October on Small Stage and Smaller Screen

There's a mix coming this month in Milwaukee theatre. There are big shows. There are small shows. Some of them are onscreen. Some of them are onstage. Here's a little bit of what to expect. 

One of the more interesting local shows this month will appear online. Brit Nicole worked with staff and volunteers at the Tricklebee Cafe to explore the drama of a pay-what-you-can restaurant at the center of a food desert.

Contemporary society has had a love-hate relationship with larger-than-life heroes. The Everyman drama emerged...I guess at some point in the 1500s and has been around ever since. In more recent years British author Alan Moore suggested the need to move into a post-heroic era. It’s a noble idea, but storytelling is a basic need at the heart of all intelligence and there is always someone at the heart of a story...a hero. This month Milwaukee Opera Theatre and the Decameron Opera Project present the story of heroism in the kitchen with Home Cooked Heroes. It’s a heroic drama for the home...potentially one of the last pandemic-era streaming theatrical presentations for the Milwaukee area as theaters continue to open-up beneath the looming threat of the Delta Variant. Home Cooked Heroes becomes available Oct. 1st. For more information, visit Decameron online.

​Sunstone Studios presents a fully-stage presentation of local playwright Micheal Lucchesi’s Between Two Rivers this coming month. It’s the tragic drama of an AWOL marine returning home in order to take care of business. The script touches some pretty dark areas including incest, homelessness and PTSD. The play was originally featured in a staged reading at the Milwaukee Fringe Festival some years back. Kind of a lot has happened since then. Now it will finally be fully staged in one of the most intimate spaces in town Oct. 8th - 24th. Tim Kietzman directs. Posy Knight has designed the environment illuminated by Kirk Thomsen. For more information, visit Sunstone Online.

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“I don't like audience participation. It falls somewhere between incest and folk dancing.” --Nathan Lane


What the hell was Nathan Lane talking about? Evidently it was something he had spoken during a performance of playwright Nassim Soleimanpour’s White Rabbit Red Rabbit in New York half a decade ago...it’s an experimental piece in which a different actor is handed a sealed script for every performance and told to deliver it to the audience...cold. No preparation. No idea what it’s about. Everyone is told not to talk about it. And we in the press have been told to tell everyone that it’s not overtly political. I’m trying not to find out more about it, but I love the Nathan Lane quote. It’s a fiendishly clever idea that comes to Milwaukee in a new production brought to the stage by All-In Productions. All-In is partnering with Madison’s The Voices Theatre to present 4 virtual performances of the show. (And then...how does audience participation work in a virtual environment? Should be interesting.) The one-person play runs Oct. 13th - 16th. For more information, visit All-In online.



All proceeds from this production will go towards helping Afghan refugees in Wisconsin.

​Boozy Bard Productions returns to the Historic Pabst Brewery this month with another Shakespeare RAW experience...this time it’s a semi-drunken dance with tragedy as the. group presents one of Shakespeare’s most acclaimed hits. Some of the most iconic characters in all of literature mill about the corners of this script: Macbeth, Lady Macbeth. The Three Sisters. Who will be playing which roles? That depends on what the casting director decides on the night of the show. That casting director? It’s a hat. Some are destined for greatness. (Or at least...y’know...more lines.) Some are destined for...smaller roles. Chance dictates that which isn’t in the script. I’m pretty sure that there’s some kind of statement made there about tragic fates and suchlike, but...y’know...we’ll all find out what fate has in store for the performance on Oct. 20th. For more information, visit the show’s Facebook Events page.

​Sunset Playhouse continues its season late this coming month with a production of the. 1960s crime thriller Wait Until Dark. Debuting on Broadway, the show was a hit that prompted a 1967 film adaptation starring Audrey Hepburn. It’s a strikingly interesting idea: A blind housewife living in Greenwich Village is targeted by a trio of con men looking for heroin that’s been hidden in a doll. Auditions were held early in September. Rehearsals began on the 13th. Dustin J. Martin directs what should be a promising production in the quiet confines of the main stage in Elm Grove. The show tuns Oct. 21st - Nov. 7th. For more information, visit Sunset Playhouse online. 

​Cabaret Milwaukee returns this month with its distinct blend of old-timey radio drama and historical comedy set in a live variety radio-inspired format. The Cream City Crime Syndicate serial opens with “Pick Your Poison.” It’s hard-boiled crime drama set in old Milwaukee as presented by emcee Richard Howling, the vintage radio Jingle Singers and the helpful housewife Mrs. Millie. October 22nd - November 5th at The Astor Hotel. All shows start at 7 pm. It’s a really classy cabaret atmosphere that fosters comfortably casual backdrop for vintage history, drama and comedy. For more information, visit the show’s Facebook Events Page.

Milwaukee Chamber Theatre opens its season this month with Stew: playwright Zora Howard’s Stew. Malkia Stampley directs the story of three generations of women in a kitchen preparing a feast. The Harlem-bred playwright weaves a comic drama around a very tight situation: Mama was distracted for just long enough to burn the stew. Maybe it was a shot outside her home or maybe it was just a tire blowing out. Now she’s going to have a hell of a time helping to feed 50 people at a church event later-on in the day. The kitchen-bound comic drama features Olivia Dawson, Krystal Drake, and Malaina Moore. The show runs Oct. 22nd - Nov. 7th at the Cabot Theatre. For more information, visit MCT online.

Maya Danks is really cool. She's an actress. She's a pianist. And this month she's adapting one of Shakespeare's classic works for a whole new show at month's end at Sunstone Studios. It's a production of Macbeth that focusses on the line between madness and stability as four actors work together to deliver the drama.  The show runs Oct. 28-31st. For more information, visit Sunstone online.