The work of Edgar Allan Poe has a shadowy universality. The intellectual heart of ubiquitous human darkness is vividly rendered through his prose. The Sunset Playhouse brings some of that darkness to the stage this weekend as it presents Phantasies Such As These—a dramatic studio theatre reading adapted for the stage by Michael Pocaro.

The stage has a few chairs and a few candles. There are cavities in the brick walls and pictures in the gilded frames. A cast of six read the prose from tan scripts on the intimate studio theatre space next door to Sunset’s main stage. Six stories resonate through six actors.

The first is Hop Frog. A slyly angular Brandon Haut plays the title character—a jester who takes his revenge on royalty in a dramatic combustion. The story has many of the cast playing the doomed royalty in fixed roles, but much of the staging is a mix as each actor tales a turn speaking as Poe’s protagonist in The Tell Tale Heart and The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar. Each actor carries a different strength into the darkness. Michael Chobanoff is a powerfully charismatic presence onstage. Chobanoff walks a line between politician and stage magician in his delivery of the prose.  Calmly restless Jim Donaldson plays best to a tortured neurotic quality echoing through Poe’s work. Donaldson wields the weaknesses of Poe’s protagonists like a weapon at times. With a stage presence that suggests wisdom, Hal Erickson is the afflicted decay of age from within and without both psychologically and physiologically. Anna Murray has a crisp precision about her emotion in the narration that makes the drama of her manifestation feel like a mystery hidden in plain sight. Natasha Mortazavi is the voice of levelheaded narrative detachment tempered by clarity of morality. There’s a casual wonder in her narration that adds a sort of grounded framework to the ensemble.

Nearly every story passes from one character to the next from paragraph to paragraph. We often end up seeing the same protagonists speaking in first person through all six on stage. Far from being disorienting or detracting from the overall experience of the show, the multi-actor narration actually serves to echo the universality of Poe’s psychological explorations. One imagines the same motives and the same actions and the same consequences playing out in murder, cruelty and suffering in many different people over and over again echoing back to the beginning of time. We’re all the same and so we’re all subject to the same haunted pettiness that animates so many first-person narratives penned by Poe.

Three stories open. There is an intermission. Three more stories close. The procession begins with Hop Frog and ends with The Raven. Revenge is followed by a couple tales of murder. Then a story of an obsessed artist, a cat and that famous raven. It’s a nice progression that ends with the classic for which Poe is best-known.

It's a one-weekend show for Halloween weekend. There are two performances left of Phantasies Such As These: Oct. 28 at 8pm and Oct. 29 at 2pm. Tickets are $15. For ticket reservations and more, visit the Sunset Playhouse online.

​This year The Night of the Living Dead Puppet-Show celebrates its 10th anniversary October performance with a one-weekend run in a classy studio theatre space just outside of downtown. Bill Olsen and company fill an evening’s performance with a show that features the standard scene-for-scene spoof of George Romero’s classic horror film. The show opens with a series of variety acts by Angry Young Men Ltd. It’s largely hosted by Josh Perkins in the role of the group’s most venerable puppet who welcomes everyone to the show and establishes a crazy energy that comes to inhabit the intimacy of the Next Act Theatre space.

Regular puppets include the delightfully uneven poetry of Lumpy the Golem Boy and fuzzy, little scientist/inventor Blondie. There are comedy sketches, jokes and a few musical moments. It’s a pretty diverse mix of moods for head-and-torso felt. It’s pretty amazing just how diverse the mood can get with just plastic, felt and puppeteers wearing black. There’s a lot of comedy, but there’s some genuine emotional warmth and pathos as well.

Bill Olsen leads much of the show with Lumpy. Olsen’s got really great comic instincts which deliver a good portion of Lumpy’s personality to the stage. The soft, little blue one does the rest of the work all on his own with poise and poetry.

The comedy involved sometimes treads its way over to the political end. There’s a cute moment where Blondie delivers a public service announcement about the impending zombie apocalypse which features one of the most bad-assed fuzzy puppets I’ve ever seen: a stern-looking brown rabbity-thing carrying a shotgun. (It’s introduced to the audience as Smartass.) Funny stuff.

Overall there’s a fundamentally surreal feeling about the atmosphere. A group of adults have come together in an audience to un-ironically enjoy a puppet show. This isn’t camp. It isn’t kitsch. The puppets are brought to the stage for earnest, heartfelt entertainment and moments that even occasionally tug at the heartstrings. It’s strange to sit back for a moment and realize that these are puppets...those stage creatures so often associated with children’s fare. And no--the budget isn’t great and and yes--maybe the puppets feel a little crude and haphazard in places, but aren’t we ALL, in a sense, crude and haphazard? Identifying with the characters onstage may be the most important part of a theatrical experience and Angry Young Men Ltd. doe a really good job with that.

Of course, the group goes pretty far with the genre alone. Not many people are crazy enough to do a full, feature-length puppet show largely for adults that doesn’t have some other gimmick to it. (Like say...maybe it’s a touring Broadway puppet musical with pop cultural references to Sesame Street for instance. Or maybe the puppets are mostly seen in silhouette heckling bad movies.)  Angry Young Men’s variety act is essentially a live, contemporary version of The Muppet Show without a huge budget and no safety net. There’s a real fearlessness in that which is best summed-up in the image of fuzzy brown fur and a stern gaze bravely holding a shotgun in a PSA spoof. This is the face of contemporary adult puppetry in Milwaukee. It’s not perfect. Neither are you. It can be fun. As an audience it’s a good time to be fun right along with it.

Angry Young Men’s Night of the Living Dead Puppet Show continues through Oct. 28 at the Next Act Theatre on 255 S Water St. For ticket reservations, visit Next Act online. For more information about the group, visit Angry Young Men’s Facebook page.

​Twelve guys sit around in a room discussing the fate of another. It’s such a simple story, but it’s been on of the most hugely influential dramas of the mid-20th century. I find it interesting that 12 Angry Men started out as a teleplay in 1954. (It was part of an anthology series on CBS called Studio One.) The next year it was adapted for the stage. A couple of years after that it was adapted into the 1957 film it’s best known as. 12 people in a single room would have been cheap and easy to stage for a small TV production in the early 1950s.

The drama which radiated out of an old black and white Zenith or RCA would have given deeper matters of life and death some strange ghostly weight in an living rooms all over the country. There’s a certain weight about that movie that still works in a living room or..even on an iPhone screen, but the classic 1950s jury drama 12 Angry Men has a tightness and concision about it that works the best on the small stage. Cream City Theater takes a trip to the ’50s with a staging of the drama in a nice, little out-of-the-way space in a semi-residential stretch of West Allis.    

It’s a studio theatre space so small you can almost hear every individual clap. There’s a long table with everyone sitting facing the audience. Sit down in the front row and soon the actors are all sitting there as well. The fact that it’s all guys (12 of ‘em) sitting at a very long table facing the audience makes the framing of the drama feel A LOT like da Vinci’s The Last Supper. The twelve of them are there to decide the fate of someone accused of killing his own father.
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Directed by Katherine Beeson, the cast sinks into the jury as they discuss particulars of a murder. A calmly towering Nicholas Callan Haubner plays the protagonist: an architect who is the sole juror not certain of the defendant’s guilt at the beginning of the play. Haubner delivers the protagonist’s soft-spoken confidence with steady, mild-mannered confidence. It’s an interesting execution. As I recall there was real passion and emotion...even an occasional twinkle of wisdom in the eye of Henry Fonda in the original film adaptation. Haubner isn’t quite so flashy, but he’s far from soulless in the role. Quite the opposite in fact. He seems to contrast against that with a cool inner peace that pairs well against the more aggressive natures of some of the other characters.

Doug Smedbron puts in a notably compassionate performance as Juror #9--the wise, old man who is the first to seriously consider the protagonist’s perspective. There are a couple of moments in Smedbron’s oration here that feel nearly moving. Very deep stuff about the loneliness of old age and such. Smedbron delivers it to the stage quite well in places.
There are a couple of notable performances by some of the last jurors to reach the consensus. Gene Schuldt has a powerful physical presence onstage as the pushy, aggressive Juror #10. Mack Heath puts in a similarly aggressive performance as the last juror to reach consensus.

While moments are attained by Haubner, Smedbron, Schuldt and nearly everyone else in the cast, the overall rhythm of a piece like this is pretty illusive. Twelve Angry Men is an extended debate between twelve guys. This is not an easy thing to stage while consistently hitting all the high points, maintaining momentum AND allowing one moment to flow seamlessly from the next. Nowhere is this disjointed energy more prominent than in the break for intermission. One of the most physically aggressive outbursts of combusts onstage and the lights fall. We come back from intermission and the actors all have to pick up right where they left off. It’s awkward. Granted, the original TV version of the play would have had the occasional break for Westinghouse commercials, but a sudden break at that specific moment knocks some of the energy out of the build-up. The energy can feel a bit disjointed in places, but this sort of 12-person-in-one-room drama is attempted so rarely that it’s fascinating to watch even when everything isn’t connecting perfectly onstage.

Cream City Theater’s production of Twelve Angry Men runs through Oct. 29 at Inspiration Studios on 1500 S. 73rd St. in West Allis. For ticket reservations and more, visit Cream City Theater online.

​The '70s...Survive Onstage In Elm Grove
The stage adaptation of Sister Act makes it to Elm Grove this month in a production that closes at the beginning of November. It's a soulful show that mixes a church-based Catholic milieu with a '70s disco style. Is precisely the kind of distinctive mix of different moods that makes for good theater. There is a very distinctive a world being presented on stage that my not actually a late 1970s that actually happened but feels like it should be anyway. Everything seems so clean. Even sleazy bar feels quaint and cozy and a charming. One of the characters is taken into custody by the police and even apparent prostitutes seem stylishly classy.

More Local Roles For African-American Actors, Please
Ashley Levells does an amazing job as aspiring '70s pop diva Deloris Van Cartier. In places it feels like she's carrying the entire show, but this is me being disingenuous. In reality the script gives her more central stage time than any other actor on the ensemble, so naturally she's going to dominate the stage. A powerful voice and somewhat blindingly dazzling charisma are only as good as the stage allows them to be. A good portion of what Levells is doing here is living up to kind of a dream role in musical theatre. One of the reasons it feels like such a novelty is the fact that she's an African-American talent. It's not often that there are roles this prominent for black actors. So...more roles for African-Americans. (please?)

The Casually Deft Grace of Greg Malcolm
He plays the tiniest member of the criminal entourage that is pursuing the shows heroine. The man has moves. His bio says that he recently had a ten year hiatus from the stage. I don't recall ever seeing him on stage. There's a slickly soulful precision about his movements and motions on stage. The damn thing is one thing. The physical comedy is another. But to build on each other really well and his performance. What's really cool about this is that he seem to know exactly how much he can get away with on stage without upstaging all the rest of the action. It's almost as fun to watch what he's not doing as it is to watch what he's actually doing.

Oh So Many, Many Habits
Costume designer Joanne Cunningham didn’t have much to work with for some of the costuming here. There are habits onstage. Lots of them. I mean...wow...I don’t recall ever seeing this many habits on one stage at one time. Its...weird...but at least the play allows for a little bit of flash with glitzy accents for the big musical numbers. But still..wow...that’s a whole lot of habit onstage. You kinda know you’re going into that if you’re seeing a staging of Sister Act, but you’re not really ready for the full effect until you’re actually there seeing them all onstage.

The Sunset Playhouse's production of Sister Act runs through Nov. 5 at the Furlan Auditorium on 800 Elm Grove Road. For more information, call 262-782-4430 or visit the Sunset Playhouse online. A complete review of the show runs in the next print edition of The Shepherd-Express.

​Faking Reality

Large blocks of color contrast against fog and shadow. There's excellent use of silhouettes. Occasionally  very striking dramatic moments are held which contrast quite well against some really satisfying comedy. It’s a comic horror about an artificial haunted house taking place in an actual haunted house, but that’s an awful way to describe it. This is Aaron Kopec’s return to a Halloween show for October at the Alchemist Theatre.

David Sapiro and Nate Press play a playwright and a techie staging haunted theatrics in a genuinely haunted house. It's no surprise that Pepper’s Ghost turns out to be a lot of fun. Aaron Kopec has been doing original horror shows in October for years now. He's had a lot of experience with this sort of thing. So the quality and the fun aren't a surprise. What is a surprise is exactly where the fun lies.


The Shell Game Hero Thing

You don't really know who the hero will be until the end of the story. It's a horror movie device that actually works quite well here. In big Hollywood films it quite often comes off as kind of a cheap punchline in the end. In Pepper’s Ghost, Kopec uses the device in kind of a clever way. Relatively early on he sets up heroic qualities in nearly every character in the ensemble. We know that there is something sinister going on here. The big hero could be anyone. (Even the Nathan Danzer character I didn’t get to mention at all in my print review of the show.) Danzer makes for a delightful tortured hero bound to a haunted house. Real traditional charisma from a real traditional horror hero. The big hero in the end cold be him or it could be someone else. We don't know what exactly what it is or exactly who is going to rectify it.


The Goldthwait Factor

Nate Press does a really good Bobcat Goldthwait impression. He’s a talented actor. I would imagine, though,  the Goldthwait’s not a skill he gets to use all that often. Here that impression is just one more detail in a script populated by fun, little gimmicky details including a really satisfying reference to the 2003 film Lost in Translation. Like that reference, the Goldthwait is just one more throwaway joke. The beauty of writing an original script with a specific cast in mind is that it allows the production to be responsive to the cast. Makes for a fun show. The Goldthwait’s it precisely the sort of thing that Kopec has been doing so well for so many years.


The Dual Kopec Theory

The story touches on themes of reality versus artifice on stage in a nightmare fantasy that may actually be a reality. Kopec never really fully flashes these out. There IS some real depth to some of what's being explored in the deeper intellectual and of the dialogue. Rather than dwell on that, Kopec keeps it light for the most part. There's actually a pretty even mix of drama and comedy combined with a few genuine scares.

There are parallels between the playwright in the story and the playwright played by Sapiro. Kopec makes numerous jokes at his own expense. There are references the previous Halloween shows. Interestingly enough, and there seems to be kind of a binary echo of two different sides of Kopec's personality. Sapiro's playwright seems to play to Kopec’s deeper, more critical intellectual side. The techie played by Nate Press seems to play to Kopec's lighter more physical and impetuous side. One imagines the script being written with this in mind. As both a techie and a playwright one imagines Kopec splitting himself apart and imagining how the two separate sides of him would interact with this premise that he’s established for the play.

Of course...if one takes this line of though too far, one begin to wonder whether or not ALL of the characters are just different aspects of Kopec and . . . it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that this is really just a fun trip to the theatre on an October evening.

The Alchemist Theatre’s Pepper’s Ghost runs through Oct. 28 at the Alchemist Theatre on 2569 S Kinnickinnic Ave. For ticket reservations and more, visit Alchemist online. A comprehensive review of the show runs in the next print edition of the Shepherd-Express​. 

​The basement of the Brumder Mansion plays host to love and witchcraft this month as Milwaukee Entertainment Group presents BELL, BOOK AND CANDLE. Best known for the 1958 film adaptation starring Kim Novak, Jimmy Stewart and Jack Lemmon, it’s a cozy romantic drama nestled into the basement of the Brumder this month starring Libby Amato, Randal Anderson and Michael Keiley . Co-director Amanda J. Hull took the time to answer a few questions for today’s Small Stage.

The Brumder Mansion is a remarkably intimate space. Perfect for a romantic comedy with a bit of magic. Was there any specific inspiration behind choosing BELL, BOOK AND CANDLE for this particular October?

These are difficult times for humanity, every time we allow ourselves to get settled into some semblance of normalcy we seem to be thrown a terrible curve, and life has been getting very heavy to hold. Instead of something scary or gory, we wanted to bring back some light, love and humor to everyone’s Halloween season. That said, it is a still a Halloween show about witches, magic spells, mischief, revenge and love and it is chalk full of all kinds of magic! The actors themselves create most of the magic on stage with their incredible acting and chemistry, but they also have the help of many ambient and very effective sound effects, period and theme appropriate music and magically moody lighting.

The cozy stage in the basement of the Brumder has a very well-defined boundaries. Productions occasionally include space offstage. How are you using the space this time around? 

We have a lot of fun utilizing our existing space and imaginatively recreating where each area leads in every production. The stage area has moved around frequently to include the house, the bar area, the love seat nook and even the upstairs lobby and main staircase. This time we are contained in the subterranean theatre, using the stage itself as the boundary of the 1950’s NYC Apartment. We have added a dressing on the back wall to imply the existence of a shaded window facing a busy New York street in the Murray Hill district. Tom creatively added a light down stage left to let in moonlight through a high window for dreamy transition lighting. The existing stage door acts as the main entrance to the home, and our hallway/wall façade leads to Gillian’s bedroom area. We have turned the bathroom into the kitchen/back entrance where the cat Pyewacket is “put out” and his handler Brittany Curran cares for Gus, our feline actor.

One of the problems I find myself having with the story is the fact that the witch is loses her power once she falls in love. Prior to that, there's a lot of sinister manipulation that centers around a woman's obsession with a man. Gillian's a strong character, but she's weak for this one man. Not very liberated. It feels very dated. You can't change the script, but there are ways to adjust how things play out dramatically. Has there been an attempt to gain more of an overall equal footing between Shep and Gillian in your production? 

A typical dilemma in many period pieces is that in order to find happiness a woman has to make a sacrifice, blech. The real message should be that love takes compromise from each person. We are flawed, but capable of change when moved by another. Shep is a seemingly boring man, who forewent love in his younger years in pursuit of a career, and in midlife was drawn in by a younger, typically appealing, manipulative woman, and he is so ready for marriage that he overlooks her flaws. Gillian genuinely likes him and knows that woman’s flaws and not totally unselfishly, tries to save Shep from her. We are lead to believe by the writing that he would not have been happy with her even if magic hadn’t intervened. Gill is an independent, modern woman/witch who has always felt that something was missing and connects to a glimmer of something in Shep. She hasn’t had human emotions since childhood and her life has been a non-stop, whirlwind search for anything that will fulfill her. She longs for a little of the mundane, some stability and comfort, and tries to get it by enchanting Shep to love her. Though she may have been wrong to interfere in someone’s fate, underneath it all there are good reasons for both to do what they do. The fact that everyone is capable of love and that we find it in unlikely ways is the real message here, and I’m hoping that is clear enough that the loss of her magic isn’t the focus. They each gain something greater in finding each other. The road there is very bumpy but you’ll have to see the show to find out how and why!

It looks like a great cast for the show. I think this may be the second or third time that Randall T. Anderson has played a role for the stage made popular by Jimmy Stewart on the screen. Libby Amato has a great vulnerability onstage that will make for an interesting character arc. What has it been like doing character work with the actors for the show?

Working with this cast has been an absolute joy. They are all intuitive, naturally hilarious actors who are able to find the humor in the most mundane moments and also truly feel the sadness, which dips into our comedy at moments, very suddenly. Our real challenge was to find the contrast between their base characters and what they would be like with magical or other interference. Not only are these actors trying to take on another persona, they then have to be that person in love under a spell, angry out of a spell, drunk but intelligent and coherent, excited with no emotion and then upset without too much emotion. They interact with each other on stage very differently scene to scene based on what circumstances are at hand. It could be very confusing but they were each up for the challenge and their characters have become very defined and specific throughout the play.

This show also features the talents of Gus TT Doherty. I’ve never seen him onstage before. The promo pics for the show seem really intense, though. I could believe that he’s a magical witch’s familiar spirit who is hundreds of years old. It must be kind of difficult to work with a cat, though. The movie had used something like 12 cats to play the role. Here you’re relying on just the one. 

Gus TT Doherty is a consummate professional and a delight to work with. He is also one of the sweetest, most cuddly cats we’ve ever met and has won the hearts of all cast and crew. He loves to be pet and held and luckily for us Libby is the only one who handles him on stage and she is pretty much a Cat Whisperer. Once she gets him in her arms it only takes seconds for him to melt and purr. It’s a great combo, I think they have the best chemistry on stage! We also have the delightful Brittany Curran keeping him company with toys and treats back stage. He is the only member of the cast with his own dressing room and assistant. Just in case, we do have a back up prop cat, but I very much doubt that we will need it. Knock on wood!

Milwaukee Entertainment Group’s production of Bell, Book and Candle runs Oct. 13 -31 at the Brumder Mansion on 3046 W. Wisconsin Ave. For ticket reservations and more, visit MEG online.

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​The Reduced Shakespeare Company’s All The Great Books (abridged) debuted 15 years ago. Since then, the light and breezy sketch comedy script has been produced by many, many other theatre groups. In Tandem Theatre brings it to the stage once more as it presents the fun, little raggedy roll through spoofery of fine literature in its cozy space downtown not far from the historic main branch of the Milwaukee Public Library.


The literary spoof sketches area arranged around the format of a whirlwind  remedial high school literature class not more than a few hours before graduation. Director Chris Flieller has done a really clever job of helping to foster a feeling of the standard, generic American high school feel about the production. The “class” is set in a high school gymnasium. Designer Rick Graham’s set vividly references an old public high school gym.


The floorboards have been painstakingly painted onto the floor of the theatre. There’s a basketball hoop. A facade over one of the walls gives it a solid brick visual treatment. A few letters on the sign on the girl’s locker room have been modified to spell out something distinctly different. Sit in the front row and there’s a well-worn, lived-in public school atmosphere. It’s actually kind of disorienting because the space is so clearly a theatre set and yet so strongly reminiscent of a classic high school gym.


The first character onstage ratchets-up the vividly scholastic feel of the atmosphere. Doug Jarecki is brilliantly comic as the Coach. The public high school gym coach is such a heavily-worn comic stereotype that it can come across as...stultifying if it’s taken to an extreme. Jarecki exudes a kind of casual confidence as Coach. Jarecki is playing Coach as a character and not a stereotype. In the process he’s making a sketch comedy archetype ALOT more funny than it has any right to be. There are precise gestures, postures and phrases that feel remarkably authentic in Rasmussen’s set. Kathy Smith’s precise execution in Coach’s costuming adds to the insidiously sneaky atmosphere of public school.


Ryan Schabach is the next to enter. He’s playing a passionate and passionately awkward drama professor. Chris Goode rounds out the class as a semi-vacuous student teacher. Jarecki, Schabach and Goode are solidly comic together as they barrel through some of history’s most canonized literature. The feel of an RSC script is there from the rapid-fire modulation of the comedy to the disparate array of different props and scraps of costuming.


By the time all the actors are onstage and the audience has risen for the Pledge of Allegiance, the full realization of the atmosphere is positively chilling. It’s weird thinking about how vividl the atmosphere sets-in with such simple background. You’re in a performance space in the back of a church next to the highway, but you might as well be in any high school gym in the country. It kind of makes sense that a public school atmosphere would be so easy to emulate...it’s so simple and utilitarian and so...completely unlike any other American atmosphere.   


The spirit of the script remains pretty strong 15 years after it debuted. Some of the pop cultural references feel hopelessly dated, but the cast makes it fun. Weird references, offbeat jokes and rapid-fire pop comedy have proliferated A LOT over the course of the past 15 years. It’s been a decade and a half and an RSC script starts to feel like retro comedy. The constellation of punchlines make the show feel a bit like a period piece where the period is only 15 years ago. It’s weird and pleasantly disorienting. Boomer/older X-er jokes play like comfort comedy in the post-modern world of a million different late night news satire shows and a restless roll of “funny” memes on the social media that lurks in everyone’s pockets.  Humor has gotten so impossibly complicated that it’s actually kind of refreshing to hear someone earnestly deliver a humble  Gilligan’s Island reference. In the midst of a strikingly vivid public school atmosphere this comedy feels like home.


In Tandem Theatre’s production of All The Great Books (abridged) runs through Oct. 29 at the In Tandem Theatre on 628 N. 10th St. For ticket reservations and more, visit In Tandem online.


For the production, In Tandem is partnering with Literacy Services of Wisconsin. They are collecting books for all reading levels. Please consider bringing along a few books and donating when you attend. The importance of their mission cannot be overstated. 

The universe is old. Our understanding of it isn’t. Astronomy is the toddler constantly trying to impress the universe by telling it exactly how big it really is. Last week I saw a play set in the 16th century in which European academics were dealing with the idea that Earth might not be the center of the universe. Last night I saw a play set in the 20th century in which American academics were dealing with the idea that ours might not be the only galaxy in the universe. Like David Davalos’ Wittenberg (running through the 14th with Windfall Theatre) Lauren Gunderson’s Silent Sky juxtaposes the concerns of a few people against larger intellectual issues that dwarf all comprehension. Next Act Theatre’s production of the drama captures the  intensity of one group of people measured against the whole of the universe one star at a time.

Deborah Staples plays Henrietta Swan Leavitt--an astronomer who did work with Cepheid stars which was used to prove that there are other galaxies in the universe. As could be expected of any woman making any kind of important advances in the early 20th century, Leavitt had to deal with institutionalized sexism. It’s a fascinating and inspiring story of someone searching for truth. Staples is suitably heroic in the role. She admirably renders Leavitt’s intellectual passion. The script offers-up the opportunity to deliver a social awkwardness to the stage as well  she admirably does so without amplification. It’s a very respectful treatment of a  historical figure who deserves a tremendous amount of respect.

Carrie Hitchcock plays Annie Jump Cannon.  Cannon is a scientific giant in her own right. She developed the stellar spectral classification system that isn’t named after her. Hitchcock has a firm pragmatism about her in the role. In other hands it might come across as cold and domineering, but with Hitchcock it’s swooningly charismatic.

Kelly Doherty is brings her characteristically sharp and nuanced grasp of comedy and drama to the role of Williamina Fleming. Fleming was a pioneering astronomer from Scotland working with Cannon and Leavitt who helped catalogue thousands of stars. Doherty deftly wields an earthy Scottish wit tempered against sharply-realized dramatic characterization.  A character who could have come across as comic relief is as firmly anchored in depth and complexity as the rest of the cast.

Karen Estrada plays contrast to the astronomers in the role of a midwestern housewife who only happens to be Leavitt’s sister. There’s a striking warmth about Estrada in the role that impressively solves the problem of contrasting the world of early 20th century astronomy against the rest of society searching for meaning elsewhere.

Reese Madigan is quite capable in the role of Henrietta Leavitt’s love interest Peter Shaw. He’s an awkward middle-management type who grows to appreciate the work of the astronomers in the course of the events of the play.
The interpersonal dramas between the characters are solidly played against history and the vastness of the universe as stars are catalogued on glass photographic plates from a massive telescope. Next Act brings the earthbound realities of early 20th century astronomy into a cozy, little studio theatre space. Early 20th century furniture exists in a space with photographic projections of a skies and starscapes.  Director David Cecsarini brings it all together quite well in a thoroughly enjoyable, little drama for early Autumn in a comfortable space just outside of a downtown  near a big lake in the northern hemisphere of a planet third from a yellow dwarf star spinning around in a spiral galaxy...one of 125 billon in the observable universe.

Next Act’s production of Silent Sky runs through Oct. 22 at the Next Act’s space on 255 S. Water St. For ticket reservations and more, visit Next Act online.

​Where do 300 words go? The cast for Windfall Theatre’s staging of Wittenberg consists of four people. 4 people and one story in 300 words...ugh...anyway... here’s what didn’t make it into my review of David Davalos’ comedy set on the campus of a 16th century german university populated by some legendary characters.


Rockstar Faustus
Davalos’ decision to make Dr. Faustus into a kind of an irreverent tenured rockstar at the university is clever. The man who made a pact with the devil is kind of like the first heavy metal guy. Bo Johnson fits the roll quite well with long, grey hair and a musician’s look about him onstage. (In addition to be ing a seasoned actor, he’s in the local band Random Maxx.) Johnson has a really sharp grasp of the script the extends into clever comic instincts when delivering some of Davalos’ more subtle humor.


Martin Luther as Dark, Brooding Intellectual Superhero
Emmitt Morgans plays the legendary Martin Luther as a very charismatically heroic character. Davalos casts the character a something of a dark and tortured superhero. Luther is altruistically searching for a truth beyond a church that would steal money from its members in the form of indulgences. Morgans has a lithe charisma in the role that almost feels like it could lean over in the direction of an action hero. There’s no sense of higher-than-thou authority that so often plagues dramatic representations of holy men. It’s a really cool approach to the character being instigated by Davalos and executed by Morgans.


Hamlet Before Hamlet
Kyle Conner is a traditional Hamlet occasionally stumbling upon some of Shakespeare’s greatest lines in the school year leading-up to the events described in Shakespeare’s play. His studying with Copernicus in Poland prior to the events of this play is kind of a stroke of genius on the part of the playwright. Very cool stuff here. It’s one of the most seriosu roles in the play and it would easily get lost in all the comedy were it not for Conner’s overwhelmingly sympathetic performance here.


Jocelyn Ridgely Should Get More Work--She's Really Good
I’ve only sen her show-up around the edges of plays occasionally since I first saw her in a show with the late Bialystock and Bloom half a lifetime ago, but every time I see Jocelyn Ridgely in a show I kind of wish she could show-up in everything. She plays a series of roles here listed as being The Eternal Feminine. Yes, she plays a central figure for Faustus and the angelic mother of a certain legendary carpenter talking to Hamlet in a vision, but my favorite Ridgely in this show was a server at a bar. There’s a casual cleverness to her characterization of a casual 15th century working girl who is being taken advantage of by the church just like everybody else. It’s strikingly casual earthbound cleverness that she’s delivering here and it’s a great deal of fun around the edges of the show.


Windfall Theatre’s production of Wittenberg runs through Oct. 14 at Village Church Arts on 130 E. Juneau Ave. For ticket reservations and more, visit windfalltheatre.com. My concise review of the show runs in the next print edition of The Shepherd-Express.