Milwaukee Theatre opens the Autumn with a few moments of very heavy drama punctuating a largely light month of pleasant comedy. From the intimate comedy of Placeholder Players to Shakespearian romantic comedy with Boozy Bard to offbeat laughs with Next Act...it looks like a largely fun and breezy time on local small stages this month. Here’s a look. Stupid Fucking Bird Back in 1896, Anton Chekhov wrote The Seagull--a large ensemble drama involving a novelist. About ten years ago, Aaron Posner wrote Stupid Fucking Bird--a contemporary adaptation of the ensemble drama involving a struggling playwright. This September Placeholder Players present a staging of Posner’s play at Sunstone Studios on 127 East Wells Street. The ever-charismatic Zach Thomas Woods plays the playwright in question: a guy named Con. The cast includes quite a bit of talent including Mary Grace Seigel, Rick Bingen and Grace Berendt. The show runs one weekend only: September 1st - 3rd. For more information, visit Sunstone online. Significant Other The Boulevard Theatre hosts one more performance of a remarkably thoughtful and nuanced staged reading of Joshua Harmon's Significant Other in the back room of Sugar Maple this month. Director Mark Bucher has put together an impressive cast for the show including Kyle Conner, who also stars as the title character in Richard II with Voices Found Rep. It also features Grace Berendt and Mary Grace Seigel who appear in Stupid Fucking Bird...so it's kind of a cool opportunity to spot a few actors meeting-up for a quick matinee performance after a couple of shows close. Significant Other's single performance takes place on September 9th at 2pm at Sugar Maple on 411 East Lincoln Ave. For more information, visit Facebook. Love’s Labours’ Lost Four guys attempt to avoid the company of women in the interest of focussing on their studies. Naturally, they fall for the Princess of France and her ladies. It’s a fun, little premise for a Shakespearian comedy that makes its way to a fun and informal stage by way of Boozy Bard this month. Roles are chosen at random before each performance in a fun comedy environment Sep. 11th - 13th at The Best Place Tavern on 917 W Juneau Ave. For information, visit Boozy Bard’s place on Facebook. Lifehacks Milwaukee's longest-lived sketch comedy group clearly has enough experience to provide more than a few helpful tips. There's real wisdom that comes from hanging out together onstage for quite a few years. All-Woman comedy group Broadminded continues its relationship with the stage in a series of shows at The Interchange Theatre Co-Op this month. Each show is preceded by an opening act. Broadminded's Lifaehacks runs Sept. 16th - 30th. For more information visit the show's page on Eventrbrite. Splash Hatch On the E Going Down Next Act Theatre opens its season this coming month with a contemporary drama. Jada Jackson plays Thyme--a 15 year-old pregnant Harlem girl. She’s an A student who is eco-conscious and coming to terms with a great many things in a world that suffers from environmental racism. Playwright Kia Cothron touches on quite a few different very serious issues with a promising drama that debuted back in the late 1990s. The Next Act production runs Sep. 20th - Oct. 15th on 255 S. Water St. For more information, visit Next Act online. Laughs in Spanish Isa Condo-Olvera stars as the owner of a Miami art gallery that has become a crime scene in an offbeat murder comedy that opens the season for Milwaukee Chamber Theatre. It’s described as a cross between a Telenovela and a Wes Anderson movie. So in other words...it’s the perfect opening to what appears to be a really impressive season for Milwaukee Chamber. September 22nd - Oct. 8th at the Broadway Theatre Center’s Studio Theatre on 158 N Broadway. For more information, visit Milwaukee Chamber Theatre online. A Piece of My Heart Playwright Shirley Lauro explores the lives of women who served in Vietnam from their own perspective in a very gripping emotional drama that I’ve seen a couple of times before. Marquette University Theatre celebrates 100 years with a season that opens with Lauro’s drama. The show runs Sep. 29th - Oct. 8th at the Helfaer Theatre on 1304 W Clybourn St. For more information, visit Marquette University online. Three Other Sisters
Theatre Gigante closes-out the month with a show that manages to fit so many different moods...a strangely engaging fugue starring Simone Ferro, Isabelle Kralj, and Tori Watson. I’ve seen Gigante do this one once before and it’s a great deal of fun. Sep. 29th - Oct. 1st at Kenilworth 508 Theatre on 1925 E Kenilworth Place. For more information, visit the show’s page online.
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It’s been a very, very busy weekend. Milwaukee Fringe Fest lands on the same weekend as Milwaukee Irish Fest and...this year Milwaukee Irish Arts has A LOT going on with the fest in its cozy, little theatre tent overlooking the water. In and amidst three other shows in and around Milwaukee this weekend, I managed to see one of two shorts programs that MIA put together this year. Tiny Plays 2 is a program directed by Mitch Weindorf. There’s a lot of fascinating existential energy that’s rolling through the program, The program of brief interactions between iconic pairs is punctuated by whimsically strange and hauntingly poetic texts by Mark Cantan. The author suggests a few things that might be going on right now in Ireland as scenic changes are made. It’s a remarkably well-constructed, little theatrical adventure that feels cleverly buried behind all of the singing and dancing and carrying-on that goes on in and amidst the rest of the Fest. The cast is stellar. Kyle Conner slides into a staggeringly charismatic Irish accent in the role of a man who has been asked to look at a few pictures in Brendan Griffin’s “Naked Photographs of my Mother.” Isaac Brust is emotionally intricate in his end of the comic short. He also makes a memorable appearance in an encounter on a path with an old man near the beginning of the program. Conor also manages a captivatingly nonverbal performance earlier-on in the brief program where he is...opening bills. (It’s a lot more interesting than it sounds. You kind of have to be there...and you should it’s a good program.) Brittany Boeche-Vossler punctuates that nonverbal piece beautifully with a bit of song. There’s a lot of young energy that MIA is bringing to the tent this year, but it’s nice to see some experience on the stage as well. David Ferrie and Kevin Callahan do a delightful, little bit of meaningful small talk in a milking barn in “Unrequited.” Laura Monagle closes-out the program with a stunning monologue by Dermot Bolger that cuts straight to the heart of the metaphysics of theatre in a way that few scripts ever manage. Monagle is elegantly magnetic in the performance. It’s only then...only when Monagle finishes her deconstruction of everything under the power of Bolger that the weird confluence of different bits of comedy and drama turn into something magical. It’s really quite. exquisite and worth the price of admission to Irish Fest in and of itself, but y’know...there IS so much else going on as well, so it’s worth going anyway. Milwaukee Irish Arts concludes at the Theatre Pavilion at Irish Fest today, August 20th. Tiny Plays 2 will be performed today at 2pm and 6pm. For more information, visit Milwaukee Irish Arts online. An actor walks onstage at the beginning of her one-woman show and picks-up a piece of music. She reads the name at the top. She announces that it’s a piece composed by “F. Mendelssohn.” Then she asks, “which one?” This is a good question. The actor is Jennifer Vosters. She’s playing Mendelssohn. Both of them: Fannie and Felix. They were kindred spirits...literal siblings who worked together. As Vosters enters the stage, though, it isn’t entirely clear which one she’s playing. As a part of Milwaukee Fringe Festival, she’s performing the debut of Songs Without Words--a written and performed by Vosters. It’s a deeply engaging biographical narrative about brother and sister who were both great German composers from the early 19th century. The sheet music that Mendelssohn picks-up at the opening of the drama isn’t alone. There’s a large spread of music elegantly strewn across the floor. A single music stand rests in the center of it all. There’s a piano bench. Vosters wears simple black. There’s a conductor’s baton...and a hell of a lot of drama tied up in many layers of complexity as Vosters works her way through a tightly-woven narrative about two siblings, their lives and their artistic endeavors. It speaks a great deal to those who love classical music, but Vosters speaks to universals in art, life and familial love that make it a one-hour journey anyone can take. Vosters modulates through moments of triumph, anxiety and uncertainty drawn from the lives of a couple of people who were acclaimed artists of their day. Felix was recognized far more for his accomplishments than Fanny was for hers, but Vosters maintains a very textured approach to the understanding of both composers that respects the complexity of the early 19th century era that they inhabited. Vosters’ writing occasionally edges into the poetic as brother works to live-up to the potential of both himself AND his sister in an era when she would not have been entirely recognized for her own achievements. Eventually, Fanny DOES receive some recognition for her work and even manages to have a few compositions published. Vosters’ delicate handling of Felix’s feelings at the success of his sister are some of the more meticulously sophisticated moments for Vosters as actor and playwright. Not every moment lives up to the complexity. of the lives of two composers, but Vosters' charisma holds the drama together even in those rare moments that might feel a bit forced in and around the edges of the narrative. Overall Vosters has crafted a remarkable piece that explores a brother/sister relationship that also examines the challenges all artists face. Vosters’ Songs Without Words was debuted in a single performance on the Fringe, but she’s planning on doing more work with it. Judging from the reception that she received on her debut, the show would likely do VERY well with the right audiences. It’s an intimate portrayal of brother and sister that reaches very deeply into the nature of art and the core of human experience without skating along the superficial platitudes that so often accompany dramas about artists. All-in-all...it's very powerful stuff. Someone should get ahold of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. Though a larger venue would rob Vosters of some of the immediacy of the drama, it'd be really cool to see Songs Without Words accompanied and punctuate by the MSO performing work by the Mendelssohns. It'd be a hell of a concert. Seriously. Get Vosters in Bradley Symphony Center with the MSO. It'd be breathtaking. For more information on Songs Without Words, check out Vosters’ Instagram Page for the show. The debut of Vosters’ show was a part of the Milwaukee Fringe Festival, which continues in and around the Marcus Center through Saturday night. For more information, visit the Fringe Fest online. Patrick Schmitz continues to crunch through the classics with playful spoofery in another one-weekend production. This year’s Schmitz ’n’ Giggles show is a bit story of a classic tragedy as a talented comedy cast sinks it’s teeth into The Comedy of King Lear…Kinda Sorta. Adroit comic veteran Beth Lewinski plays the title role of the doomed king in a briskly moving parade of light humor. Nic Onorato plays with similarly intricate comic energies as.the Earl of Gloucester. His illegitimate son Edmund is given silly scenery-chewing over-the-top evilness by Josh Decker. The Shakesparody Players do a good job with this one. Notable performances include Jacob Woelfel as the particularly inspired janitor Pete Benson…who in this play happens to be harboring unrequited feelings for Cordelia. She is played with delightfully casual comic energy by Karah Minelli. Becky Cofta plays to a more caddy humor in the role of Cordelia’s sister Regan. Ekta Desai rounds-out the central cast as the actively scheming sister Gonerill. It’s a big ensemble, but the production still manages to play on some humor involving the size of the production. Rachel Seurer and Amarion Herbert play the gradually dwindling group of 100 knights that Lear is given to protect himself as he heads off into the cold, cruel world in self-imposed abdication. Seurer and Herbert are a lot of fun in the margins of the production as the knights and various other roles. As always, Schmitz veers away from deeper satire in favor of fun, little deviations and mutations on traditional sitcom tropes and gags. Schmitz’s comedy rushes through a high joke-per-minute ratio. With as much shooting by on the stage as there is, there is actually quite a lot of comedy of that just completely fails to hit. It’s really weird to think about this in retrospect as it is the case that so much of it IS funny. I’m not quite certain how the math works out on this, but I mean...even if only one in ten gags is good, it all shoots by so quickly that the show as a whole never really drags. A lot of what Schmitz is doing with various elements in the script is simply allowing his actors room to play. He’s been working with Lewinski for long enough that he knows he can trust her to make even very, very dull comedy absolutely sparkle. Seurer lends a whole lot of nuanced comic energy to the role of a doctor who really has no business being anywhere near as funny as she is. Schmitz goes for some of the more obvious comedy potential in the script, but Seurer does a grand job of making it work. A painfully over-worked bit of humor involving a chevron-emblazoned shirt and a pair of glasses manages to lend a bit of strangely poignant dramatic weight to the proceedings as Joel Dresang plays the mild-mannered Earl of Kent and his casually heroic alter-ego Caius. The Comedy of King Lear…Kinda Sorta runs through Saturday, August 12 at the Next Act/Renaissance Theaterworks space on 255 S. Water Street. For more information, visit Schmitz’n’ Giggles online. The summer of 2023 draws to a close with a lot of Shakespeare: Shakespeare in a bar. Shakespeare being spoofed. Shakespeare in a bar being spoofed by puppets. And then...there's this Mendelssohn thing that sounds kind of amazing too...really looking forward to that! The Comedy of King Lear (Kinda Sorta) Local comic guru Patrick Schmitz opens his latest spoof this month as he presents a doubtlessly strange take on the classic tragedy of a man who divides his kingdom up between his three daughters. It’s a really dark drama. Back in the years following the Restoration, they tried to make it a bit cheerier as it was largely considered to be overwhelmingly dark. Ultimately that approach was rejected, but maybe they didn’t go far enough. Maybe they should have gone ahead and just completely re-written it as a comedy. It could work. Schmitz 'n Giggles production runs one weekend only August 10th - 12th at the Next Act/Renaissance Theatre space on 255 S. Water St. Shakespeare RAW: Hamlet Boozy Bard performs an irreverent twist on the classic tragedy of an indecisive Emo/Goth Kid as he considers...doing things...Easily one of the best-known of Shakespeare’s plays--it’s a bit of a spoof of itself, so there’s an easy connection between it and the lovingly unprepared improv atmosphere of a Boozy Bard show. Scripts are painstakingly streamlined in advance. Actors are chosen at random to play...random roles. Somehow everything makes sense. It’s a fun approach and an equally fun atmosphere. August 14th - 16th at The Best Place Tavern on 917 W. Juneau Ave. Songs Without Words Michael Cotey directs Jennifer Vosters in a solo play about 19th century composer Felix Mendelssohn and his older sister Fanny. Vosters is good in anything, but she’s shown a great amount of appeal and charming gravity in various solo efforts she’s done online several years ago during the whole COVID thing. her Instagram page on the show has been interesting to follow. She’s fun. The show runs for one performance only at 6 pm on August 18th at the Todd Wehr Theatre as a part of Milwaukee Fringe Festival. Angry Bard: Shakespeare? I Hardly Know Her! If Vosters’ show isn't your thing, there's inadvertent counter-programming not far from the Todd Wehr, Boozy Bard will be performing a script originally written for...puppets by Angry Young Men, Ltd. It's a free Boozy Bard-style Shakespeare show that they had performed on the Fringe Fest some time ago. This year as a lead-in to the Fringe, they’re doing their Shakespeare comedy thing for free at The Best Place Tavern on 917 W. Juneau Ave. Shakespeare originally written for Puppets at a bar starts at 7:30 pm on August 18th. Then the following day, Angry Young Men help Boozy Bard do for late 19th century Russian theatre what they normally do for Shakespeare (and occasionally Dickens) with Chekhov: Half-Baked! The puppet-assisted spoofery continues at 8 pm on August 19th at the Todd Wehr Theatre as a part of Milwaukee Fringe Festival. Richard II Voices Found Repertory presents a staging of Shakespeare’s tragedy of Richard II set in the 1920s. The talented Hannah Kubiak directs the show. She’s directing a cast of just eight actors in a show that runs only eight performances. The two-hour runtime of the performance should make for a tight, little presentation of the classic drama. August 23rd - September 3rd at Inspiration Studios on 1500 S. 73rd St. in West Allis. CBS’ The Nanny ran through much of the 1990s. The six-season sitcom had over 140 episodes. A series with that kind of longevity creates an emotional spot in the pop culture consciousness that presents itself in interesting ways. This weekend, Purse String Productions presents a live parody of the series for the small stage of Sunstone Studios. It’s a TV sitcom living and breathing in a space that is simultaneously more. and less intimate than a domestic living room somewhere in the midst of the Bill Clinton era. It’s a live sitcom...with a twist. The show plays like a fusion between sketch comedy and a drag show. Everyone in the show gets an opportunity onstage alone in drag-style lip-synching in a plot that draws a little bit from a few different episodes of the series including the pilot. In all the show is 90 minutes long, but with the musical numbers there’s actually more like...a couple of episodes’ worth of comedy and some rather well-choreographed extended musical moments. To her credit, Samantha Sostarich doesn’t go for an overly grating spoof of the iconic Fran Drescher in the role of the nanny named Fran. Anyone looking to do an impression of Drescher will tend to crank-up the grating intensity of the voice. Sostarich takes an approach that embraces the distinctive nasal quirks of Drescher’s Queens-based New York accent. Sostarich is a lot of fun alone onstage in character in a nightclub with a Britney Spears song. The male lead of Mr. Sheffield is played by Lee Rydzewski, who has been performing primarily as a drag queen. This is his first time performing as a man in over a decade. There’s a clever and clean precision to Lee Rydzewski’s performance that serves the comedy well. Rydzewski’s feels kind of like...meta-drag. He’s usually onstage in drag, so being onstage as a man means is more of a drag for HIM as he’s not usually playing a man. His song comes at the end of the show and plays cleverly on the expectations an audience is going to have for a performer like him. It’s a fun moment. Brandon Herr plays Mr. Sheffield’s business partner C.C. Babcock. There’s a very engaging and emotionally sharp energy about her that takes some of the edge off of the nastiness of the character. Parker Cristan applies a very crisp presence to the role of the butler Niles. His charm suits the role well in a way that adds considerably to the ensemble dynamic of the show. Ceci Rodriguez is great fun in the role of the title character’s best friend from way back. Rodriguez has got remarkably striking comic timing and energy that works well with Samantha Sostarich’s endearing presence. Corey Richards is an audience favorite in drag as Fran’s mother Sylvia. There’s a charming friction between her Richards and Sostarich as mother and daughter that fits the tone of the sitcom perfectly. Purse String Productions’ The Nanny: A Fine Parody runs through July 16th at Sunstone Studios on 127 E Wells Street. For more information visit Purse Strings Online. I was given 300-400 words for a Shepherd-Express preview on the upcoming debut of playwright/director Tim Backes’ coming-of-age drama Embers. Backes was nice enough to take some time out to answer a few questions for me about the show. And since he was SUCH a cool guy about it he had given me a lot more than I could possibly use for that preview...SO...I’m putting the entire thing in as a Q&A for The Small Stage RUSS: Before we get into it...it occurs to me that I don’t even really know the setting side from a get-together between people who have just returned from college and I’d assumed that it was around a campfire. That’s not actually in any text that I’ve found, though. I guess I must have gotten that idea from the title and the image in the ad...and the fact that it’s being staged in a park. What exactly IS the setting? TIM BACKES: The play is taking place around an actual live bonfire! We're holding it in Grant Park for the space (audience members are bringing in their own camp chairs), but it is being held around a very cool fire pit at a facility called Wulff Lodge, which is primarily used for scout group retreats. RUSS: It’s a coming-of-age story is one that’s been explored quite a lot from a lot of different angles. Ensembles of characters are about to graduate from high school or college or they’re all going through one final thing before moving on. EMBERS is a different approach. A group of people meeting for the first time AFTER all of that on their way to the future. Where did the idea come from? TIM BACKES: When I graduated from college in 2010, it was the height of the recession. I'd been accepted to grad school, but rather than take on the additional debt I opted to move back home with my parents and figure out where to go from there. I spent about a year and a half back home, looking for a "real job" (whatever that means), and hanging out with a lot of my high school friends. It was a really strange time in my life. I felt stuck in between two worlds. Even though I'd only been gone for four years, I suddenly felt out of place, and noticed that even the nature of some of my relationships had changed. I felt a societal pressure to move forward and continue the momentum from college, but couldn't help feeling "stuck" back in my hometown. This play features characters in that same situation. They're back home after four years of college with their old friends again, but nothing's exactly as it used to be. RUSS: It can be difficult to craft a drama around a group of similar people. It appears as though the entire ensemble here is all the same age from the same background. EMBERS sounds like a very active (sometimes explosive) dynamic. Is there a great diversity of personalities between the characters? TIM BACKES: Yeah, I think it's fair to say they all have very similar backgrounds. I think that reflects my own upbringing, really--it wasn't until college and after that I really branched out in my relationships. At the same time, I really wanted to avoid writing characters that felt too cliche or trope-ridden. You've got the girl with rich parents who went out of state to an Ivy League school, but you learn that she's actually very self-aware of her privilege, and it's been eating at her. You've got a character who didn't go to school and stayed at home to take care of her ill mother. There's the guy trying desperately to recapture his high school days because he's anxious about embracing the future, and a guy who hasn't yet been able to move past college partying. My goal was to create characters that really felt real and unique from each other, even if they're in a group that feels relatively homogenous (and perhaps familiar, depending on your upbringing). RUSS: There’s the challenge in an ensemble in making the group seem cohesive too. Make them seem too different from each other and it wouldn’t seem realistic that they would WANT to hang out together for a get-together after college. How are you holding together the connections between everyone? TIM BACKES: Absolutely. I was very intentional about this as well. There are plenty of references to the "old days," which helps to accentuate the connections that are holding these characters together. There are also a few moments where the plot itself gives way to just general jokes and banter that would feel right at place in a bonfire among old friends. In these moments, the connections among the group become more understandable, but they're countered by awkward silences and brewing conflicts that show just how much some of the people of the group have changed as well. RUSS: Judging from some of what’s already been written about the show, the cast seems to be pretty close in age to the characters in the ensemble. How familiar are you with the actors that you’re working with? TIM BACKES: Two of the cast members (Jessica Calteux, Alex Trevithick) are actually former theater students of mine from South Milwaukee High School, so it has been really cool to bring them into a performing environment with other young adults who have studied or are studying theater in college. It's been a great opportunity for them, and a point of pride for me to see them holding their own among some really outstanding performers. Three of the cast members I've worked with through Greendale Community Theatre and invited them to be a part of the show because I knew they'd be fantastic (Alyssa Higley was Jo March in Little Women, Gio Greco was Mary Poppins last summer, Bella Zeimet was in the Poppins ensemble). Daniel Persino was recommended to me by Bella, who was a student with him at UWM, and Matt Gould is an acting student at Parkside who was recommended by Rachael Swartz, who runs UWP's musical theatre program. RUSS: You’ve had a lot of experience working with big ensembles. How has working on this show been different? I don’t recall you having had a whole lot of experience working on your own shows before. Obviously that’s going to be a more emotionally involved experience for you what with it being a script that you’ve written. TIM BACKES: You're correct--this is actually the first full-length show of mine I've ever staged. I did write an original virtual production for my high school students during the pandemic. This has been the most unique theatrical experience I've ever been a part of. First, there's the fact that this was indeed my own writing. It was a really scary thing to share my own writing with other people, and I had to get past that vulnerability. The process itself is also unique. We've been rehearsing in my backyard to get used to being outside and working with a fire. I've never been a part of any outdoor production before, but I wrote this play with an outdoor performance in mind. And yes, emotionally, this process has hit me hard. From receiving praise about the script to hearing the words spoken aloud for the first time, and now seeing it all come together for a performance, it's incredibly fulfilling and I'm so grateful. I lost my dad unexpectedly in December and he was a writer himself, and that served as some inspiration for me to get this play finished and out into the world, and the combination of that with the unique experience of seeing your own work come to life has been really powerful. And I've had some really emotionally powerful theatrical experiences (Next to Normal in 2017 with All In Productions comes to mind, as does our SMHS production of Tuck Everlasting on the eve of the pandemic), but I'm not sure I've ever had one that filled me up quite like this. RUSS: And, of course, working on a script that you’ve written holds open the option of being really dynamic with the script as well. You could change the script in the rehearsal process. Has the script changed at all in the process of putting the show together? TIM BACKES: Honestly, not as much as I expected. There have been a few small adjustments, but it's mostly stayed as written. What has been really cool is watching my own understanding and perception of some characters or scenes change based on the way the actors have delivered their lines or embodied their characters. Like, I wrote the play, but they've made me think about the characters from different perspectives than I'd initially done, which has been really awesome and unexpected. Tim Backes’ EMBERS opens tonight and runs one weekend only: July 13 - 15 at Wulff Lodge in South Milwaukee. For mor information, visit the show’s Facebook Events Page. The crowd was packed at The Best Place Tavern. It was 7:30 pm and it looked like everyone was wearing horns. It must have been something to do with the summer. Or maybe it had something to do with The Merry Wives of Windsor. Boozy Bard Productions’ Shakespeare Raw is hosting a decidedly unprepared staging of the classic comedy at the beginning of this week. It opened last night. Stephen M. Wolterstorff serves as a warm and welcoming host for the evening. Opening night had suspiciously perfect casting. Nick Firer found himself in the role of arrogant bastard Sir John Falstaff. Firer had mentioned online that he hadn’t acted in 4 months, but the man has some excellent comic instincts which served him well in the middle of the ensemble. Firer had a very relaxed approach to this stage. There was a casually drunken fatigue comically lounging about his portrayal that served the role well. Falstaff’s total confidence, mixed cleverly with an exhaustion that amplified the subtle end of a very-unsubtle Shakespearian sitcom. Brian Bayer showed similarly sharp comic instincts in the role of Falstaff’s sidekick Pistol. Brian also continued his tradition of performing a song at intermission inspired by the show. ‘90s pop twisted its way around a the comedy of Falstaff in the Thames in a laundry basket. Bayer’s sharpest moment involved a rather unexpected Johnny Cash parody song that fit almost perfectly into the comedy’s climax. The free and open environment of the improv-style Shakespeare works well with the sitcom-like energy of Merry Wives. Dramas can have a tendency to be a bit hit-or-miss with the Shakespeare Raw format, but a light comedy like Merry Wives feels like the perfect fit. The tragedies can occasionally strike it brilliant onstage with Boozy Bard, but the comedies are reliable fodder for the group. As always, the cast reads directly from scripts throughout the course of the performance. There’s a delightful sense of informality about that which is better suited to comedy than it is to tragedy. Characters seem somewhat lost in their own thoughts somewhere between the page and the stage. There is clearly a sense of playfulness about it. A story of trickery and deception seems to ricochet around the stage all the more wildly without any sense of elaborate preparation. At its best moments, it really DOES feel like anything can happen. Director Drea Roedel-Schroeder does a really good job of holding everything together. The energy on opening night of this particular run felt coherent and cohesive. That doesn't always happen. There are a lot of elements that go into well-executed stage chaos. Roedel-Schroeder has fostered a really fun energy for a really fun show. Early-on in the evening before the show gets started, the cast assembles in the space’s balcony for one final huddle. Opening night Drea could be seen leaning over the balcony and looking directly an actor sitting below as all the rest of the actors were assembled above. There's a light tone in her voice: “Don’t make me come down there.” The actor in question moved more or less immediately. It’s a fun atmosphere. The energy moved quickly and fluidly opening night. Boozy Bard’s. Production of The Merry Wives of Windsor (Raw) continues through Wednesday,, July 12th at The Best Place in the Historic Pabst Brewery on 917 West Juneau Avenue. For more information, visit the show’s Facebook Events Page. July is going to be kind of a weird month in local theatre. Yes, there IS going to be the traditional visits with Shakespeare. (And this month I get to see two Shakespeare shows on consecutive nights, which should be fun.) Also...there IS going to be at least one Broadway-style musical, but...things get a little weird as well. Sir John Falstaff, Helen Keller, the Nanny Named Fran, Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion and the Wicked Witch of the West. Here’s a look at some of what lies ahead the month of July. Cymbeline Optimist Theatre returns to Milwaukee area parks this summer with a production of Shakespeare’s romance Cymbeline. As in years past, Optimist has put together a remarkable cast for the production including Ken Williams, Libby Amato, Michael Stebbins, Susie Duecker, and Zachary Woods. Ron Scot Fry directs the show. Optimist always does such a good job of putting together stylish productions that can easily sneak into a section of a park, weave a little Shakespeare and then...vanish like they were little more than a strange dream. The show runs for an hour and a half without intermission and it explores innocence, jealousy and love. The show runs July 9 - Aug. 13. For more information, visit Optimist Theatre online. Shakespeare RAW: The Merry Wives of Windsor Y’know...Sit John Falstaff’s natural habitat would appear to be a bar. The legendarily comic knight makes his way to The Best Place Tavern this month courtesy of Boozy Bard in its production of The Merry Wives. It’s hard to imagine a more perfect fit for a casual night at a bar. So...who’s playing Falstaff? That’s going to depend on the night and the whims of the casting director...that just happens to be a hat. Roles are determined at random at the beginning of each performance in a fun sort of an improv kind of an atmosphere. The. show runs Monday through Wednesday July 10th -12th. For more information, visit the show’s Embers This month, playwright Tim Backes debuts a coming-of-age drama at Wulff Lodge in Grant Park. The Milwaukee County Park lodge should serve as a warm and inviting place for Backes’ coming-of-age story of a group of friends who meet-up four years after high school graduation. What was intended to be an opportunity for the group to meet-up and get nostalgic turns into something altogether more dramatic as secrets are revealed and friendships shift. The showm which is produced by Backes in partnership with Milwaukee County Parks, runs July 13 - 15 on 215 S. Lake Drive in South Milwaukee. For more information, visit the show’s Facebook events page. The Miracle Worker William Gibson’s adaptation of the real-life story of Helen Keller welcomes outdoor audiences courtesy of Summerstage of Delafield. The peaceful space of Lapham Peak State Park should match the overall mood of Colbert County Alabama in the late 19th century. Helen Keller’s relationship with her teacher Annie Sullivan should be a very natural fit for the organic feel of outdoor theatre. The drama is directed. by Elaine Rewolinski. It runs July 13th – 29th in Delafield. For more information, visit Summerstage online. The Nanny: A Fine Parody Purse String Productions will be staging a spoof on the popular 1990s sitcom. Typically TV sitcoms are kind of a weird thing to try to put on the local live stage, but...this one looks like it’s got a really fun cast Samantha Sostarich is brilliant with light comedy. She’s going to be playing the Fran Drescher role. Parker Cristan plays the butler Niles. Ceci Rodriguez plays Fran’s longtime friend Val. The show runs one weekend only July 14 - 16. For more information, visit Purse Strings’ Facebook Page. The Prom Greendale Community Theatre celebrates its 20th anniversary Summer show with The Prom--a really cool idea for a musical based on real-life events. Back in 2010, a student at a high school in Mississippi planned to attend her senior prom with her girlfriend. The school banned her from attending. With the aid of the ACLU, she successfully sued the school district, which promptly caused the school to cancel the prom altogether. The drama continued from there. Six years later, a Broadway musical was based on the real-life drama. At the end of this month, GCT stages a production of the musical. The show runs July 27th - August 5th at Greendale High School Auditorium on 6801 Southway in Greendale. For more information, visit GCT online. The Wizard of Oz
Courtney Denzer stars as Dorothy in Bombshell Theatre Co.’s upcoming production of the beloved fantasy The Wizard of Oz. The land of Oz heads. to the stage of the Broadway Theatre Center in a big staging featuring costuming, puppetry. (The crows that popped-up on Bombshell’s Facebook feed look adorable.) Those crows and a whole lot of other elements that should have little difficulty bringing the fantasy to life onstage. The show runs July 28th - August 6th. For more information, visit Bombshell Theatre online. The Pink House is a cozy, little space in Riverwest. People gather around a tiny stage for a show that runs for two performances. One weekend only. The 7pm show opens the program. April Biggs’ Sick Girl feels like an oddly pleasant and deeply engaging trip to the doctor’s office crossed with an art installation and an abstract narrative dance performance. (Audience members are handed clipboards and intake forms on the way into the performance space.) Biggs is radiant. I’ve reviewed THAT performance for The Shepherd-Express.
After intermission, the program returns. It’s a provocative, little three-performance show that’s being presented by 53212 Presents. It’s a show called TRIP/syck. You should go. Really. It’s fun. It’s a fusion of different narrative styles that don’t often make it...anywhere. So it’s really cool to see this sort of thing presented onstage. Selena Milewski’s Biopic follows the intermission. It’s an exploration into phantoms of biography and mediated reality through the lens of popular cinema. There’s a pre-recorded bit that’s projected onto the wall--a mutated isotope of an Academy Awards telecast. She’s hosting the ceremony while presenting an award for a category in which she’s the only one who has been nominated. Milewski stars in weird fragments of nonexistent feature films which play out on the wall as a living Selena dances in the projection. It’s hypnotic. Milewski has the kind of striking beauty and magnetic presence that fits well into a glowing rectangle. There’s no question that she’d be good for big money projects in two-dimensions, but there’s something alive living in the projection...and it’s her. Cinema and video produced by Zeze Schorsch are projected onto the wall. They play with corpses of what’s already been and there they are projected against the screen in biographical mutation as a very real and living Selena dances around in the light cast from the past. Very cool stuff...and a clever (if possibly inadvertent) satire on the nature of film as art on the precipice of the SAG strike that’s coming at month’s end. So much money is cast into the yawning pit of creative energy in LA. The live stage in all its many forms is capable of so much more than anything that’s restlessly being projected on so many vapid multiplex screens all over the country. It’s so much more when it’s alive...especially on intimate, little floorboards somewhere West of the river. The program ends with a weird, little tour de force of trippy disorientation called Afternoon of Fawning. It’s a mind-warping deconstruction of performance. Forrest Jackson, Posy Knight and Zeze Schorsch are rehearsing a show that they’re performing...as they’re performing it they’re rehearsing it. Basic relationships break apart nonlinearly as the narrative slides around itself looking for the right diagonals...looking for the right rhythms. Everything’s unfixed on some level of being live as video of the audience and actors shot from various angles are projected against the wall. We’re the audience and we’re in it as they’re in it and we’re all looking into it and around it. Schorsch and Knight and Jackson play mutated amplifications of themselves as light and life are haphazardly refracted through the video in uneasy projection through. every reflection. There’s good beer and snacks too. And wine. It’s like a gallery opening or something. In Riverwest. TRIP/syck: a collection of 3 intimate studio showings is presented by 53212 Presents at The Pink House on 601 East Wright Street. For more information, visit 53212 Presents online. |
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April 2024
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