brothers and Pat Proft and the films they made, Airplane, Hot Shots, Naked Gun, all masterpieces.

So I'm using that as the bar is high.

Having said that, this film does have some

big laughs.

And like you said, I mean, I don't know if you mentioned it, but in your theater, you went to, you said there was only one other person.

There's one other person.

There's a woman who was about 70.

I almost went and sat next to her just so we could have the shared experience, which you probably would have freaked out.

And I don't, and that might have had something to do with it, but I've been around comedy enough where I know, and here's the thing, like Liam Neeson was pretty good, but he's not Leslie Nielsen.

He's a little miscast in the sense that he's just like this ass kicker playing this funny role now, and he's got chops.

He's a great actor.

And I know that, you know, they put Pamela Anderson in the Priscilla Presley role and... I don't know, is it Priscilla?

Who's, who's uh... Yeah,

I think it's Priscilla.

Priscilla's

the daughter, right?

You

know...

No, Priscilla was Elvis's wife.

You know what I think was... Yeah.

Like, it was a weird start to that movie when he is...

dressed up as like a seven year old girl.

That actually made me laugh.

I knew that was coming though.

I'm like, what?

Yeah, that was pretty.

He pulls the mask off like in Mission Impossible.

Yeah.

He's like a nine year old girl scout selling cookies and then all of a sudden then he rises up and he's like six foot five Liam Neeson.

So there were some good laughs.

I wouldn't tell you not to go.

I just didn't think.

After like 30 minutes, I was kind of like.

This is all the longer this needed to be, you know,

you know,

I like it better than I did.

I really like to comment in it.

Yeah.

And I looked up the runtime of the original naked gun and it was an hour and 35.

And so was this one.

This was not an hour and 35.

There's no way.

That's what it said on the internet.

And you got to believe everything that's on the internet.

So.

Yeah, but not bad.

I mean, I wouldn't tell you not to go see it.

I mean, and especially if you if you go to the theater and that's how you should see it.

Ideally with a crowded theater at you know, 320 on a Monday afternoon at Marcus East here in Green Bay There was not a huge and I spilled cheese on my shirt, which I felt like a real hillbilly,

you know, I went on Saturday at 2 30 There was like 12 people in there and every single it felt like it was a bigger crowd because the laughs that were hadn't that really everyone was just dying laughing with the the scene when the

Guy was with the binoculars, you know

That is a great a great and it's right out of the zucker brother's playbook It's so great and they keep going with it and escalating it like where there's a dog And it's cross or you know You think the dog is biting his crotch and they show you what's really happening very funny stuff But I would give it out of five.

I'd probably give it a two and a half maybe three stars.

I don't know Yeah,

I'd probably be around there too like the story was kind of weird.

Yeah,

but the comedy was hilarious.

So It's a mix for me

Yeah.

No, I would agree.

And I don't, and Danny Houston, who is, I believe John Houston's son, he's good as the bad guy, but he gets cast as the bad guy all the time.

And he's probably made a pretty good living doing it.

But I just, I don't need to see that guy again.

I think Hugh McDonald should have played that.

Who's that?

Oh, I think I said his name wrong.

Hugh Mc, Chris McDonald?

The, the guy we were talking about last week who doesn't kiss anyone else.

Oh, Neil McDonough.

I said the wrong name.

You, I

don't know where I got that,

but.

This says naked gun is 85 minutes.

There's absolutely no way.

I bet 70 minutes, 15 minutes and the credits took forever.

So.

Well, yeah, the credits, there was like a scene in the credits.

Right.

And it's interesting.

Jim Abraham's get, oh, he gets writing credit though, because of the TV show, the police squad, which is what it's from.

He didn't work on this and he just passed away like a year ago.

The Zucker brothers.

Got credit for writing, just for characters.

Apparently, David Zucker, a good Wisconsin native son, he and his brother Jerry, who I believe both went to UW Madison.

David said he doesn't want to see it.

He wishes them well.

He's glad comedy is back in the theater, but he said he doesn't want to see the film.

And having said, it's not like he has ill will, although it did say in the article I read in the Hollywood Reporter that he did have a script.

where there's the son of Drebben, who's like in his 30s, and the studio never made it.

So this is kind of similar to that.

But that was interesting, I thought.

And my guess is that he's gonna take a peek at it at some point.

You know, I just, I really did appreciate that we got to see a comedy film like this, because I feel like it's been a long time.

In the theater.

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

That's why I appreciated it so much when I was in it.

Totally with you.

And I'm hoping, and it has, it made $17 million it's opening weekend, another like 15 overseas.

make money.

But, uh, and without big comedy names in it, Kevin James, Sandler, Steve Martin, whomever, you like, there's just, it's Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson.

And there's like nobody else.

Like Danny Houston works a lot, you know, but there's no other huge names, no comedy names.

You know, you don't

see.

I forget who was, I can't think of the guy's actual name, but the guy who plays his partner.

Yeah.

That guy's hilarious.

He's very funny

in every role he has been in.

Yeah,

he's

so funny.

He's

in Cobra Kai.

Oh, yeah.

And he plays like a

35-year-old that just likes to hang with like, like 18-year-olds.

Like he wants to be young again, but he can't.

All right, so if you've seen Naked Gun, folks, feel free to share your thoughts on the movie with us.

Phone lines are open, text line is open, 855-752-4842-855-757.

And without further ado, let's go to the nightlight question of the night.

Talk about the question.

Okay, question.

Question.

Question.

Pregunta.

Question.

Question.

Okay, I have a question.

Questions.

This question.

Domanda.

Question.

Questions.

Oh, this is perfect.

It is National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day.

Who makes the best chocolate chip cookies?

This is a fun question.

If for nothing else, you just get to think about chocolate chip cookies.

Maybe possibly the most famous dessert ever.

It's National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day, folks.

Who makes the best chocolate chip cookies?

I'm gonna go first.

I'm gonna say proudly Mrs. Fields, even though she's not around.

Or her company isn't around anymore.

I used to love

those little

cookies.

Mrs. Fields cookies.

Well, they had little ones, but the big ones too.

They had the milk chocolate were great, and then the, oh God, the dark chocolate were great too.

I gotta go with Uncle Mike's.

Uncle Mike's Bakery, chocolate chip cookies?

Those are so good.

Okay.

I thought all they sold was crungle that weighs 12 pounds.

They sell everything you could imagine.

All right, let us know, folks.

Who makes the best chocolate chip cookie?

That's tonight's Nightlight Question of the Week, weighing on Naked Gun, if you want.

Or whatever you're watching, let us know.

Be part of the show and we'll read your text on the radio.

We're coming back to read some text.

And I'm going to tell a funny story, too.

It's Peach Wabbit and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.

I fall

Oh, you've been on a fast train, and it's going off the rails, and you can't come back, can't come back.

Great to have you with me.

I'm Pete Schwab.

This is Nightlight.

You've got the Civic Media Radio Network.

On your Monday night here, we're talking about all things show business and entertainment and fun, like we do every night, whether it's Conrad getting into a reluctant drag race,

Me watching the much anticipated comedy with one other person in the theater who was Easily 70 years old.

I give her credit though.

Like that's cool.

She went to see

a movie the

other day.

I Don't mean to like, you know Denigrate her for any reason So this was kind of funny.

I by the way Dylan and Cole Sprouse Birthday big birthday.

You grew up watching them, right?

Oh,

yeah,

I was thinking that show big-time sweet life is acting Cody fan.

Yeah

I'd watch it almost every day.

I feel like

yeah,

and they're huge I watch sweet life on deck as well all the movies that they had Oh, that's sweet

life on deck That was the one if my son wanted to watch that I go, please.

No, please big boys toy story.

Please.

No, it was

so

good.

I

Like mr. Mosby.

Oh Yeah, yeah, miss.

Wow.

Mr.

Lewis

Here's what I find interesting even though Cole and Dylan are twins.

Yeah

Most people don't know this.

They were also born at the same time.

Oh.

So anyhow, do you know we had a big release last week that we missed too?

The Wiggles.

Did you ever watch The Wiggles

for each

salad?

Come on.

I don't know if I did

or not.

The Wiggles are

awesome.

They were this down under Australian group and they just sang and they had happy faces and these five white dudes driving around in a Wiggles car.

And I have to tell you,

Somebody scored me some sweet Wiggles tickets at the Universal Lamp of Theater.

So I thought I'm gonna take Joe, my son, who's probably like, I don't know, six at the time.

So it's one of those things.

I'm like, all right, well, this'll be fun.

We're going to see the Wiggles live, you know, with 3,000 other people.

And it was like a mile from our house.

So it was great.

We parked, we're in there.

And the anticipation, I've been to some, a few big rock concerts.

When the lights went down and kids yelled for the Wiggles, I couldn't believe it.

And then this

screen opened up and they show the Wiggles.

I think I've told the story before on the show, but a long time ago.

They show the Wiggles getting off the plane and landing in LA.

And then they show them walking through the airport and kids are cheering and their parents, you know, we're all just kind of like tolerating it, whatever.

They show the Wiggles getting into a car at LAX, their little wiggle mobile.

It's a convertible and they all four of these guys fit.

They show them on the 405 freeway, getting off at North Hollywood in the universal city.

And then they show them pulling into the

into the concert hall, and then they drive on stage.

I was going as crazy as the kids.

It was like the coolest thing ever.

I don't know who made that video, but it was fantastic.

I think my son, Joe, was even giving me some looks like, Dad, please calm down.

I'm with my peers

here.

Just relax.

This is in Springsteen.

Calm down.

You know what?

ESPN does that too.

What do you mean?

Anytime there's a big game, you see Aaron Rodgers going down the tunnel.

Oh, yeah.

It was

that same.

Except

they started at the airport.

Like it was it was like the Badgers when they leave the locker room.

Yeah,

show them walking on the side.

Then they go down the tunnel.

It was like this.

The build up was insane.

That's that's

that's some good.

That's some good concert stuff right there.

I wish I could have been

there.

It's great promotion.

I'm sure you were there in spirit.

Hey, we got a text overnight, didn't we?

No, I reread it.

It's not not for us.

Well, it's in a different language and it was a voice note.

So

oh, okay.

We have do we have fans overseas?

I'm

not sure.

Okay Green Bay is a we broadcast from Green Bay most nights and this is a nationally recognized

You know

Place yeah, thanks to the Packers

the Green Bay

Packers We've got our question of the night folks is it's national chocolate chip cookie day.

We knew this day was coming What is your favorite who makes the best chocolate chip cookies?

I say Mrs. Fields.

I don't think

You can maybe buy Mrs. Fields in the grocery store, like, to make it home, but those stores aren't in the mall anymore.

They're replaced by, like, Wetzel's pretzels or some lame... Wetzel's pretzels sucks.

Why would you get a... It just... I can't believe a pretzel novelty place is making it at the mall.

You know what, I like... I like when they have Cinnabon.

Oh, Cinnabon's dynamite, yeah.

Yeah, that's...

What about, what about anti-ans though?

Is that a pretzel place too?

Yeah, that's way too many pretzel places.

And here's the other thing.

Can we please be done with cookie dough?

Why is cookie dough in everything now?

There, I mean, yeah.

Cookie dough, mint chocolate chip, cookie dough, chocolate chip.

Cookie dough is like, it was fun when you were a kid and actually ate the cookie dough.

But in ice cream, it's just a weird, it's like an interruption.

You know

for the gorgeous texture that is cold cream ice cream and then oh and here's this uncooked Egg and whatever it is.

It's terrible.

Yeah, I saw when I went to the store when I when I was in a drag race and went to festival I Saw that they had edible cookie dough still like on the shelves pretty much.

It was like a big container.

Yeah, but and it was like I think it was like nine bucks.

You got like five of them

Who

buys

that?

That's weird.

I don't get it.

It's in way too much ice cream.

Oh, and then there's, that's like a deterrent for me.

It's like, oh, there's a fudge ribbon swirl, awesome, vanilla ice cream, great, peanut butter cups, great, nuts, awesome, cookie dough, barf.

It must be popular though, because they put it in everything.

So here's the other thing, folks.

Let us know what your favorite chocolate chip cookie is.

I said Mrs. Fields, Conrad's and Uncle Mike's.

Amanda Nimmer.

Part of our civic media family says the cookie crate hands down.

Have you heard of that?

No, I haven't but I'd like to try that sounds amazing

Amanda likes it.

She's got pretty good taste Paul Vandenplatz from wonderfully, Wisconsin give him a follow great great follow He says the best I've had so far are from Carmel Crisp Cafe in Oshkosh.

Well, he would know yes, he

was

guy travels the state

looking for good eats, and he finds a lot of them.

So if he says Carmel Crisp Cafe in Oshkosh, it's probably worth a check out.

He says their cookies are so good, you'll dream about them.

Now that's weird.

Honorable mention is Blue Mike's Gas Station in Rosendale.

They have a bakery inside, and the cookies are made fresh and quite outstanding.

Paul, that is good to know.

Yeah.

It's nice too, because it's in Rosendale, so you can get a ticket.

Pull over.

I was about to say something.

Pull over.

Watch your speed.

Have a cookie.

and just kind of chill out before you count to 10 and get back on the road.

All right, coming up next, Alan Kepischke is here, folks.

He is an actor and one of the producers of the Dora Kinetic Arts Festival, and that is right around the corner.

He'll be in studio.

That's coming up next after the news.

It's Pete Schwabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.

I left my heart in San Francisco.

That's what I'm talking about.

Some Tony

Bennett.

It's his

birthday today.

Or is it the anniversary of his death?

I can't remember why.

I can't remember why he had you pull that song.

It's just a celebration.

Yeah, it's a great tune.

All right, so our question of the day, folks, it's National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day.

Who makes the best chocolate chip cookie?

I say Mrs. Fields.

She is no longer, at least not in malls anymore, but I think you can still buy the cookie dough, maybe mail order or something.

I don't know if that's the best way to buy cookie dough.

And Conrad says, Uncle Mike's.

So we'll read some of your texts in a little bit, but send those my way and we'll read them on the radio.

And if you're watching the radio on the stream,

Got a couple of comments there.

You can comment there as well.

Just be part of the show.

It's always more fun when you guys are part of the show.

Coming up in the second hour, Kailin Bavank, the owner of the bookstore in Appleton will be here at 735.

We're gonna talk about her really cool bookstore, which I'm told is a destination bookstore.

And I just think it's cool that there's a destination bookstore, because I didn't think people even read anymore.

So this is exciting to talk books in hour two as well.

But right now,

I'm excited to welcome my next guest.

He's joining me here in the studio, and he is a well-known actor, and he is the producer of the Door Kinetics, Door Kinetic Arts Festival.

He joins us here in the studio, Alan Kopischke.

Hey, Alan, how are ya?

Doing great, how

about you?

Am I saying

your last name right?

Kopischke.

Kopischke,

I

thought so.

You put it very phonetically perfectly in the email, but I always tend to, and my last name is Schwab, and everybody tortures it, so.

I thought if I do massacre your name, I'll just say it happens all the time to me.

But Kapiski, that's a good actor name.

Ellen Kapiski, right?

You think so?

Sure, yeah.

Okay.

Well, welcome to Nightlight.

It's good to meet you.

And like I was saying during the break, I feel like at some point in our adult lives, our paths have crossed.

I can't place it.

I

feel that too.

But it's good to have you here.

And now we're friends either way.

And you told me you live in Fish Creek.

Right.

How do you get to be, there's some people in life, Alan, that just win the lottery.

They get to do what they love and live in a picturesque town that is the subject of many beautiful paintings.

How did you swing that?

I don't know.

I must have done something right in a previous lifetime.

I don't know.

Tell us, all right, before we get into the Door Kinetic Arts Festival, which sounds really cool, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Oh, sure.

Well, as you mentioned, I'm an actor.

I've been doing theater since I was eight years old.

I love it.

And like you say, I get to do what I love.

Now, it's meant sometimes breaks from doing that.

But it is my life's passion.

I have a great family.

My wife is a costume designer and a professor at Lawrence.

She's terrific.

And we're going on our 40th anniversary trip, leaving Wednesday.

You said that in the email, and now you're sitting here.

You don't seem, did you, I'm not trying to just blow smoke because you drove all the way

here.

Oh, she totally robbed the cradle.

Yeah.

So all right, well, that's great.

So you live in Fish Creek and she commutes to Appleton?

She does, yeah.

She'll usually stay two or three nights a week depending on the schedule.

Do you find that,

There are other actors that live in Door County, or I know there are artists there, but do you have a little community there?

You know, what's interesting is when we moved up there in 2007, I don't think there was anybody else who was like a working actor up there.

Now there are probably 10 of us, I think.

No kidding.

Who are semi-retired or based there and working elsewhere a lot.

So there are a bunch of us up there now.

That's pretty cool.

It's nice because where I live, hanging around comedians my whole adult life are comedy writers.

When I moved to Marinette several years ago, there's no comedy writers there.

There's no comedians.

There's very nice people and I have good friends, but I do miss that, you know, to be able to connect and

just talk.

Yeah,

and

just not having to start anywhere.

You're just there already, you know, when you talk and that kind of thing.

So I want to talk about the festival, but I'm also...

We talked a little bit before I introduced you about being at Peninsula Players.

And I told you my connection to Peninsula Players when I was in high school.

And I took my daughter there to see a show a couple of years ago.

We saw a Sherlock Holmes show and we saw Dames at Sea.

And it's changed a lot in the last 35 years.

Are you still involved with Peninsula

Players?

I am somewhat.

My wife still designs there quite a bit.

I acted there for...

I can't remember, maybe about six to eight seasons in the 80s and 90s.

And then they hired me in 2007.

That's how we were able to move up to Door County.

They hired me to be their development director, finish off a capital campaign and to start developing some off-season programming.

So we did a community read in collaboration with the library and we started doing play readings.

That's so cool.

It's a great, it's an institution.

And I know there's another theater there.

I don't know as much about, but I've heard good things about that as well.

There's

so much.

There are four professional theater companies.

Really?

In Dark County, there's Northern Sky Theater.

Yeah.

There's Third Avenue Playworks, and there's Dorsey Shakespeare.

Good Lord.

Yeah.

That's a lot.

And they're all seasonal, right?

I mean, they're... Well, Third Avenue Playworks works most of the year, the other three are seasonal.

That's pretty cool.

All right, so let's get into, I've got a lot of stuff to ask you, but let's start with the Door Kinetic Arts Festival.

That was the main reason I reached out to you.

Tell us all about it.

Sure.

So we're in our ninth year.

Eric Simonson is a multi-talented director, writer for theater opera film, television.

He's got an Oscar for

Short documentary that he did a number of years ago He's he's written on a number of major television shows as well as writing and directing on Broadway So he's got tons of connections and he's got a ton of energy and what he wanted to do was bring together artists from different disciplines to Bjorkland in which is in Bailey's Harbor and it is an extension of Appleton

of sorry Lawrence University in Appleton.

And it's this gorgeous setting where they bring faculty and students all the time for retreats.

And Eric wanted to bring artists from all over the country and from the local area together for a week.

People who have new projects that they want to work on.

And so here we all are surrounded by other artists, other disciplines inspiring each other.

working together and then presenting that work in progress for audiences and chat with the audiences afterwards to get a little peek inside the process.

Like some

feedback too, is it that kind of thing where the audiences can like share their two cents about what they saw?

Because

since you said it's in progress.

Yeah, and so then that's part of what the artists are looking for is feedback.

from the audience, not only during the presentation of the work, the natural feedback that people are gonna give, but then afterwards to say, hey, you know, what stood out to you?

What worked for you?

What were you confused about?

That's

interesting.

So is

it all acting?

Is

it all, okay.

So the reason it's the Kinetic Arts Festival is because we talked about the kinetic arts.

And this would include dance and film and theater.

brought kinetic sculpture and music and circus and magic, all sorts of different things.

And so all these different kinds of artists bouncing off of each other is really exciting.

What about juggling?

I didn't hear juggling.

Well, circus.

Yeah, we did have jugglers.

Yeah, make it a joke and you actually

have it.

And the year before.

So it really is an arts festival.

That's the one thing I was eager to ask you about.

What is Bjorkland and is that a venue?

I was looking at that.

Yeah, so it's okay.

This beautiful space.

Boy, I don't even know how many acres it is right on the lake.

And there's there's an old, old tiny chapel there and a lodge that it's it's retreat space.

So Lawrence will bring students in over the weekend for intensive sessions.

And this might be the volleyball team or it might be

band or a whole bunch of engineers, whatever it might be, and they can come and do intensive sessions with not only the professors, but other people they might bring in for weekend intensive sessions.

And I say intensive, it's also relaxation and inspiration because you can walk along the lake, there are beautiful wooded trails.

It's an incredible place.

And then in the summer, they'll bring in people for a full week.

to do seminars with very often Lawrence alumni or Lawrence professors, but occasionally something a little outside of that as well.

And they're extremely well attended.

A lot of the people can stay there because there's lodging there, the same lodging the students use.

And so it's this incredible kind of intellectual artistic retreat space.

And so we're able to get our week in there and get all of these artists in and just kind of make sparks fly.

That is the voice of Alan Kopischke.

He is an actor and one of the producers of the Door Kinetic Arts Festival, which takes place in September.

So is that hard to program because, you know, like with a film festival, it's like, well, here's the film, you like it or you don't, but you've got.

people in different stages of something they've created, you know, I would imagine you have to go, well, this isn't far enough along or this is too finished.

It's not really workshoppy.

Like what do you look for?

Yeah.

So, and that's Eric's responsibility.

He's the artistic director and the founder creator of this whole thing.

But yeah, he's got a balance.

We want some things that are closer to done so that we have some things to maybe show off earlier in the week.

And then, you know, we want a range of

middle of the process, towards the end of the process, towards the beginning of the process, so that there's that dynamic playing as well.

Do you

do film?

Or is it all live?

Yeah, so we have a short film festival.

I know Green Bay's got a great film festival.

There's a Door County film festival that's like a full weekend, including feature length and shorter films.

Ours is just a selection of short films, no longer than 40 minutes.

And some of them will put up the first couple nights, and then maybe we'll sprinkle a few out that really relate to one of the sessions that we're developing during the

week.

Right.

That's cool.

Do you have people, I would imagine, everybody, I have a script I'm trying to stage a reading for.

My son wrote something like, you're always trying to find people.

to perform stuff so you can see what it looks like or listen to it.

Do you have people that are kind of more established in the business that would love to come up here to beautiful Fish Creek and do something like that or show their film or write songs and

perform them?

I mean... Sure, we've had some pretty high profile people come.

Now, you're not gonna recognize all the names, but a lot of people recognize Rainn Wilson, who was Dwight on The Office.

Oh, he's great.

He had a screenplay.

that he was working on, actually working on with Eric and brought that up and we worked on it.

We've had other folks, I don't know if you're going to recognize their names, but we have Tony winners, Emmy winners.

So one of our projects this year is a collaboration with Deaf West Theater, which has won a couple of Tony awards for their work.

And a play written by Rick Cleveland, who's won an Emmy

for his writing, he's both a playwright and writes in Hollywood, but he wrote on the West Wing and Six Feet Under and half a dozen other shows you would probably recognize.

He's got an Emmy for one of those, I forget which one.

And so he's coming in and we may have some relatively high-profile actors in that that's not settled yet.

And I'm not, I'm not saying that like, oh, to let it, to get you to name drop or anything, but to let listeners know that if they go there and check this out, they're probably seeing some pretty good stuff.

So check it out.

You know, um, we, uh, my guest is Alan Karpiski.

He's an actor and the producer, one of the producers of the Dora Kinetic Arts Festival, which sounds more and more cool.

The more I talk to Alan about it.

So we'll have more about that after this very short break.

And we'll talk to him, uh, about some of the cool stuff he's done in his career as well.

This is Pete Schwab and night like.

great to have you with me folks on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Welcome

back.

Great to have you with me on this Monday edition.

It is finally Monday, folks.

We get to talk about all the things we love.

at the beginning of a week that it looks like it's going to be beautiful here in Wisconsin.

So settle in, gather the family around the radio, and let's have some fun.

My guest at the moment is Alan Kopischke.

He is an actor, and he is one of the producers and creators of the Door Kinetic Arts Festival, which goes from September 21st through the 27th in Bailey's Harbor.

It's the ninth annual

Dora Kinetic Arts Festival.

You're rocking the t-shirt there Alan too.

I like that if you're watching in the stream you can see Alan's t-shirt with I like that So who whose concept was this like it I love that it's not so specialized But it also seems like it would be harder to Like you sent me all this information.

I'm like well, what do they do?

They do some theaters like it's kind of hard to explain a little bit It's not in a box so to speak so whose brainchild was this and when did you guys think hey?

We got something cool here

Yeah, so this is Eric Simonson, who I mentioned before.

And he's had success in a number of different areas.

He's done theater, he's done opera, he's done film, he's done television.

I hate

guys

like that.

He started out studying scenic design, and then he became an actor, and then he became a director, and then he became a writer.

really multi-talented and I think he loves things coming from all different directions

and

the kind of sparks that can fly when you bring together dancers and clowns and theater makers and poets and all these creative people who are all bursting with this thing they're working on, bring them all together,

let

them work on their stuff and share a bit with each other.

every meal together and you hear them talking about their work together and they create these beautiful new things out of the different perspectives they bring and the energy that's flying around there.

And I have to tell you, I can't count how many different collaborations we have nurtured up there by people who say, oh, you know what?

We need a choreographer for this.

Could you come in and

work with us?

Hey, we loved your work in this.

Could you do this other thing with us?

There are tons of people who've worked together at DCAF on different projects who then went on to work on something different later.

And that's such a great thing.

When you have a community like that and you draw inspiration from other artists, people leave probably feeling great.

You know what I mean?

Like being around in that community.

Well, do most of the people that attend the festival, are they from Door County?

Do they travel there?

I'd say most of them are from Door County, but there are a lot more and more folks traveling in.

You know, as you said, it's kind of a hard thing for us to define in short little sound bites.

And so I think we have struggled a little bit with marketing.

Also, I haven't had much of a marketing budget, but I think...

the more people get to know what this is, the more they say, oh my God, we got to get there for this.

That's so great.

All right, so this is your ninth annual.

Is it growing?

Like, are you seeing people more and more every year?

Absolutely, yeah, yeah.

I would say we are probably more than double the attendance we had.

You know, we ramped up and then COVID hit and we also changed the dates, we skipped a year.

And so we had to kind of start back up, but we're probably double the attendance of when we first came back from COVID.

All right, so if people want to check it, it's not till September, you got, well, about six weeks actually, we're getting close, but can people buy passes or tickets right now or where can they find out more information?

Yeah, those

passes are available online on our website, doorkinetic.com, D-O-O-R-K-I-N-E-T-I-C.com.

Okay.

And what's a pass gonna run me?

So

week long passes,

so

access to everything is $75.

Oh, that's pretty good.

And then if you wanna do basically one day, it's $25.

So

the pass is the way to go.

What about food?

I noticed you guys, you said you have a cocktail, a daily cocktail or something.

Can people eat and drink there and all that kind of fun stuff?

We

don't sell anything to eat, but we give away a cocktail.

each night.

And Robert Simonson, who is a James Beard nominated cocktails and spirits expert.

He's written several books on cocktails.

He wrote for the New York Times for many years.

He's Eric's brother who comes in and creates cocktails and talks about them and we'll have a special session with him.

one afternoon as well.

Do you have parties afterwards?

Like, are there, you know, like, after Q&As, that kind of stuff?

We

do the Q&As after, and on our Wednesday night, we have what we call the Coffee House, which is a little bit of a speak easy, have some fun,

get up and dance,

more of a party atmosphere on the Wednesday night.

Okay.

All right, well, that's great.

This sounds like so much fun, folks.

Check it out, the Door Kinetic Arts Festival.

Google it, go to the website, look at the passes.

It sounds like just, there's something for everybody, it sounds like.

Yeah, absolutely.

You used to, or you still do teach at UWGB as well.

I do, yeah.

That kind of works out well.

So you're in this area quite a bit, I would imagine.

We talked a little bit about the program.

They don't have a musical theater program, but it might be coming back or it's on hold.

Well, the

theater program was suspended.

We still have a minor.

We're still producing plays.

And we are working on a revised major to bring back.

I think we've got some pretty cool ideas

about it.

We need a little more time to develop it before we present it officially to administration.

But I think

that's UWGB is like maybe the fastest growing of all the UW colleges, right?

It might be.

I can't.

speak authoritatively

about that, but

yeah, we're doing pretty well.

It was weird because when I saw the cut that I told you my daughter was interested in that program, all of a sudden it's gone.

Like, wait, there's, and I don't ever want culture to go away from Northeast Wisconsin.

Like if you can never have too much of it, in my opinion.

So I love that you're doing this.

Can you stick around a little bit through the news?

Sure.

Talk some acting and all that kind of fun stuff.

I'll probably ask, I want to ask you about being an intimacy coordinator too.

Sure.

Because Conrad wants some tips before the night's over.

Conrad just laughs, he's used to me.

All right, we're coming right back, folks.

Alan Kopiski is here.

He is one of the producers of the Dora Kinetic Arts Festival and an accomplished actor.

We'll talk to him about acting and his job as an intimacy coordinator.

Kind of a new thing in show business.

It is, yeah.

So we'll get into that.

And we got Milwaukee Reps, all kinds of fun stuff coming up next, folks.

We're coming right back on Nightlight with Peach

Waba.

Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.

This is Night Light with Pete Schwabba.

Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

And now a guy who considers a silver medal, a participation award, Pete Schwabba.

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen.

to act two of this Monday edition of Nightlight.

Good to have you with me.

We are... I feel like we're starting slow, Conrad.

Do you feel like this is not a regular show?

Do you feel like we're moving in slow motion?

I feel like everyone knows that you hate cookie dough now.

Well, I do hate cookie dough.

It's just gotten out of hand.

It's in everything.

Get rid of the cookie dough.

Cookies are fine, but not the dough.

It's one ice cream, but now it's in there's mint chocolate chip cookie dough, and it's in everything.

It's in the Stephen Colbert ice cream It's found its way into everything.

So thank you for You know what kind of I thank you for putting me in an even crappier mood than I am on this Monday.

Sorry for bringing

up

But speaking of cookies that is our question of the night is national chocolate chip cookie day.

So let us know what your favorite chocolate chip cookie is

And we will get to your texts shortly.

They're building up, but we'll get to them, folks.

We always do.

Coming up at 7.35, Kailin Bavink will be here.

She owns the bookstore in Appleton, and we're going to talk about a promotion they're doing, and it's a destination bookstore.

Do you know what that means, Conrad?

You have to go there.

Well, that's the very rudimentary.

It means people from all over.

Yeah.

Where are you from?

Seattle, Washington.

We had to come to this bookstore.

We've heard so much about it.

It sounds like a really cool place.

They have a huge selection of used books.

So for those of you that still read, we'll have a discussion with Kaelin at 735 and I'm hoping for some motivation.

I need to start reading again.

I was an English major for God's sakes and I don't really read that much unless it's on my phone and I'm ashamed of myself.

What else do we talk about in the first hour?

Conrad was a reluctant drag racer and I don't mean he dressed up for a drag show and raced.

I mean, you were in a drag race.

I was in the middle of one.

Middle of one.

You were in the way.

Yeah,

I was.

Yes.

They let me know.

All right.

They let you know, right.

And then, so let us know, folks, what is your favorite chocolate chip cookie?

Who makes the best chocolate chip cookie?

And we are going to jump back in.

We've got a few more minutes with our first guest of the night.

He drove here all the way from the suburbs of Green Bay, what I like to call Fish Creek, Wisconsin, up there in Door County.

Alan Kapiszki is with me here in the studio.

We just talked about the Door County.

the Door Kinetic Arts Festival, which takes place September 21st through the 27th.

It sounds like a really cool festival, Alan.

Is all the programming done?

Are you guys just sitting back now?

The

programming is done, but the exact times of each event are not quite complete.

That'll be coming up pretty soon.

Is this stuff like where you go all day, like it starts at 9 a.m.

and there's a theater workshop or somebody's putting up a play or something like

that?

We're all working.

But we're only sharing with the public two or three times a day, usually.

Although sometimes we're also running people out.

They're gonna be at a high school or at some other location.

So I guess there might be three or four things going

on.

Yeah, that's pretty cool.

Okay, so check out the Door Kinetic Arts Festival.

One more time, give us the website or where people can find more information.

It's doorkinetic.com, D-O-O-R-K-I-N-E-T-I-C dot com.

Love it.

All right.

That's one, I go to Dora County a lot, but I've never, I mean, that's like the perfect time to go to Dora County too, like in September.

Colors are starting to change,

beautiful.

So as I was asking you about right before we went to the break in the news, Alan, you teach at UWGB and you teach acting.

How, you know, obviously having done what you do, been a working actor helps you teach.

But does teaching acting help you in any way be a better actor?

Like, do you take something out of class or maybe something one of your students does where you go, oh my God, that's a great interpretation or something?

Oh,

absolutely.

Really?

I

mean, I think teachers all the time say they learn from their students.

But it's absolutely true.

At least it's true for me.

I see the way students approach things.

And that might spark something for me.

Sometimes it's a positive.

Spark that's like oh wow, that's a really interesting approach.

I never thought of sometimes it's like No, we can't do it that way and now I see even more clearly why oh

But you ever have a kid that's so bad you try to get him to go to welding school or something like that does that ever know?

Because

if they are passionate about studying this I know that there's something there that's going to benefit them And and in fact I think

Anybody going into any profession can learn from the study of theater, especially to me in acting class, which is the study of human behavior and why do people do things?

I think that can help us in all of our human relations throughout our

lifetime.

Do you ever go into, I've never seen the spaces, the theater spaces, like at UWGB, but do you ever go into a theater?

What, maybe it was in Chicago when you were at Steppenwall for one of these places.

and just sit there and absorb a theater with nobody in it.

It's almost like a spiritual, it's so, I don't know if it's cathartic or what it is, but it's just a beautiful thing to do.

Yeah, you know, sometimes I walk into a theater and I recognize the smell.

Oh, yep.

And then all the memories start flooding back and sometimes I'll want to just sort of sit and bask in that.

That's so great.

So all right you all right, so you teach theater you're also an intimacy coordinator and I think this is such a great thing they have as someone who has done an intimate scene and didn't have a coordinator there luckily I had a veteran actress that had done it before and Helped me through it.

It's a weird thing because you've got people you've got crew standing five feet away while you're trying to be intimate and make it seem real But I think

Recently, Gwyneth Paltrow came out and said, we don't need this.

When I was younger, we didn't.

And I'm like, you saying that, first of all, for women, I think, that are younger, it's a terrible thing not to have.

And for her to say that, I just thought that was misplaced.

What have you noticed in terms of intimacy coordinating?

Is that something you had to study?

And how do you think it really helps people in an intimate scene like that?

Sure.

So this is something

that...

people really only started talking about about 10 years ago.

And it has been just rapidly and wholeheartedly embraced by much of the both on camera and on stage industry because it is crazy that we were putting people together who may have just met that day and said, okay, we're gonna do a scene where you're making out or we're gonna do a scene where you've just completed a sexual act or

or whatever it is.

And then she said, okay, go.

And so the idea of actually being thoughtful and sensitive about it was revolutionary to

everybody wins.

Now, yeah, I've been in a lot of intimate scenes that, you know, worked out fine, but it would have been so much better to have had somebody there.

It was just kind of the person to say, okay, we're entering.

into something pretty intimate between two people who don't know each other.