After delay, Milligan brings Henry A. Wallace to Washington

Originally scheduled for Feb. 17, actor Tom Milligan finally made his way to Washington to introduce the city to his one-man show on the life of Henry A. Wallace.

On Sunday, March 10, at 2 p.m., the Washington Area Performing Arts and Events Center housed Milligan's performance. The one-man show, titled 'American Dreamer: The Life and Times of Henry A. Wallace,” is adapted from a book of the same name. Milligan has been performing the show for the past 20 years, but this was his first time bringing the show to Washington to raise money for the American Legion.

The show was meant to feature accompaniment from the Washington Community High School Jazz Band. However, due to the change in scheduling, they weren't able to perform.

Based on a handful of audience reaction, that doesn't seem to have hurt audience impressions of the show.

'It felt very personal, even though there's a crowd of 40,” said Michael York, a member of the American Legion attending the show. 'Like he's talking to me.”

The performance started with Milligan walking on stage, a bowl full of strawberries in hand. He then, in character, began to recount Wallace's life.

'I got a call from a reporter the other day,” are Milligan's first words as Wallace. 'I suppose he wanted to do one of those ‘where are they now' articles. I'll tell you right now, (Wallace) is exactly where he's always been, in his garden.”

He goes on to summarize his life, touching on milestones such as his relationship with George Washington Carver, his time as Secretary of Agriculture, vice president and his failed bid for the presidency in 1948. In just under an hour, Milligan summarized the life and death of the famous Iowan.

'(The performances) are more or less a teaser about the person's life,” said Milligan. 'Because if you wrote everything interesting about the person we'd still be here three weeks later.”

For audience member Janice Graves, the most fascinating aspects of the play were finding out about Wallace's life as an early pioneer in hybrid corn and Milligan's delivery of the material.

'I really like the way he portrayed the Wallace family and what they stood for in working with the soil,” Graves said. 'He does an excellent job with his narration and it's like you're actually looking at who he's portraying.”

Graves was disappointed, however, that attendance to the show only came to 40 people, about the same amount she remembers being in the audience when she saw him perform Grant Wood last year.

'I'd like to see a lot more people come,” she said. 'If they'd come and they would hear him they would come back again. He's that good.”

Audience member Rosemary Pacha is one such person. She's seen Milligan perform Ding Darling and Grant Wood twice.

Being a graduate of Iowa State University, she'd heard of Wallace and knew he pioneered seed corn and had been secretary of agriculture and vice president, but not much beyond that.

'I didn't know anything about the communist ending to that,” Pacha said.

The ending she refers to is Wallace's public shaming after his failed 1948 bid for presidency when he ran against Truman as a progressive.

According to Milligan, due to his left leaning beliefs, his opponents accused him of being a Russian sympathizer.

'There are picture of the ‘48 campaign of him standing at a podium addressing a large crowd and all around him are broken eggs that people have thrown at him,” Milligan said. 'People absolutely hated him because they though he was a communist, The ‘48 campaign just ruined him, absolutely ruined him.”

The performance concluded with a brief question-and-answer session, where Milligan went into some of the questions audience members had after the show, explaining more about Wallace's stance on Russia, his retreat from the public eye and his eventual death from ALS in 1965.

The last question of the evening asked Milligan about what he does outside of acting.

Milligan explained he works as a 'special ed classroom associate” helping middle schoolers with their performances; a job which allows him the flexibility to put on productions like this.

'I'm probably one of the few people in Iowa who can say he's worked the last 45 years in the state of Iowa making my living as a professional actor,” Milligan said. 'But I have, and I've been blessed to be able to do that.”