Two founding members of Milwaukee’s late Theatre X, Conrad Bishop and Elizabeth Fuller, recently released Co-Creation: Fifty Years in the Making, a profound memoir based on five decades of cooperating as partners in the world of show business and the much more difficult task of being partners in the game of life. This touching account is both concise and conversational, told through a narrative lens that provides readers with insight into the lives of a duo that has managed a lengthy career in theater. Memories include a fine assortment of wisdom that chronicles the couple’s work as performers, playwrights, radio producers and puppeteers, as well as the story of their lives—a vivid account of parenting, uprooting, finding successes and failures, searching for the spiritual and perpetual improvising.
Bishop and Fuller came to Milwaukee in 1968, where they soon helped to form Theatre X as a progressive theater ensemble. Theatre X gradually became a professional troupe, with Bishop and Fuller acting as the principal managers of the collective and Bishop serving as one of the leading directors and writers. The pair left the ensemble when they moved to Chicago in 1974 and formed their present company, the Independent Eye.
Bishop and Fuller will present readings from Co-Creation at Woodland Pattern Book Center on Sunday, Oct. 7, at 2 p.m.
