Milwaukee Ballet's Common People premiered at the Premieres of Passionate Dance at The Marcus Center, featuring music by Ben Folds with William Shatner voice-overs from the album Has Been. Artistic director Michael Pink, choreographer Margo Sappington, LD Nicholas Phillips, house sound engineer Tim Kraetsch, and lighting programmer Matthew Eyrise all contributed. The production was cued entirely to timecode, using Vari-Lite VL2500 spots programmed on a Strand 550i console. Sappington notes, “I felt it was crucial for the lighting to create environments for each song. By employing SMPTE timecode, Phillips' lighting design became a character in the piece, one of the dancers.”