July is the first month of official summer. Local theatre migrates to all kinds of weird stages all over the place including various places outdoors for some of the nicer months for weather....providing the stage can manage to avoid all of the rain and heat and bug-related itchiness that sometimes accompanies outdoor shows. Here's a look at some of what's upcoming at various places next month.

Hamlet is one of the most intricate and complicated works of drama in the history of the English language. Someone would have to be really, really crazy to think that they could do it alone. Thankfully, that someone happens to be Libby Amato. She’s one of the most talented actresses in Milwaukee. If anyone can fully tackle the abject absurdity of trying to do Hamlet all by themselves, it’s Amato. She’s got a remarkably magnetic stage presence...and it’s a presence she will be bringing to various parks in and around Milwaukee as she performs a one-woman Hamlet with The Optimist Theatre this summer. Directed by the equally talented Michael Stebbins, the show opens June 29th at Humboldt Park and runs through July 7th. The show is 90 minutes long. Admission is free. For more information, visit Optimist Theatre online.

​Milwaukee-baed actor/director Dimonte Henning helms Door Shakespeare’s classic The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet this summer in a production that opens at the beginning of the month. There are some great Milwaukee actors in the cast including Mark Corkins and Todd Denning. The charismatic George Lorimer plays Romeo in what promises to be another satisfying production in the woods in Bailey’s Harbor this summer. Road construction in Door County has paused for the summer season, so a trip out to Door County to see a classic dramatic tragedy should be relatively stress-free. The show runs July 3rd - August 16 at Björklunden Lodge on 7590 Boynton Lane. For more information, visit Door Shakespeare online.

​Former ad guy Robert Grede debuts RIP - A Musical Comedy of Life & Death. It’s a show with one foot in the grave. Set in and around a mortuary, the cast is split evenly between the living and the non-living as people on both sides of death deal with loss in different ways. Directed by Alan Piotrowicz, the two-act musical makes its world premiere at the Next Act/ Renaissance Theaterworks space on 255 S Water St. The show runs July 17 - 28. For full cast info, a preview of songs on the program, ticket reservations and more, visit RIP online.

It’s unfortunate that there’s so much going on here in Milwaukee the week of July 19th. I’d really love to go up to Green Bay for their big, inaugural Green Bay Fringe Festival. There are a lot of clever-looking, little acts. Whitewater’s Sarah Beth Nelson is doing a one-woman show called  I'm Not Joining the Marching Band: Two Truths and a Lie About High School Band. That sounds really interesting. And how could an absurdist comedy show called Mister Nibbles the Amazing Talking Cat be anything other than really cool? (That one is written be Seymour-based playwright Martin W. Prevost. There’s also a guy named Monster Matt who is doing a presentation about cryptids in Wisconsin. The big show here, of course, is Songs Without Words--Jenifer Vosters’ one-woman show about Fannie and Felix Mendelssohn that made such a profound impact on the Milwaukee Fringe Festival not too long ago.


The inaugural Green Bay Fringe Festival runs July 19 - 21. For a complete lists of shows and times, visit the Green Bay Fringe Festival online.

​The Brick House is a comfy, little space nestled into Mad Planet area of Riverwest. There’s a quaint, little reading taking place there this weekend. Local playwright Deanna Strassse is staging a fun, little reading of her supernatural comedy Boo. An enjoyable cast settles in front of a set of music stands in a dimly-lit room as sunlight from early summer slowly drains from the sky outside.  There’s a snuggly, little bar in the far corner with a couple of beers on tap and a few other drinks.


The casual immediacy of the comedy asserts itself as the story begins to settle-in. Amanda Schumache lends a warm and welcoming presence to the proceedings as the narrator for the reading, which runs 90 minutes without intermission. She establishes the setting: a hotel in Boston in which a group of paranormal investigators look to explore for the sake of their online viewers. Melody Lopac is generously endearing as Alex--the charming ghost-hunter who draws-in viewers for Kai--the more serious paranormal explorer whose expertise drives the show.


Alex and Kai are accompanied by a crew that includes a skittish video editor (Lauren Heinen) and a curmudgeonly videographer (David Parr.) The team tumbles into its place in an otherwise closed hotel. No one else is staying there, but there IS a rather cheery midwestern woman (played with unsettlingly happy energy by Mary Ferwerda) who works the hotel looking to help Alex and Kai in whatever way she can. There’s something strange about her, though.


Strasse’s script plays with some grace as it fumbles around establishing the basic parameters of the world that she’s engaging in. Is it really a place occupied by ghosts or is it all entirely surface-level realism? There IS a plot twist that develops in the course of the story, but it mgiht not necessarily be one everyone’s expecting. The drama at the heart of all of the comedy IS enjoyable enough to keep everything moving. There’s just enough variation in the cast to maintain a balance of comedy without overloading the script. Every character in the cast is clearly defined and there’s more than enough for every actor to play with in the course of what turns out to be a thoroughly enjoyable show. Strasse continues to show a great talent for constructing a fun, little ensemble of comedic characters and juggling them in a variety of different ways that manage to ricochet off each other in just the right way to form themselves into a cohesive plot.


Deanna Strasse’s staged reading of Boo has two more performances: today, June 8th at 7:30 pm and Sunday, June 9th at 2:30 pm at the Brick House on 504 E. Center St. For ticket reservations and more, visit the show’s Facebook Events Page.