http://www.expressmilwaukee.com/blogs-1-1-1-10.html Patrick Schmitz has reached a rare kind of commercial success as a director, playwright and marketing department for his holiday show. Schmitz’s Rankin and Bass TV special parody: Rudolph the Pissed-Off Reindeer doesn’t open until this coming Friday and, as stated in the preview piece on the show in this week’s Shepherd, that opening night is sold out. In the time it took the issue to hit the streets, the show ha almost complet]]> The Producers has a strange history in my memory. I vaguely seem to remember being in second or third grade when I first saw Mel Brooks’ original 1968 film on television. It was an independant station that played it quite often, so I saw a number of times. The concept of success through failure seemed remarkably witty to a kid who had spent so much of his spare time watching some particularly bad early ‘80’s sitcoms. I specific]]> The morning of the first snow is probably as good a time as any to make mention of the Milwaukee Christmas/holiday theatre season. This season brings with it a few new items to mingle with the standard series of shows that tend to pleasantly plague my schedule beginning with November’s End. Here’s a brief list of what’s coming-up:A CHRISTMAS CAROLThe Milwaukee Rep is one of the first theatres to holiday this year with the openi]]> While the women's hockey team enjoyed Florida, the men's basketball team enjoyed the warm weather in the US Virgin Islands. Must suck to be a Badger!The men's bball team advanced to the finals of the Paradise Jam tournament with a 64-49 win over San Diego State yesterday.The team faces #2 UConn tonight. Flip to that during breaks in action of the Packers Monday Night Football game. The bball game is on FSN.]]> In this, the second and final part of the transcripts, the writer/star of the biographical musical The Daly News talks about working on the show in Milwaukee.SELF EDITING IN AN INTIMATE SPACEJonathan Gillard Daly: . . .There is nothing to hide behind. It’s just an empty stage. There are moments that are just absolutely . . . completely without artifice . . . it feels like. And that’s a real challenge to lessen that. The other thing]]> The last weekend before Thanksgiving offers a few opportunities for some fresh theatre. In addition to that which has already opened, there are a couple of one performance shows tomorrow night: At 7pm on the appropriately-named Erie Avenue in glamorous Sheboygan, Wisconsin Alamo Basement and Insurgent Theatre present this year’s production of BERZERK!!!—a number of short plays that were written in just ten minutes and rehearsed over t]]> The Daly News, Jonathan Gillard Daly’s tribute to a family’s survival through wartime continues rolls into its second weekend in the days to come. Based on newsletters written by his grandfather over the course of World War II, it’s a thoroughly interesting musical chronicling a particularly rough time in the history of the US. A remarkably interesting man in his own right, the seasoned actor took some time out from rehearsa]]> The early chill of pre-winter was just the perfect shade of bitter for an opening night of a Chekov play. It was to be the first of four shows on an excessively busy weekend, which might’ve been perfect for Chekov as well. The Helfaer Theatre on the campus of Marquette University was filled with a more generous mix of different demographics than one might expect from a college show. The theatre wasn’t sold out, but it was quite well a]]> When the lights dimmed to black, there was the standard “turn off you cell phones” announcement over the sound system. What happened next was a bit of a surprise. A video projection blared across the ceiling of the auditorium. As I recall there was an opening cue from the local NBC affiliate’s TV news show and there, larger than life was the familiar face of local TV news anchor Mike Jacobs. The projection covered a good portion]]> It’s been a while since I’ve been to the Bay View theatre/bar Alchemist Theatre. It’s been even longer since the last time I’ve checked their website. A bit weary over the prospect of a three-show weekend that’s suddenly turned into four, I was wondering what Aaron and Kirk might have planned for the near future. After what felt like a kind of lengthy lull in scheduling, the Alchemist has announced quite a few upcomi]]> It’s always reassuring to see local arts groups linking up with other nonprofits to help support them. Soulstice Theatre, for instance, always donates a portion of its ticket sales to a charity associated in some way with the production it’s staging. Milwaukee Chamber Theatre has announced an interesting partnership with Literacy Services of Wisconsin for its latest production—Jonathan Gillard Daly's The Daly News. There a]]> It was nice to see the Rep’s Stackner Cabaret packed last night for opening night of the new non-musical comedy. I remember looking out at the audience and thinking again about demographics. The election got me thinking about age—though he was born a full 15 years before me, our new President Elect is, by some estimations, a part of my generation. Yes, Obama is on the oldest possible edge of “Generation X,” but I still thi]]> After a brief and subtle kreusening with a bottle of Old Style at the Comet Café over dinner with my wife, I was off to the Astor Theatre for my first of two shows this weekend: the RSVP production of Paul Weitz’s Show People. My strange mixture of energy and consciousness in the midst of a particularly odd sleep schedule probably put me in the perfect frame of mind for Weitz’s comedy—an exceedingly fun hour and a half at]]> In just a couple of weeks, the Boulevard Theatre opens its production of a pair of David Mamet shorts. I’ll be talking to the show’s director Jaime Jastrab at some point in the next few days. I’ve seen a few pieces of Mamet in production since I first started covering the theatre scene here in Milwaukee. My personal history with the playwright is a bit uneven.I have mixed feelings about the scruffy-looking self-described &ldq]]> With election season finally over (at least for Wisconsin for the time being) the Milwaukee theatre season is free to roll into its third full month. The first openings in November are a disparate mix. Friday, Raymond Bradford’s RSVP Prductions opens the Milwaukee premiere of the modern/post modern comedy Show People—a play with a plot that reminds me of a novel I’ve never had the time to read entitled The Cards of Identity]]> The Over Our Head Players have recently announced auditions for their upcoming 2009 Snowdance 10 Minute Comedy Festival. The upoming festival of original comedy shorts runs January 30 through February 22nd. The general premise is this: shorts of no longer than ten minutes are submitted to O.O.H.P’s. The submissions are sifted through. A few are chosen to be produced over the course of the festival. The audiences then vote on which playwrigh]]> Given the opportunity to do a review of a Rep show for online, I’ve decided to give my opinions a little more breathing room than I usually do. This will, undoubtedly be somewhat long and rambling, but what follows is an unbridled, unedited stream of consciousess piece about the Milwaukee Rep’s latest main stage offering. Sarah Ruhl’s EURYDICE There’s passion, poetry and emotion, but the visuals here are everything.]]> Earlier this week, the Milwaukee Rep announced that Rep resident acting company member had been selected as an inaugural Lunt-Fontanne Fellow by the Ten Chimneys Foundation. (The Ten Chimneys is, of course, the venerable estate built by Broadway legends Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in the tiny, little Wisconsin town of Genesee Depot. An English major friend of mine from UWM circa ’99-2000 also served as an auto mechanic who grew-up in Gen]]> Stll cozying-up to its new name, Isabelle Kralj and Mark Anderson’s Theatre Gigante (formerly Milwaukee Dance Theatre) has managed a resounding success with the premiere of its US political satire The Perfect Candidate. Running now through Saturday at the Off-Broadway Theatre, the show was written by Kralj, Anderson and veteran actor John Kishline. Running a political comedy during election season the weekend before the actual day of ]]> Situated off-campus, the recently remodeled Kenilworth Building extends the distinctive aesthetic feel of the university a bit further into the East Side than I remember it ever being in the past fifteen years. The crisp dusk of late autumn in the alley entrance to Kenilworth Square felt distinctively like State Street in Madison. That’s when I noticed the Urban Outfitters. Someone asked me if I was there for a residence (residents?) meetin]]>