Milwaukee Chamber Theatre To Present the Acclaimed Drama I AM MY OWN WIFE

Doug Wright's Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning I AM MY OWN WIFE comes to Milwaukee Chamber Theatre (MCT) this fall in a new production directed by Alexander Coddington (ANATOMICAL HEARTS, American Players Theatre, Skylight, Next Act). The production runs January 23 - February 8, 2026, at the Broadway Theatre Center's Studio Theatre.

I AM MY OWN WIFE explores one of the 20th Century's most singular lives: that of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, an openly gender-nonconforming antiques collector who boldly endured two of the world's most repressive regimes in the Nazis and East German Communists while preserving countless Weimar and Jewish cultural artifacts in her East Berlin home museum. What begins as a celebration of queer resilience and transgender experience unfolds into a far more complex portrait of survival, truth, and the authentic life at the core of this remarkable true story.

"The play starts when an American playwright, Doug Wright, discovers Charlotte's story and decides to interview her," said Coddington. "He really sets out to write a play about a gay hero and finds out along that journey that it's not a story of heroic resistance, it's a story of the flawed endurance of a human being in all of its complexity."

"One of our core storytelling lenses here at MCT is unique voices and perspectives," said Executive Artistic Director Brent Hazelton, "and how we recognize and celebrate them in our own community. There aren't many voices and experiences more unique than Charlotte von Mahlsdorf's, and Doug presents her with profound empathy and nuance-essential perspectives to hold in a time when complex humanity is so often obliterated by politics and media to a single broad-brush characteristic or reductive perception of another's lived experience."

Born in 1928, Charlotte von Mahlsdorf lived a life shaped by upheaval, reinvention, and contradiction through nearly the entirety of the 20th century. An openly gender-nonconforming antiques collector and preservationist, Charlotte persisted through repression to preserve what others tried to erase: history, culture, art, freedom, and even herself. Her story is singular because it resists easy conclusions-an approach the play embraces, inviting audiences to examine rather than resolve a life shaped by humor, courage, survival, and moral ambiguity.

"It's a really warm play," shared Coddington. "Charlotte is incredibly funny. She's charming, she's beguiling... In a way, it's a ghost story: the solo-play nature of it really emphasizes all of the ghosts that live within us, so seeing one person perform this play is like a kind of conjuring."

Von Mahlsdorf's devotion to preservation was both meticulous and deeply personal. She famously dismantled and later reassembled a historic pub in her own basement in order to save it, alongside countless other artifacts that filled her East Berlin home. That home-the nearly two-hundred-year-old Mahlsdorf Manor House, which Charlotte rescued from planned demolition in the late 1950s and painstakingly restored-would become the Gründerzeit Museum, which still welcomes visitors today in Berlin-Mahlsdorf, serving as a living record of the past and the people who refused to let it disappear.

I AM MY OWN WIFE brings audiences into Charlotte von Mahlsdorf's story, and that of her collections, through the eyes of playwright Doug Wright, who conducted extensive interviews with her in the 1990s. Actor Jonathan Riker called the play "a remarkable time capsule for history and the time, what it was like to live in East Berlin under a government that spied on people and tried to turn people against each other on purpose. I think that time capsule quality is fascinating from a historical perspective and from a human perspective."

Charlotte's home became a refuge for more than antiques. It was also a place of gathering, safety, and connection for queer people navigating daily surveillance and repression. That expansive sense of preservation-of history, of community, of self-sits at the heart of I AM MY OWN WIFE. As Doug Wright's careful investigation unfolds onstage, I AM MY OWN WIFE considers how everyday acts of care shape what survives-asking how stories are held, how truth is shaped, and how humanity endures.

In telling Charlotte's story, the play invites us to connect more deeply to our own histories and consider what we choose to preserve for future generations. Coddington shared, "I'm really excited to be doing this play in Milwaukee which has a famously rich German history but also has a really deep and rich queer history-I mean, the Black Nite Brawl rocked Milwaukee eight years before Stonewall. I think audiences will really connect with it here, for maybe reasons that they're not expecting."

The I AM MY OWN WIFE creative team is led by Milwaukee-based director and theatre artist Alexander Coddington. Coddington previously directed MCT's 2024 new play reading of ANATOMICAL HEARTS by L.C. Hovey and has worked locally with American Players Theatre, Renaissance Theaterworks, Next Act Theatre, Third Avenue PlayWorks, Skylight Music Theatre, and UPROOTED Theatre. His work has also been seen Off-Broadway and at theatres nationwide, including Chicago Shakespeare, Remy Bumppo, Hartford Stage, and Utah Shakespeare Festival.

Starring as Charlotte von Mahlsdorf-and more than 30 other characters-is local actor Jonathan Riker. Their recent Milwaukee credits include A CHRISTMAS CAROL, GUYS ON ICE, and THE CHOSEN (Milwaukee Rep); FRANKENSTEIN: A NEW MUSICAL (Skylight Music Theatre); SWITZERLAND (Renaissance Theatreworks); A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM and A GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER (Kith & Kin Collective); HENRY V (Wisconsin Classic Stage); and LA CAGE AUX FOLLES (Outskirts Theatre Company).

Coddington and Riker are joined by Assistant Director Leo Madson and Understudy Isa Spetz, both of whom spoke to the personal impact of being able to tell a trans story. "I get to see myself in this character and, through Charlotte, experience this legacy that I didn't know I had," said Madson, a multidisciplinary artist and educator who has worked as an actor and director with Milwaukee Repertory Theater, First Stage, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, The Constructivists, Bombshell Theater Company, Vanguard Productions, Prism Youth Theater Company, and more.

"It's really meaningful to tell a story of a character who almost mirrors my own gender expression," said Spetz, an actor, singer-songwriter, teacher, and gardener whose recent Wisconsin credits include MCT, Northern Sky Theater, and Door Shakespeare. "I've been an actor from a young age, and theatre and the arts were always a place that I could go that was safe for expression," she shared. "But this is my first role playing a trans person. I'm just happy to be in the room and be part of it." Spetz will take the stage as Charlotte on Tuesday, February 3, 2026, at 7:30pm for MCT's dedicated understudy performance, working closely with Madson throughout the rehearsal process in preparation.

In addition to Coddington, Riker, Madson, and Spetz, the production's all-local creative team includes Maaz Ahmed (Lighting Designer), Sarah Hunt-Frank (Scenic Designer), Adam Hastings (Technical Director and Scenic Builder), Raeleen McMillion (Dialect Coach), Jazmín Aurora Medina (Costume Designer), Josh Schmidt (Sound Designer), Lauren Marie Stoner (Costume Construction), Simone Tegge (Properties Designer), Dev Wiensch (Assistant Stage Manager), and Emily Marie Wilke (Stage Manager).

I AM MY OWN WIFE by Doug Wright will run from January 23 - February 8, 2026 at the Broadway Theatre Center's Studio Theatre (158 N Broadway, Milwaukee, WI 53202).

• Here2Play: Wednesday, January 7, 6:00-8:00pm at Dandy (5020 W Vliet St) - featuring readings of scenes from the play, design sneak peeks, light refreshments (Midwest Sad and Milwaukee Pretzel), and an intergenerational panel conversation featuring community leader Michael Johnston (aka Karen Valentine), artist Adam Ossers, and theatre-maker Silver Anderson.
• Preview: Friday, January 23 at 7:30pm
• Opening: Saturday, January 24 at 8:00pm
• Pay What You Choose: Monday, January 26 at 7:30pm, walk-up tickets available starting one hour before the show
• Talkbacks: Thursdays, January 29 and February 5 following the 7:30pm performances
• SipStudio: Saturday, January 31, open to attendees of that day's matinee and evening performances
• New! Understudy Performance: Tuesday, February 3 at 7:30pm
• Pride Night Preshow: Friday, February 6 at 7:30pm

PERFORMANCE AND TICKET INFORMATION