I have been covering theatre in Milwaukee for the past several years.
I've written a few short scripts that have made it to tiny, out of the way stages around the city.
For me, it’s the end of the year . . . in a way. The Milwaukee Theatre Year traditionally begins in August as companies like Milwuakee Chamber Theatre and smaller companies like the late Dramatist’s Theatre open their first shows of the new se
The Sunset Playhouse in Elm Grove is getting set to start its new season. The opening show is a production of the Jerome Lawrence/ Robert Lee adaptation of the classic Patrick Dennis novel Auntie Mame. It’s the story of a young man who finds himsel
This summer has been a bit bewildering. It feels like there’s a new theatre company opening every week. Actually, my best realistic estimation is something like - - - three companies starting up in a four week span.Putting it into perspective: Thou
As appealing as the life of a traveling artist seems to me, I’d never really be able to pull it off. Coming from a childhood of virtual poverty, I have very little experience traveling. I’ve never really been able to communicate all that coher
Having just returned to Milwaukee, the early summer trip to American Players Theatre is fully behind me. Full reviews of each of the three outdoor shows will appear in print over the course of the next couple of weeks. On the whole, it was one of the bett
The annual June trip too Spring Green for American Players Theatre has been lengthened a bit by their current budget. Having canceled their June matinees, out-of-towners looking to take in all three of the early season shows end up staying for three conse
My wife nad I had arrived in Spring Green Friday afternoon. I would be covering all three of American Players Theatre’s early show this weekend . . . and because there are no matinees, the three shows on three consecutive nights means more time than
It was my last show before a weekend with the APT . . . a local production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that Carte Blanche Studios. And., as usual, there wasn’t room in the print review to mention everything . . . here are a few impressions
A number of people have asked me about the Skylight Thing. My response has been more or less the same every time someone’s asked me if I’m going to write anything about it. I simply tell them: Nothing I’m going to say is going to add
It’s easy for me to joke about hating musicals, but I see so many of them that it’s difficult not to understand the appeal in most of them on some level. While I don’t share much of the country’s obsession with the American musi
Remember when bands cared about albums as an art form? Instead of
slapping together a dozen tracks because, hey, they'll just end up on
everyone's iPod shuffle anyway, musicians considered how their songs
might congeal as a whole or form some sort of dram
Elvis Costello's frequent collaborator T-Bone Burnett produced Secret, Profane & Sugarcane,
an Americana-inflected album working with country and folk traditions
for images of sawdust floors set to mandolin and fiddle. Costello
intended one s
The lights went out this spring on Patty Burger, a short-lived fast food place on a busy corner of Milwaukee's East Side. But the sluggish economy didn't stop all wheels from turning. The storefront was filled June 3 with Sobelman's Tall Grass Grill (1952
You wouldn’t expect to find T-bone and sirloin dinners at a place with stool seating and a location next to a shop hawking cell phones and cigarettes. But one of the city’s most evocatively named eateries, ZaZa Steak & Lemonade (4919 W. Capito
The enduring fantasy of older men is that a gorgeous
young woman will fall in love with them, find them sexually arousing
and long to imbibe their wisdom while sitting at their feet. That
fantasy is the spring driving Woody Allen's often-hilarious f
Away We Go, a droll comedy-cum-drama by director Sam Mendes (American Beauty),
perceptively explores the lives of more-or-less ordinary 30-somethings
lost in a world without much meaning. Verona (Maya Rudolph) and Bu