1492
(0 votes, average 0 out of 5)
Written by Harry Cherkinian, Contributing writer
Sep 8, 2010
The 2010 national tour of “Spamalot” is coming to the Milwaukee Theatre
In Milwaukee, you can always count on another opening, another show. There’s plenty to choose from this season, from the Broadway musical version of the movie favorite “Young Frankenstein” (Marcus Center) to the gritty, nightmarish travelling circus world of “Freakshow” (Youngblood Theater Company).
Once again, musicals take center stage this upcoming season, from the Skylight Opera Theater to the “Broadway Across America” series. Even the Milwaukee Rep is getting in on the act, kicking off its 57th season with “Cabaret,” the first musical ever performed in its main stage Quadracci Powerhouse.
If large (production) and funny (as in skewed British humor) are what you’re looking for, be sure to see “Monty Python’s Spamalot” at the Milwaukee Theatre. For those who missed the first tour when it came to the Marcus Center in 2008, here’s your chance to see why it remains one of the funniest modern musicals around.
Funny can also be found with this fall’s offering at the intimate Boulevard Theater, as the company celebrates its 25th season. “The Savannah Disputation” showcases the Southern humor of two sisters whose souls are in dire need of saving by their Baptist beautician (she’s very concerned about their hair color as well). Veteran “funnyman” Mark Bucher (who also serves as the Boulevard’s founder, artistic director and everything else) keeps the laughs coming onstage (and offstage, as loyal subscribers can attest).
Head just south of Milwaukee’s downtown to the Third Ward and you’ll discover “Dames at Sea” at the Skylight Opera, a hit that began as a parody of the lavish, 1930s Busby Berkeley musicals. Afterward, use your imagination as you gaze east at Lake Michigan.
Milwaukee Chamber Theater (the Skylight’s next-door neighbor) stages a musical with a Wisconsin twist in “Main-Travelled Roads,” based on the short stories of Hamlin Garland, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author who was born in West Salem, Wis., and spent time living the rural life through the Midwest before settling in Boston.
Collaboration among theaters continues as a key strategy this season. Renaissance Theaterworks, now in its 18th season, teams up with Milwaukee’s new African-American theater group, Uprooted Theater Company, formed by veteran local performers Tiffany Cox, Marti Gobel, Dennis Johnson and Travis Knight. As the first production in its new DIVERSITY series, the two companies will stage “Crumbs from the Table of Joy” by Lynn Nottage (who won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for “Ruined,” her retelling of Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children” set in the war-torn Congo Republic. Nottage also had an earlier breakthrough work, “Intimate Apparel,” performed at The Rep’s Stiemke Theater in 2006). “Crumbs” tells the story of an African-American family moving from the Deep South to 1950s Brooklyn, all seen through the eyes of a 17-year-old girl.
This season, Next Act Theater moves into the Tenth Street Theater occupied by In Tandem Theater. While Next Act conducts its ongoing capital campaign to create a new space within a larger one on Water Street, the shows still go on, with this fall’s “Four Places,” Joel Drake’s Johnson’s story about aging parents, dwindling independence and the “sandwich” generation of sons and daughters who have their own ideas about caring for Mom and Dad. Artistic director David Cescarini directs a strong ensemble of veteran actors Flora Coker, Laura Gray, Mary McDonald Kerr and Mark Ulrich.
In Tandem’s husband and wife team of Jane and Chris Flieller offer up one of the few murder mysteries this fall season with “Art of Murder.” And Christmas will never be the same without their seasonal offering, “Scrooge in Rouge.” (Picture all the characters of the Dickens classic “A Christmas Carol” played by just three actors. Plenty of costume changes and zany humor is just the gift for the holidays).
“New and diverse” continues this season with two other theater companies debuting. Theatrical Tendencies focuses on “the lives and experiences of men and women in the LGBT community.” Founded by David Carter and Mark Schuster, the theater presents the Milwaukee premier of “Thrill Me – The Leopold and Loeb Story,” a musical based on the sensational 1924 murder case (see story on page XX). In Tandem Theater presents the show again in Spring 2011.
Carte Blanche Studios Theatre started out as multimedia space in 2007, when founder Jimmy Dragolovich, a local director, actor and filmmaker, began hosting workshops and live music in the loft above an antique store on First Street. They’ve now moved up (literally) to South Fifth Street into a newly renovated 80-seat theater, including gallery and lounge. CBST will feature Shakespeare (“Taming of the Shrew”) and Silverstein (“An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein”), with some Irish music and politics courtesy of playwright Brendan Behan thrown in for good measure (“The Hostage”).
Shakespeare’s “King Lear” turns up at Theatre Gigante, founded by the husband and wife team of Isabelle Kralj and Mark Anderson. True to their unique artistic vision, the twosome has revised this Lear with enough of their own twist while giving a nod to the Bard in the process.
Given the Great Recession, this season also features affordability, with many theaters offering some good deals and promotions to come in out of the autumn air.
