The heart of the summer of 2024 wraps-up with a variety of different shows coming to small stages in Milwaukee including the debut of a musical set in a portrait studio and a stages reading of a cyberpunk-inspired sci-fi drama. Also this month: the return of the Milwaukee Black Theatre Festival and the Drama Tent at Milwaukee Irish Fest. Here's a look at some of what lies ahead.

​
Pink Umbrella Theatre opens the month this weekend with a new musical by David Lancelle and Patrick Thompson. It’s a story set in a photography studio. It’s a place to get family portraits and headshots--that sort of thing. One partner calls-in sick, leaving the entire studio to one person. Sounds like a fun premise for a small-scale musical for the small stage.
August 2 - 11 at Christ Church Episcopal on 5655 N. Lake Drive in Whitefish Bay. For more information, visit Pink Umbrella online.
​

​​The Third Annual MKW Black Theatre Festival takes the stage of the Marcus Center this month. The festival opens with a production of the classic theatrical narrative for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf directed by Linetta Alexander. Also opening the festival: Idris Goodwin’s The Realness: A Break Beat Play. Denzel Taylor directs an interesting personal political drama as a young artist enters the hip-hop scene of the mid-to-late 1990s and tangles with the reality of dreaming for love or money in “the middle-class fantasy of rap.” Also featured later-on on the festival: Bill Harris’ Stories About the Old Days and a pay-what-you-can reading of In the Blood--Suzan-Lori Parks’ modern re-telling of The Scarlett Letter.  For more information, visit Black Arts MKE online.
​

​I really don't want to miss this one, but there is SO MUCH opening next week. Local playwright Rick Bingen seems to be channeling J. Michael Straczynski's "The Mind of Simon Foster" or Philip K. Dick's "Paycheck" in a story involving a man who seems to be leaking memories. He's got to race against the clock to try to build a device to save the memories. Kind of a fun cybeerunky-sounding sci-fi premise that's being presented in a staged reading directed by the talented Maya Danks.  The reading runs August 9 - 10 at The Brick House on 504 East Center St. For more information, visit The Brick House online.
​

​Milwaukee Irish Fest returns to the festival grounds this year. Once again, the Theatre Pavilion Tent features a number of cozy, small stage shows including Wild Sky--a 2022 play about the Easter Rising of 1916 by Deirdre Kinahan. Also on the festival this year: Green and Blue--the story of two men patrolling between two different Irelands during the height of the conflict. THAT show comes to Irish Fest courtesy of Belfast's touring Kabosh Theatre Company.  For the full schedule and more, visit Milwaukee Irish Fest online. 
​

​R.I.P. is one of a few completely new pieces to be opening in Milwaukee this month. The musical comedy about the afterlife should be really interesting given the nature of the story. Director Alan Piotrowicz took some time out to answer a few questions about the show, which opens this coming week.

It’s a musical comedy about life and death. There’s a really delicate balance there. Love, loss and auto accidents aren’t always the cheeriest things to cover. It must be kind of ominous to try to find the right balance between tragic drama. How are you handling the balance between comedy and drama? 

It’s an incredibly delicate balance! But the thing about death is that it is one of the truly universal experiences in life. We all will have to face it at some point, not only once ourselves, but also whenever we grieve a loss. But grief and love are inextricably intertwined, and so with the heartbreak also comes joy – happy moments, funny anecdotes, opportunity for growth, chances for reconnection – and so too are there moments of light and levity in our show. The fact of the matter is we don’t know for sure what happens after we die, and neither do the Dead in our show, as find themselves wait in the back rooms of a mortuary. When things are that crazy, what can you do but find the humor?

Half the ensemble of characters is dead. The other half is alive. This should make for some rather interesting dramatic dynamics. Is there a whole lot of direct musical interaction between the living and the dead? How does the dynamic work on both sides of life and death in R.I.P.?


One of the many conversations I’ve had with Robert Grede, the playwright and composer, is about the role of music in the show. Rob’s done an amazing job of defining the “rules” of how the living and the dead can and can’t interact, and as we explored those rules during an earlier workshop, we learned that perhaps it is actually the music that acts as the connective thread between them. There’s an adage in musical theatre (I think from Bob Fosse) that “the time to sing is when your emotional level is just too high to speak anymore,” so it just makes sense to me that the moment these characters are reaching their most emotionally vulnerable place is both when they would be singing and when they’d be able to connect (even across the barrier of death) to fulfil their hopes and dreams. My personal favorite song in the show, in fact, started as a solo piece for a grieving sister, but as we continued to develop the script, it evolved into a beautiful duet between both sisters (one living and one dead), finding how they’ll each be able to move on.

The Next Act space can be VERY intimate. There’s an intimidating factor in staging something this delicate so close to the audience. This isn’t a simple staging either. There’s choreography and everything. How is the space of the show informing on the mood, music and movement of the piece? 

When we were looking for a venue for this show, I was a huge advocate for Next Act’s performance space. I’ve directed there before, including a production of Dead Man’s Cell Phone for Pink Banana Theatre Co, and actually designed lighting for several shows for Next Act Theatre, including 7 Stories, Four Places, A Sleeping Country, Grace, and Three Views of the Same Object – and those were all in some way about death! (I also did some not about death, too, I swear.) I love directing in intimate spaces, so it doesn’t seem so intimidating for me. Small, up-close spaces means that the storytelling is also more connected with the audience. We’re allowing folks to be a true fly on the wall, watching the lives (and in this case, afterlives) of these characters. Then when the music picks up and the dancing kicks off, the space feels as big and alive as it needs to be – and we definitely will have some "rock out" moments to share.

There’s quite a range of different ages and experience levels in the ensemble of performers. Some of the people in the cast have been around for decades. There are a few who have only attained their BAs like...a couple of years ago. It must be exciting working with such a diverse group. How has the group dynamic been in rehearsal? 

We’re so lucky in Milwaukee to have an array of talent that includes both strong young talent and accomplished actors who have been seen on many different stages in the region. However, it’s not always the case that they get to work in the same room! One of the things I love about RIP is that Rob’s created characters spanning a wide range of ages and life experiences, and we needed a cast that reflected that. This gave us the opportunity to assemble a team of artists with so much awesome experience – spanning from Milwaukee’s historic Melody Top Theatre to the most recent class of Professional Residencies at Milwaukee Rep. We begin rehearsals in one week, and I couldn’t be more excited to get everybody together in the room. 

Thanks in advance for taking the time to answer a few questions about the show.

The world premiere of RIP - A Musical Comedy of Life & Death runs Jul. 17 - 25 at Next Act Theatre’s performance space on  255 S Water St. For more information, visit the musical’s webpage.
​

The RNC rolls into town next week. So y’know....there’s that...
This weekend Quasimondo Physical Theatre opens a critical theatrical analysis of the events of the attack on the US Capitol on January 6th, 2021.  Red, White and Coup runs throughout the month at an immersive space on the North Side. Writer/Director Brian Rott took some time out to answer a few questions I has about the show for a preview I’ve written for The Shepherd-Express. He was nice enough to let me post the entirety of those responses for The Small Stage....


The Small Stage: January 6th, 2021 was horrifying and disgusting on a whole bunch of different levels. Not a whole lot of people would have taken a look at what happened and though, "Y'know? I think this would really work onstage." Where did the specific inspiration come from?


Brian. Rott: I’m actually surprised that we haven’t seen much in way of plays or popular media addressing January 6th. Someone recently said to me that politics don’t mix well with theatre.  I think there may be some truth to that, regarding not wanting to alienate half of your audience, but for myself and our ensemble this piece isn’t about spreading a political agenda or fueling partisanship. It’s about presenting the truth and history of what we know happened. Jan. 6th was horrifying. I remember stopping my day to follow the TV coverage, as did probably a lot of people. We remember those images, but I think most people don’t know the details of how we got there. They don’t know that Jan 6th was the result of a meticulously crafted plan carried out  by dozens of people, and more so how it could have gone much worse if not for a few individuals who stood up to adversity. The inspiration first came  because I followed the televised January 6th committee hearings which fueled my interest to learn more, and my research led me to believe that this is an important story to tell now, in our City of Milwaukee, as a companion piece to hosting the RNC and their presidential candidate nominee, in an election year where history has the potential to repeat itself.


The Small Stage: The events of January 6th were crazy and chaotic on a number of different levels. How are you bringing that chaos to the stage? How are you framing the action of history for the production?


Brian. Rott:The show follows the events leading up to January 6th, the day itself, and a little of the aftermath to the present day. With an abundant amount of story to tell, we focused on the planners - Donald Trump and his lawyers, the foils - public officials who opposed their actions to overturn the election, as well as a handful of rioters who marched on the capital. I think the show follows the chaos of Trump’s team grasping at straws and spreading misinformation to the physical chaos enacted by marchers at the capital on January 6th.


The Small Stage: Quasimondo shows always manage a really engaging sort of a surrealistic circus atmosphere. How are you using that energy to peer into January 6th?


Brian. Rott: Entering the world of politics, pundits, lawyers, and Washington D.C, is new dramatic territory for us. Our goal was to write the script from available public sources; news articles, court filings, press conference transcripts, etc., many sources of which were somewhat dry. We were faced with the challenge of how to convey this story factually while also making it digestible and entertaining. This is where the fun came in. While most of the text is “on the record”, we’ve taken a number of liberties playing with form and switching style to create an accessible piece that showcases the spectacle and circus of politics. In many cases we didn’t need to add much, as the content alone proved absurd enough as is.


The Small Stage: The space of the North Milwaukee Arthaus has a lot of space and a lot of potential. How are you staging that space for the purposes of the show?


Brian Rott: Our building, the North Milwaukee Village Hall was built in 1901 as an all-in-one municipal building for the Village of North Milwaukee. We’re staging the production upstairs in the main hall, which was utilized as the primary hub for community events and local politics until 1929. I think of this performance at the Arthaus as site specific, given the building’s history in housing local politics and serving the public, which serves the content of “Red, White, and Coup” perfectly, and creates an immersive environment to experience the show.


Quasimondo Physical Theatre’s Red, White and Coup runs July 13- 27 at  North Milwaukee Arthaus on 5151 North 35th St. For more information visit Quasimondo online.