2024's Opening Ensemble Shows

January of 2024 opens and closes with as couple of big musicals from a couple of big decades. Lounging, kicking and brooding between the two big musicals are a series of very compelling ensemble dramas with some of the best talent to hit local stages in recent memory. 2024 looks like it's going to be fun on the Small Stage in Milwaukee. 

2024 begins at Sunset as Bombshell Theatre presents an intimate staging of the classic 1960s musical Gentleman Prefer Blondes. Bombshell has an impressive cast for the show. Kenall Yorke and Rae Pare play Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw—a couple of single nightclub performers living in Paris as they navigate the complexities of love. Pare is great fun in any cast and it’s always so cool to see her near the center of the stage in a show like this. January 5th - 14th at the Sunset Playhouse on 700 Wall Street in Elm Grove. For more information, visit Bombshell online.

​Seasoned directory Mary MacDonald Kerr brings together an appealing group ion actors at mid-month for a production of Eugene O’Neill’s tragicomedy A Moon for the Misbegotten. James Pickering, Kelly Doherty, Zach Thomas Woods and A.J. Magoon join LaShawn Banks. Kerr does some really spectacularly  textured work with ensembles. It should be fascinating to see her work with a group of talents as powerful as this for a restless sequel to O’Neil’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night. O’Neil’s plays can feel breathtakingly weighty, but emotionally draining. It’ll be interesting to see what Kerr and company can do with that dynamic. A Moon For the Misbegotten runs January 19th - February 3rd at the Broadway Theatre Center. For more information, visit Milwaukee Chamber online.

Not to be outdone by all of the rest of the impressive casts taking the stage this coming month, Sunset Playhouse puts together quite a group for its one-weekend production of Other Desert Cities—a taut contemporary family drama set in Palm Springs in Christmas of 2004. A family gets together and does what families do in tense, little family stage dramas. The cast features Ruth Arnell, Donna Daniels, William Molitor, Ramsey Schliessel and Kyle Conner. Arnell plays the central character of Brooke. It would be really cool to see her dive into the inner turmoil of a very contemporary role. I’m hoping to find some way to make it out to Elm Grove to see this one. The show runs January 19th - 21st at the Sunset Playhouse. For more information, visit Sunset Playhouse online.

It wasn’t too long ago that I had an opportunity to see a production of The Wolves at Marquette. It was honestly one of the most appealing dramas that I’ve ever seen: a group of high school girls roll through drama as they go through soccer practice. It’s a really fun show with an impressively nuanced cast of characters. This coming month, Renaissance Theaterworks teams-up with First Stage Young Company to put together an age-appropriate cast for the all-teen athletic drama. It should be particularly impressive on the intimate stage Renaissance shares with Next Act Theatre. The Wolves runs January 21st - February 11th. For more information, visit Renaissance Theaterworks online.

It might have been the first 45 I ever owned: Olivia Newton John singing about magic. It was a song from a musical comedy about a group of ancient Greek muses who take a trip to Venice Beach at the dawn of the 1980s. It's an ever-so-slightly post-disco-era pop adventure that was originallly released as a movie at the dawn of the multiplex. Years later it has found some success as a live stage show. This month ends with a Skylight Music Theatre staging. Director  ​Doug Clemons puts the show together at the Broadway. Theatre Center. For more information, visit Skylight online.