March Small Stage Onscreen

Just a couple of days ago, the Milwaukee Rep announced that it would be opening-up for indoor performances starting April 27th with its production of Ella Fitzgerald: First Lady of Song. Smaller stages still wait for the COVID to clear enough to allow live audiences back in. There are quite a few shows popping-up online this coming month as COVID continues to run its course. Here’s a look at some of them:

Cosmic Fairy Tales
Theatre Gigante’s next big project turns out to be 31 Cosmic Fairy Tales written by Slovene writer Rok Vilčnik. The 31 stories are available in video format for 31 days...each one told by a different storyteller. There’s quite a range of impressive talent involved including Megan Kaminsky, Nathan Danzer, Mohammad ElBsat, Posy Knight, Evan Koepnick, Jason Powell, Nate Press and more. Gigante’s own Mark Anderson and Isabelle Kralj are also featured. Gigante refers to the project as “Thirty-one winking, blinking, curious Fairy Tales in the cosmos, offering uniquely bizarre adventures in search of the earthling heart in all of us.”

All videos are available beginning March 1st. For more information, visit Gigante online.

​The Island
Milwaukee Chamber Theatre presents a show online this month which also becomes available March 1st: Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona’s The Island. DiMonte Henning and Sherrick Robinson play a couple of cellmates in a maximum security prison. By day the two inmates work back-breaking manual labor. By night they rehearse for a prison production of Sophocles’ Antigone. The Apartheid-era drama continues to hold the kind of resonance one would expect from one of the most resepcted playwrights of the late 20th century.

The show is available for viewing with Milwaukee Chamber Theatre online starting March 1st. Tickets are $35. They go on sale March 1st. 

RE: Social/Divide
Cooperative Performance returns to the web this month with a new show. The group’s recent Embodied Truth was a compelling fusion of small-stage aesthetics that were firmly-rooted in Milwaukee. The group’s latest explores the nature of human connection in a world of digital connections made through the forced isolation that continues to impose itself on contemporary society. Andrew Coopman devised the piece. There’s a really interesting mix of talent involved in the show including Ashley Retzlaff-Rogaczewski, Allison Chicorel and a whole lot of people I don’t recall ever seeing before. If the last Cooperative Performance show was any indicator, this should be a really, really good show.

RE: Social/Divide streams on-demand March 12th-April 11th for more information, visit Cooperative Performance online.

BTC Spotlight Artist Virtual Cabaret
Brand-new local performance group Bombshell Theatre Company introduces itself with a one-night-only Virtual Cabaret featuring Broadway showtunes from Les Miserables, My Fair Lady, Chicago, Guys and Dolls and more. Eric Welch and Tim Albrechtson are joined by local talent including Eric Begendahl, Morgan Clarey, Laura Monagle and more.

Virtual Artist Cabaret hits the internet March 19th at 7pm. For more information, visit Bombshell Theatre online.

Neat
It was a little over ten years ago when Marti Gobel starred in playwight Charlayne Woodard’s  one-woman show Neat with Renaissance Theaterworks.  This March, Gobel reprises her role as Aunt Beneatha “Neat” Harris, who teaches black pride and a love of live through the ’60s and ’70s. Gobel is a great talent. The intimacy of a one-woman show online should be a great deal of fun with Gobel’s charm.

Neat runs March 19 - April 11 for more information, Visit Renaissance online.