It’s always difficult to tell what’s going to draw an audience into a performance. That complex dynamic between the audience, the performers and the material they are performing can be kind of difficult to bring into focus. The right k

My wife keeps suggesting that we go to Ten Chimneys some time. The grand estate of golden age Broadway talents Alfred Lunt and Fontanne would certainly be interesting, but the $30 it would cost to tour the place always seems more than a bit prohibi

It’s one of those things that I haven’t given myself the time to make much mention of. There’s been a lot of concern over the fact that everyone is getting increasingly isolated with all the little digital apparatuses we’ve come t

 Between 1997 and 1998, Irish playwright Martin McDonagh developed four feature-length plays. One of them was a dark comedy about a 40 year-old woman who looks after her 70 year-old mother. There is bitterness. There is dysfunction. There is mental

In a year beset by a greater than usual number of adjustments and cancellations on the Milwaukee stage, Uprooted Theatre has had to cancel its production of The Colored Museum due to the difficulties of scrambling to replace a couple of actresses a

It’s been a weekend of bite-sized performances, Theatre Gigante’s one-hour, one-weekend only production Other Three Sisters was joined last night by the opening of the Skylight Opera Theatre’s A Day In Hollywood/A Night in the

  I wish I would’ve had the presence of mind to do the theatre preview on Theatre Gigante’s show rather than the Skylight’s this week. There are a couple of reasons for this . . . the most selfish probably being that I’d like to

While Waukesha Civic’s production of Bye Bye Birdie is pretty big and ambitious with a cast of over 30, it’s actually kind of dwarfed by a show a local high school will be opening at the end of the month. IF you’ve been to a show in the

This week the Waukesha Civic Theatre opens its production of the classic 1960 hit Broadway musical Bye Bye Birdie. Inspired by Elvis Presley’s 1958 enlistment in the military, it’s the story of a rock ‘n’ roll crooner who is about to be inducted. I

What with all of the young actors beginning to appear on local stages from a variety of new companies, it’s nice to know that there are still a few university productions appearing at out of the way locations. This week, UW-Washington County opens

There are a number of elements that absolutely must be present in order for a city to maintain a sustainable, substantially diverse theatre scene. Chief among them is the cultivation of work by local playwrights. These next couple of months, a series of

Chicago-based group The Pub Theatre recently announced that it has expanded the Milwaukee run of its comedy show Bye Bye Liver.  The program of comic sketches celebrating alcohol was originally scheduled for a limited run. Response has been positiv

By the time I’d made it to opening night of the Rep’s Radio Golf last night, I’d already sat in two different theatres for three different shows over the course of the day. I was a bit exhausted. I couldn’t’ve asked for a better show to end the day on. T

  The crowd for the final dress rehearsal was populated largely with people from the UWM theatre department. It’s a different kind of crowd atmosphere . . . one not entirely unlike a usual theatre crowd. I’m there to catch a performance

 At the center of their beliefs, two legendary activists from the ‘60’s held very similar beliefs. For Malcom X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the philosophies on how to attain racial equality culd not have been that much different. Bo

The next in Milwaukee Chamber Theatre’s Montgomery Davis Play Development Series makes it to the stage next week as it presents a new comedy by Madison-based playwright Kurt McGinnis Brown. Broken and Entered features Marcus Truschinski and Nicholas

It’s been established that Newton’s vision of a clockwork universe is wrong. That’s okay. The guy was still a genius. Time is relative. So I guess we can be a little vague with the date and pretend it’s still his birthday this week—maybe next week too.

In Tandem Theatre continues its season with a production of Neil Haven’s Stuck. The show opened this past weekend. I’d seen the show before when it’s inaugural UW-Whitewater production came to the In Tandem’s 10th Street The

The work of Acacia Theatre Company can sometimes come across a bit uneven. There are a lot of elements that go into a fully-staged piece of theatre. The texture of a typical Acacia show ends up being a wide-ranging mix of qualities that can sometimes fee

Just as I was beginning to think that turning 34 years of age was going to happen on an otherwise uneventful weekend, I get word of a new show that’s been announced by Bite Theatre—the newest company in town. On the first weekend after winter’s end,

Yes, it’s a bit simplistic and in places quite tacky. Once you get beyond the surface of it, the Jeff Daniels play Escanaba In Love is actually pretty funny. This was nothing I wasn’t expecting from the Sunset Playhouse production. I don&rsq

Every now and then a show gets brought to my attention too late to attend. When the press release for the latest show at the Milwaukee High School of the Arts this past Monday, I had already had my schedule for  the weekend worked out. It&rsqu

Founded in London in ’91. New York-based Aquila Theatre Company has kind of a restless schedule. The group does a regular season in New York and also regularly tours the country with various shows. Next week, the company arrives at UW-Whitewater for a p

Windfall Theatre’s Three  Sisters is an engrossing tragicomedy marred by few significant flaws. As the play opens, the audience surrounds a few pieces of period-esque furniture. There are a few characters in attendance. We’re here to wat

    In what seems like an interesting blend of different styles . . . The Hartford Players opens its dinner theatre production of Wake Me When I’m Dead. Sort of a cross between the popular interactive comedy Finnegan’s Wake and a traditional murder-my