It’s a tiny, little motel room in Memphis in April of 1968. It’s modest. There’s a chair and a couple of beds. It’s raining outside, but the outside is inside. The motel room is onstage in Milwaukee in the March of 2024. It’s an intimate, little space in a studio theatre. Bryant Bentley plays Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the last night of his life. N'Jameh Russell-Camara plays a woman working at the motel on the first day of her new job. Directed by Dimonte Henning, the drama settles-in quickly amidst the onstage rainstorm and quickly settles its way into the drama of life at the center of the civil rights movement during the late 1960s. The drama grabs hold of the stage and doesn’t let go for a full 100 minutes or so without intermission. It opens in an earthbound search for cigarettes in the middle of the rain and ends in a fantastically nebulous space that still manages to find a deep grounding in the heart of human emotion. Henning orchestrates things with a fairly deft mastery of the shift from realism to something more than realism. It’s a gradual shift that sometimes runs the risk of lurching forward too far into something bigger, but Henning keeps everything onstage firmly focussed on the heart of matters for long enough to keep it all totally emotionally captivating from beginning to end. The balance between realism and something else is a very, very difficult thing to manage given the nature of the drama. This is the last night of a man who has become a legend. This is the motel room in the evening--backstage in the theatre of human endeavor before his death on the balcony beyond the front door the next morning. Bentley is handed one of the most difficult jobs imaginable onstage. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Is a force of nature in US history. His name instantly conjures images and audio of unimaginable gravity that echo through the decades. No one actor could do justice to that legend onstage. Playwright Katori Hall isn’t focussing on the legend, though--she’s focussing on the man. Bentley provides a solid emotional grounding for a man who knew that there were people who wanted him dead...a man in desperate need of a cigarette who was suffering from stresses of all kinds. Bentley cleverly renders those stresses for the stage. N’Jameh Russell-Camara is handled the job of doing much of the heavy lifting in shifting the background of the play from simple historical drama to something much heavier. She manages the transformation with grace and poise as she plays one of the countless, nameless victims of racial violence that have tragically etched themselves into the soul of the US throughout history. N’Jameh Russell-Camara is playing a woman on her first day on a new job. The tension of untested energies in that role cascade through the actress with emotional acrobatics that render an impressively complex picture of a single person meant to represent so many others. Milwaukee Chamber Theatre’s production of The Mountaintop runs through March 24th at the Broadway Theatre Center’s Studio Theatre. For ticket reservations and more, visit Milwaukee Chamber Theatre online.
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There’s a primal emotional intensity in ASL that doesn’t often make it to stage or screen. Truly impassioned sign language is capable of delivering a deeply affecting emotional intensity that words alone aren’t capable of delivering. This month, Skylight Music Theatre illuminates the overwhelming emotion of the grunge rock musical Spring Awakening with high-intensity sign for a truly unique theatrical experience that is unlikely to be duplicated again in any other format for quite som time. Based on the 1891 German drama of the same name, the 2006 rock musical Spring Awakening follows a class of kids in a private high school coming-of-age in an era of repressive social norms and catatonically stifling societal control over the individual. In the midst of a large ensemble dealing with a great many problems, Wendla and Melchior enter into a dangerous romance that threatens to tear their lives apart completely. Somewhere in the periphery, Melchior’s friend Moritz suffers from intense desires he does not comprehend as scholastic stresses threaten to cave-in around him. The Skylight has done a phenomenal job of staging a fusion between traditional rock musical and ASL drama. Every character is accompanied in some fashion by sign language...except for the towering figures of authority, (played with forceful dominance by Joel Kopischke and Karen Estrada.) When the lead faculty of the school speak, their words are projected larger-than-life against the bare backdrops of the main stage at the Broadway Theatre Center. Everyone else communicates in sign...in AND out of song. In-your-face grunge rock is performed with amplified emotionality as the entire chorus performs the lyrics accompanying infectiously catchy grunge-inspired songs with names like “The Bitch of Living,” “My Junk” and “Totally Fucked.” At the center of it all is the romance between Wendell and Melchior which plays out in tandem between two different sets of actors...Erin Rosenfeld and Caden Marshall sign the drama in the center of the action between the two romantic leads as Emma Knott and Edie Flores speak and sing the action in the periphery in nearly identical period costume. The intensity of everything in the show is deeply rooted in a story that...seems to cover just about every “adult” topic in some way on some level. The musical stops just short of what would be beyond the pale of an NC-17 rating at the multiplex. It’s beautifully vulgar in places as it treads into horrifyingly dark parts of the human soul. The Skylight’s Spring Awakening feels like a once-in-a-lifetime show that really SHOULDN’T be once-in-a-lifetime. The musical theatre format is capable of being so very, very fluid and amorphous. The intensity of dramatic passions then to get drizzled-away in the tedium of contemporary musical theatre. The rock of Spring Awakening keeps it all very powerful and vital throughout while the ASL ground the visual reality of those emotions in something irresistibly palpable. Over-priced mainstream musical theatre can’t do this. It’s SO very cool that Skylight CAN. Skylight Music Theatre’s production of Spring Awakening runs through March 17th at the Broadway Theatre Center on 158 N. Broadway. For ticket reservations and more, visit Skylight online. Heidi Armbruster is onstage as an actress. It’s a comfy, little set with a feeling of the infinite Wisconsin farmland stretching-out beyond a tiny, little living room in a farmhouse. Jason Fassl’s Lighting design, gives a warmth to a farmland infinity that feels every big as spacious and open as any cozily distant as the abstract idealization of farmland in American Midwest. Armbruster’s playing a big-city actress who has come to her father’s farm to try to figure things out. He’s suffering from terminal cancer and she’s coming to terms with her own life. She’s looking for meaning in memories at the end of one life while looking for some deeper connection in her own. Directed by Laura Gordon, actress/playwright Heidi Armbruster’s Scarecrow is a deeply engaging hour and a half at the theater. Armbruster moves from personal life to professional life two more abstract concerns. Armbruster is wit has a and endlessly endearing quirkiness about it, but isn't afraid to be slightly less than relatable. She is one of those actresses you see in pharmaceutical commercials playing the mom. And she's got out wit and wisdom about it that really resonates through some very clever and sharply-comic ambient sound design by Joe Cerqua. Armbruster keeps having fantasies about living our life in a Lifetime-Style movie and Cerqua brilliantly nails the made-for-TV scoring cues as Fassl’s lighting transitions into something that feels like it’s glowing through a video screen. All too often when once writing something autobiographical that's meant to engage a large number of people, of a tend to go in the direction of being very generic. Armbruster leans into the things that make her unique and it presents them in a way that feels very distinctive. For an hour and a half audiences get to hang out with a really enjoyable person. We’re not hanging out with somebody just talking about family life or love life or even the loss of a parent. Scarecrow renders something profoundly more distinctive and engaging. It's remarkable. And it feels remarkably fresh. Like a single actress telling her story on stage has happened countless times over the decades. But Armbruster makes her own impact as an individual through a very striking way, distinctive evening of stories told her on the edge of the life of her own father. There are similarities between Armbruster's Scarecrow and Julia Sweeney’s one-woman show And God Said Ha! Sweeney’s mid-1990s tale of her life as a working actress while dealing with her brothers cancer echo is a bit into Armbruster's more contemporary story of her life as a working actress dealing with her father’s cancer. Overall, there's a very similar feel between the two shows. However, in leading into more of who she is as a person, and who she is as a character, Armbruster has found a very unique performance that finds its own life through some endlessly enduring humor. Armbruster asserts herself onstage wonderfully. She’s that actress working along the margins of a large ensemble in some big, local production. And she’s a mother juggling everything and dealing with migraines on a pharmaceutical commercial. But more than that, she’s a warm, welcome and welcoming presence onstage that shines all the more radiantly all by herself. Next Act’s production of Scarecrow runs through March 27th at Next Act’s home on 255 S. Water St. For ticket reservations and more, visit Next Act online. A strict 19th century European school serves as a potent backdrop to one of the more intense and provocative contemporary rock musicals to come out of the past few years. There’s a raw intensity to the music. The show comes across like a rock concert that just happens to be telling a very powerful story. The music fuses with the story on a very deep emotional level. Skylight Music Theatre presents its production in the final days of winter March 1st - 17th at the Broadway Theatre Center on 158 N. Broadway. Michael Unger and Alexandria Wailes direct. For more information, visit Skylight online. Sophocles' tragic tale of Antigone finds its way to the stage for two performances one night only this month as Vanguard Productions presents a new adaptation of the drama. Chantae Miller and Matt Daniels star in a reading that also features Leo Madson, Jake Badovski, Josie Trettin, Shanti Lleone, Maya Danks, and Elliott Brotherhood. The show. runs Monday, March 4th at 5pm and 8pm at Calvary Presbyterian Church on 628 N 10th St, For more information, visit the show's Eventbrite page. Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop is an intimate look at one of the most influential peacemakers of the last 100 years. Bryant Bemtley stars as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Hotel the night before his assassination. N’Jameh Russel-Camara plays a woman working the hotel who has a conversation with King. Dimonte Henning directs a close-up portrait of one of the legendary figure on one of the smallest stages in Milwaukee. The two-person drama makes the small stage at Broadway Theatre Center on 158 N Broadway. March 8th - 24th. For more information, visit Milwaukee Chamber Theatre Online. He’s not as well-known for his earliest work...partially because it’s silent film-era stuff that has been lost to history. This month Theatre Gigante presents one of the acclaimed director’s few surviving silent films as it screens The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog. The 1928 film is the story of a serial killer who only kills young, blonde women on Tuesday evenings. The film is presented live with original scoring by the tiny, little orchestral powerhouse that is Frank Pahl’s Little Bang Theory. The show runs for one performance only: Sunday, March 10th at 3 pm at the Jan Serr Studio Theatre on 1925 E. Kenilworth Place. For more information, visit Theatre Gigante online. Full Frontal Puppetry returns this month for World Puppetry Day. (It's a real thing. Look it up.) The 8-Bit Show is a one-performance-only variety show featuring the Full Frontal Puppets and its newest member: a fuzzy, brown guitarist named Deep Fried. Sounds like a fun show. Thursday, March 21st at the Brick House on 504 E. Center St, The Constructivists open a promising new 60-minute satire this month. Director Jaimelyn Gray welcomes audiences to an hour at the end of the world with the musical group Oconomowocapella. A Cappocalypse! sounds like a deliciously absurd concept for an intimate, little burst of comedy early this Spring. Conceived by Andrew Hobgood and Joe Lino, the comedy features Andrea Ewald, Ekene Ikegwuani, Joe Lino, Logan Milway, Clayton Mortl, Anya Palmer, Matthew Scales, Kellie Wambold, and Ben Yela. The show opens just a couple of nights after the Spring Equinox at Zao Mke Church on 2319 E Kenwood Blvd. The show runs March 23rd - April 6th. For more information, visit The Constructivists online.
February is an interesting mix of action comedy and drama in s number of cozy, little producctions that are opening in the final full month of winter. Stages heat-up amidst what is expected to be an unseasonably warm February in Milwaukee, Back in 2005, American author Rick Riordan developed a series of children’s fantasy novels featuring the characters from Greek mythology walking around in the 21st century. The Percy Jackson Chronicles has inspired movies, video games and TV shows. It also serves as inspiration for a live stage musical which is being produced by First Stage. The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical is based in the first novel in the series. It comes to the small stage at the Marcus Center. Director Jeff Frank conjures a modern sequel to Ancient Greek myth February 3 - March 10. For ticket reserevations and more, visit First Stage online. A young white playwright pens a script about the African American experience. It’s been selected for a major play festival. It’s a bad idea that turns worse in a dark comedy that explores race relations and a whole lot more. Jeff Talbott’s The Submission makes an appearance late this wonder as Theatrical Tendencies presents an intimate production of the play at Inspiration Studios on 1500 S. 73rd St. in West Allis. Directed by Mark E. Schuster, the production features Christopher Orth, Jaleesa Joy, Matthew Umstot and Kevin J. Gadzalinkski. The show runs Feb. 16 - 25. For ticket reservations and more, visit Theatrical Tendencies online. Next Act continues its season with a show that opens late this coming month. Laura Gordon directs palywright/Perfoerm Heidi Armbruster in a production of her one-woman show Scarecrow. She’s playing a big city actress who finds herself back home soon her family Wisconsin dairy farm. The promo copy compares Armbruster’s story to the type of thing seen on the Hallmark Movie Channel. The intimate stage Next Act shares with Renaissance on south Water St. has hosted some remarkable one-actor shows in the past. The cozy stage should find welcome home for Armbruster’s tale. Heidi Armbruster’s Scarecrow runs Feb. 21- Mar 17 on 255 S. Water St. For more information, visit Next Act online. A couple of Mo Willems’ beloved characters get another moment onstage as First Stage presents Elephant & Piggies “We Are In A Play!” Director/choreographer Michelle LoRicco welcomes James Carrington and Rachel Zientek in the lead roles they played a few years back for First Stage back in the 2019/2020 season. The two seasoned actors play the two beloved characters as they settle-into their space onstage...slowly realizing how best to be in the show that...they’re in. It’s a fun, casually metaphysical show for even the youungest theatergoers. 45 minutes long, the show is ideal for kids ages 3 - 9. It runs Feb. 24 - Mar. 17.
Back in 1980, Universal Pictures released a musical fantasy for cinema featuring songs performed by the Electric Light Orchestra and Australian pop diva Olivia Newton-John (who also starred in t the film.) In spite of the presence of Gene Kelly (in his final performance) and Newton-John’s post-Grease / pre Physical popularity, the movie was a critical and commercial failure. Retro fashion eventually gives everything a second chance, though. The bizarrely surreal Solid Gold-era, post-disco / pre-MTV 1980 musical has become popular enough to launch a contemporary live stage musical adaptation which makes its way to the Broadway Theatre Center this winter as The Skylight presents Xanadu. Kaitlin Feely stars as ancient Greek muse Kira who has come to Southern California in 1980 in the interest of helping a struggling artist named Sonny Malone. Mitchell Gray is fun as a lovable doofus spoof of the original character who falls hard for a woman on rollerskates who turns out to be a magical being. Sonny ultimately finds success while opening a roller disco named...Xanadu. In a fusion between the plot of the original movie and inspiration drawn from 1981’s Clash of the Titans, Kira’s life is thrown into chaos courtesy of her older sister Melpomene. Molly Rhode goes delightfully over the top in the role of the arch-villain. The music fuses Sonny’s boss (played by James Sloyan in the movie) with the classy, old Gene Kelly character into a single identity that is played with dapper style by Rick Richter. The design team on the show does a staggeringly good job of fusing together elements of early 1980s sparkly post-disco visuals that more or less perfectly nail the height of pop fashion in the year 1980. The retro 1940s that also make an appearance on the stage are particularly strong in a musical number that fuses swing music with early 1980s hard rock. Choreographer Stephanie Staszak did an exquisite job of bringing both dance styles together onstage in a musical number that works MUCH better onstage now than it did onscreen back in 1980. I realize that choreography for cinema is a completely different thing than putting it together onstage. And I know that a lot of it has to do with editing as well, but the 1980 film made the “Dancin’” dance number feel a bit odd and mechanical. Staszak does a staggeringly impressive job of juggling the 1940s with the 1980s in a strikingly memorable moment. Feely is a great deal of fun as Kira. The book leans pretty far into spoofing Olivia Newton-John. (And to be fair...a spritely, little Greek muse skating around with an Australian accent IS pretty silly.) Feely swimmingly carries cosmic comic cuteness across the stage with a delightfully exaggerated Aussie accent as she gracefully glides around on roller skates for much of the entire 90 minutes of the show. Feely’s irresistible energy carries the weirdness of a throughly enjoyable musical. The Skylight’s production of Xanadu runs through Feb. 11 at the main stage on 158 N. Broadway. For ticket reservations and more, visit the Skylight online. For the most part, it’s just two people talking. It’s not always the SAME two people, but for the most part, A Moon For the Misbegotten is just two people talking. It’s the smallest canvas imaginable, but what playwright Eugene O'Neill did with it is absolutely stunning on so many different levels. This winter, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre explores O’Neill’s romantic drama with fierce intensity that has been deftly delivered to the stage by director Mary MacDonald Kerr. Set around a small shack on the edge of everything, the drama resonates with powerful emotion on the intimate studio theatre stage of the Broadway Theatre Center.
As the drama opens, Josie is aiding her brother Mike to leave the tiny farm ruled over by their alcoholic father. A.J. Magoon has a respectable presence as a man about to head out in the general direction of a coming-of-age drama that O’Neill had no interest in telling. He’s far more interested in those who get left behind as others leave. (That’s kind of the whole focus of the drama.) Kelly Doherty is deeply engaging as Josie--the daughter of an aging tenant farmer played by Milwaukee theatre veteran James Pickering. O’Neill settles much of the early part of the drama between Josie and her father Phil. Pickering’s grizzled charisma carries his end of the drama with a witty weariness that feels a few shades wiser than Phil would like anyone to know. Doherty and Pickering have an exquisite dynamic. It isn’t easy for a couple of actors to convincingly pretend like they’ve spent the bulk of every day together for the better part of a couple of decades. (The audience is so often doing a lot of work in completing the illusion.) Pickering and Doherty make the audience’s job of completing the illusion of familial familiarity deliciously easy. The two actors have a clever awareness of the rhythms and motions of daily life between a father and daughter who are too emotionally exhausted to do anything but love each other. It may not LOOK like they do, but there’s a real affection that shines through the edges of the frustration and animosity that tangles its way through the early going of the play. La Shawn Banks is an earthbound specter in the role of Phil’s landlord James Tyrone, Jr.--a well-educated guy who is too busy waiting around for the future to realize that he’s already dead. There’s a dreamy restlessness about Banks as he glides and floats through the ghostlike existence of a man who spends most of his waking hours drunk and most of his sleep in the vacant nightmare of his waking life. Doherty and Banks share an inescapable gravity as Phil bares his soul to Josie in a casually riveting emotional connection between two people on the edge of an ending as the play draws to its crushingly inevitable conclusion. Milwaukee Chamber Theatre’s production of A Moon For the Misbegotten runs through Feb. 4 at the Broadway Theatre Center. For more information, visit Milwaukee Chamber Theatre online. The Field The soccer field bend into the vertical. There’s an impenetrable wall of turf at the far end of the stage. Scenic Designer Doug Dion delivers a powerful visual image for Renaissance Theaterworeks’ production of The Wolves. Playwright Sarah SeLappe’s relentless, fast-paced comedic coming-of-age drama is brought to Renaissance’s cozy studio theatre stage on South Water Street with heart and passion courtesy of a cast of actors from the First Stage Young Company. It’s a highly concentrated ensemble drama that hits the stage with an irresistible fury of energy. I’d seen a production at Marquette not too long ago. I was quite happy to see it come to the stage again in an all-new production with Renaissance. The Format It’s contemporary suburban America. An indoor soccer field. A group of nine girls warm-up and prepare for a few games over the course of the quick pulse of 90 minutes without intermission. They are The Wolves. They’re genuinely good. Very competitive. Their lives unfold in a series of pre-game exercises that rush across the AstroTurf that’s been cleverly committed to the stage by Dion. There are...a lot of soccer balls. The ensemble is actually practicing. Nets lower into place to ensure no errant balls fly into the audience. The Pace “The play should take ninety minutes,” Sara DeLappe. (The page before the Author’s Notes.) It’s a cast of nine girls. There’s a hell of a lot going on in all of their lives. DeLappe does a remarkable job of weaving them through an impressively diverse amount of stress on and off field. Pacing is absolutely essential to the show otherwise the central insanity of life on the precipice of adulthood is completely lost. Director Elyse Edelman is remarkably precise with the timing and intensity of a drama that goes WELL beyond the standard cliches of a youth sports drama. Action rushes around the stage and through the aisles. Conversations overlap conversations overlapping other conversations. The cast does laps and their voices can be heard echoing into the theatre from the lobby. It’s an engagingly immersive experience. The Cast
It’s SO cool that Renaissance was able to work with. A cast entirely composed of kids from First Stage’s Young Company. So often college kids are found playing high school kids on stage and screen. There’s something powerfully visceral about a group of actual teens playing teenagers that feels that much more intense. There are some impressively fierce performances in the ensemble. Alice Rivera is cool and competent as the slightly awkward team captain #25. Ryan Bennett makes quite a dramatic and charismatic statement as the gruff #7...a rough and tumble striker who arguably gets knocked around more than anyone else in the ensemble. Lorelei Wesselowski grants Bennett a bit of gravity in the role of #7’s sidekick at midfield. Reiley Fitzsimmons is quirkily magnetic as the new girl #46. Madison Jones delivers compellingly awkward inner stress to the stage as the unlucky #2. Josie Van Slyke has a crazy energy about her as the witty #13. Maya Thomure lends a sharp sense of perspicacity to the production as the articulate #11. High school freshman Natalie Ottman plays to the energetic strengths of a very childlike #8. Elena Marking shows great strength in the role of the Goalie #0. DeLappe gives the goalie an explosive moment alone onstage...and it could be very, very difficult to make that work, but Marking does a jaw-droopingly impressive job of control dramatic combustion during that moment. The sole adult in the production--Marcella Kearns provides potent punctuation as a soccer mom at the end of the play. Renaissance Theaterworks’ production of The Wolves runs through February 11th. For ticket reservations and more, visit Renaissance Theaterworks online. 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.
The month of December features a skewed look at the familiar. From a tale of WWI to a lovingly skewered approach to classic Dickens, fun, music, sin and more...this December feels like a really enjoyable mix of different elements to close out the year of 2023--a remarkably satisfying year in Milwaukee theatre. It was five months into WWI. Things were bleak on the Western front. Opposing forces decided to take a pause from killing each other to celebrate Christmas. It’s a beautiful story in its own way, but it’s also very, very haunting. This December Vanguard Productions presents a dramatic adaptation of the history with All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914. Playwright Peter Rothstein’s adaptation of the story features musical arrangements by Wrick Lichte and Timothy C.Takach. Vanguard’s production runs Dec. 1 - 10 at Calvary Presbyterian Church on 628 N 10th St. For ticket reservations and more, visit the show’s page on Eventbrite. The Holidays are the PERFECT time to reflect on humanity’s shortcomings. (And really...when ISN’T it a good time to do that?) The Constructivists take a festive dive into the darker end of humanity this December with A Very Deadly Constructivists Holiday. The show celebrates the seven deadly sins with a series of shorts featuring true stories of people being bad brought to the stage in a variety of different ways. It’s a clever bit of counter-programming conceived and directed by Jamielyn Gray featuring Andrea Ewald, Ekene Ikegwuani, Nicole McCarty, Nate Press, Matt Specht, Kellie Wambold, and Ben Yela. The show runs December 6 - 9 at Zao MKE Church on 2319 East Kenwood Boulevard. For more information, visit the show’s page on MKE Tickets.Com The talented Marcella Kearns directs the First Stage Young Company in a staging of Shakespeare’s classic drama of war, passion and power as it presents Henry IV Part 1. The Young Company strips a very large and unwieldly drama down to its most immediate essence. Kearns works with a group of actors who are only just beginning their exploration of the stage...launching themselves into one of Shakespeare’s coming-of-age story of Prince Hal growing into the man who would become King Henry V. The show runs December 8 - 17 at the Milwaukee Youth Art Center on 929 N. Water Street. For more information, visit First Stage online. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol might be the single most universally-known story...in existence. It’s been adapted so many different ways in so many different forms over many, many years. It’s a cozy story for the holidays that touches on quite a few different sentiments. And since it IS so familiar to so many people, it’s a perfect match for Boozy Bard’s format. Once again this holiday season the wildly informal comedy group stages an unrehearsed series of performances of the classic with A Christmas Carol: RAW! Actors choose roles at random and perform the beloved tale from scripts in a sketch/improv comedy sort of environment. The show makes it to a couple of different venues this year. December 10 - 12 the show will be staged at The Best Place at the Historic Pabst Brewery on 917 W Juneau Ave and December 15 and 16 the show is staged at Hawthorne Coffee Roasters at 4177 S Howell Ave. For more information, visit Boozy Bard’s Facebook page.
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