Category: Stiemke Studio

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Murder, Mayhem, and the Modern World, The Milwaukee Rep’s 2020/21 Season

The Milwaukee Repertory Theater announced their 2020/21 season back in February. But I was waiting to have An Intuitive Perspective up and running before I wrote about it. I would have gotten lost in the original wave of articles anyway. But now that we are in the heart of the Age of Pandemic and the remainder of the 2019/20 season has been canceled, it is a pleasure to look ahead to next season with hope and excitement!

Murder you say? Well, yes, the Quadracci Powerhouse will feature Agatha Christie’s Murder On The Orient Express from November 10 to December 13, 2020! I imagine everyone will be looking forward to this classic of theater. And who can ever get enough of Hercule Poirot?

And Mayhem? Yes the mayhem of the sinking of the Titanic, as Titanic, The Musical opens the Quadracci Powerhouse season from September 15 to October 25, 2020. The winner of five Tony Awards, Titanic continues the Rep’s tradition of opening with a blockbuster musical.

And the modern world? By all means! I am going to outline the rest of the season by stage!

Also at the Quadracci Powerhouse:

Toni Stone which was named Best New Play of 2019 by the Wall Street Journal. Hey, this one’s about baseball…one of the most attended sports in Milwaukee. So certainly this play displays a portrait of America by discussing America’s pastime. But it also is going to bring to the fore some of the divides in society prevalent for much of the nation’s history. Toni Stone is a talented baseball player who becomes the first woman to play in the men’s Negro Leagues. So certainly this story is fraught with her struggles to be accepted and to be treated like an equal. A very tough act in the male-dominated arena of baseball and in a racially divided nation. Toni Stone runs from January 12 to February 7, 2021.

For a short run in March, John Proctor Is The Villain. This is being billed as a Rolling World Premiere. I am just going to lift the tagline from the Rep here: This challenging, contemporary post #metoo response to “classic” literature explores the power of young girls who fight to tell their own stories. The classic lit they are describing here is “The Crucible” as it is being studied in a present day Appalachian high school.

And the closing feature at the Quadracci, is William Shakespeare’s As You Like It, running from April 20 to May 23, 2021. But there’s a twist or maybe a Twist. The locale is 1960’s British Columbia with cross-dressing lovers and mistaken identities and mishaps and laughs. And the Twist? Well the play will feature 20 songs from the Beatles. This should get interesting.

Now, I will admit that the Stiemke Studio has been my favorite stage at the Rep for years. Not only is the theater intimate but it usually features the most stimulating and challenging plays of the season. So don’t miss these:

The Tasters opens the Stiemke season – September 22 to November 1, 2020. To protect high ranking government officials, three women are employed to taste their food…well until one of them goes on a hunger strike…how appropriate? Billed as equal parts Hunger Games, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Food Network, this is a dark little comedy to enjoy!!

And after the holidays, Tender Age brings us into contemporary America as Martin takes a job at a refugee detention center, where children have been separated from their parents. And when this was written, it could have hardly anticipated the events of 2020, but the story intensifies when an epidemic starts to sweep through the center. Billed as a harrowing, unflinching portrait of modern-day America, it will certainly reverberate even more with the audience than originally planned.

And then everyone’s favorite, the Stackner Cabaret! And don’t forget to make dinner reservations for pre-show…the food is simply delightful here.

But opening the season is My Way and you’ll never guess the subtext: A Musical Tribute To Frank Sinatra. So, you’ll get to hear the best of Frank in a cabaret setting. What simple magic that’s going to be. And I bet there are going to be some signature cocktails on the menu. And you won’t have to go to Vegas or New York, New York to enjoy!  Frank holds court from September 17 to November 8, 2020.

And this next one will be a story for all of Wisconsin and will bring heartfelt joy to some families and maybe a bit of dismay or regret to others…but it all sounds like fun. Dad’s Season Tickets tells the story of inheritance…of dad’s season tickets to the Green Bay Packers! This is one of the most popular plays from Northern Sky Theater and I am sure that it will translate well in Milwaukee’s Packersland.

And then an encore performance of Blues In The Night. A Tony and Olivier Award nominated musical that illuminates the songs of Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington, Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen and more. Just the perfect cure for Wisconsin mid-winter blues from January 22 to March 21, 2021. This visited the Stackner in 2012.

And then the season finale is the perfect bookend to My Way, as Get Happy plays from March 25 to May 30, 2021. A bookend to Frank? My goodness, yes, Get Happy = Angela Ingersoll Sings JUDY GARLAND. This is the live stage performance of Ms. Ingersoll’s Garland PBS concert.

Well there you have it! But if feels like I am missing something.

Oh wait! Yes, I almost did. The Milwaukee Repertory Theater is staging its 45th Anniversary Production of A Christmas Carol at Milwaukee’s historic Pabst Theater. And to lend an additional special cache to the 2020 version, Milwaukee favorite, Lee Ernst is returning as Scrooge in the Mark Clements adaptation of the story. He hasn’t played the role at the Rep since 2006. This will be a special treat this year.

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Hedwig and the Angry Inch

This is a reprint of my remarks about “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater presented in their Stiemke Studio during the 2019 – 2020 season. This originally appeared on my Facebook timeline February 1, 2020.

“You Kant Always Get What You Want” is the punchline to a joke in the Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch. You will understand when you see this musical. And this is a musical unlike most others…it relies on punk rock and glam rock in a rock club or cabaret setting to present the story. For Milwaukeeans of a certain age, think the old Teddy’s or Humpin’ Hannah’s or Zaks. The genre isn’t as shocking as it probably was when it was first introduced but it still makes an impact. And if you are lucky enough to get cabaret table seating down front, you will be part of the show.  And the roadies will keep offering you ear plugs…because this is after all a rock concert…but unless you have sensitive ears…you probably don’t need them and you don’t want to miss Hedwig’s direct monologues to the audience.

And of course in the past twenty years, society’s relationship and understanding of the varieties and expressions of sex and gender have matured, but this musical remains as culturally and socially relevant as ever because we still have a long way to grow. You just may view it a bit differently that the younger you would have. And Hedwig’s story is compelling and moving and is ably told through song and her interactions with the audience…and a few asides and distractions that pull us along. “Tommy can you hear me?

Matt Rodin as Hedwig is phenomenal. The character is totally believable and you accept her immediately. And Matt carries the songs both vocally and theatrically. I love him in this role. You will be jealous of his voice and his legs and his boots (yes you will).

And then there’s Yitzhak, played by Bethany Thomas. My goodness can she just push a song to its ultimate limit and beyond. Both her support vocals and solos are astounding. You may remember her from the Stackner Cabaret presentation of Songs for Nobodies. I don’t think there’s anything she can’t sing and make you feel it.

So besides the acting and music…there’s a real story here. Some history around the division of Europe and the fall of the Berlin Wall and how that affected real people. Culture shock of moving from that culture to America. And the questions that we all share at some level or another, around sex and gender and love and support and who am I and why do I love/hate you and why do I need to be here?

So yes, see this. You will feel. And you will leave satisfied.

Text by John Cameron Mitchell, Music and Lyrics by Stephen Trask

Directed by Mark Clements

January 28 – March 8, 2020

Stiemke Studio

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The Niceties

This is a reprint of my remarks about ”The Niceties ” at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater presented in their Stiemke Studio theater during the 2019 – 2020 season. This originally appeared on my Facebook timeline October 11, 2019.

The Niceties, in the Milwaukee Rep’s Stiemke Theater, is the most challenging play you are going to see this season. And you will love it. But it’s complicated. And you will be disoriented. Trust Me. Playwright Eleanor Burgess has written a 21st Century drama that confronts contemporary racism in America and delves into how we got here.

The play features exactly two characters, college history Professor Janine Bosko, played by Kate Levy, and history student Zoe Reed, played by Kimber Elayne Sprawl. All of the action occurs in Professor Bosko’s office (and I’ll admit I’ve never seen a campus office quit as nice as this one) on the campus of an elite college. Think Ivy League. Professor Bosko is a white woman and Ms. Reed is a black woman.

Ms. Reed is getting some advice on her American Revolution history paper and everything is going very well when the discussion remains focused on commas, grammar, and spelling. But when the professor questions the Ms. Reed’s thesis and how racism affected the development of the nation after the Revolution, the sparks begin to fly.

I won’t get into the arguments…you really need to experience them for yourselves. But you will agree with some points from both characters. You will certainly disagree with points made by each character. And you will be uncomfortable and some points will hit very close to home. And the play will let you see that. But the play will clearly outline the legacy thinking around the founding of the nation and how new thought and scholarship shows some substantial points missing from our traditional teaching of history.

Kate Levy never for a moment lets you forget that she is a college professor. And Kimber Elayne Sprawl totally inhabits the engaged 19 year old college student, except for just a moment in the second act when Professor Bosco exposes a fact about her personal life and Ms. Reed starts to reassess the situation and their relationship. But only for a moment and then they turn back to their arguments.

Given the roles and story, the major focus is about race in America. But don’t let that be the only issue you see here. There are a number of other, some rather subtle, counterpoints and examples of hierarchies at work. The first is obviously the professor vs. student relationship and who wields the power. And there’s a bit of ageism since the professor is particularly older than her student and she brings that into focus in a fairly inelegant manner. And then there are the questions around class and social rank and elitism and sexuality…and the use of social media as a weapon or defense mechanism (you’ll get to decide).

This is an amazing play that lays out these contemporary social issues and more. I don’t know how Ms. Levy and Ms. Sprawl can maintain the intensity of their roles for the entire play much less the entire run. They do so remarkably well. And are doing it in a set that is essentially a fish bowl since the stage is centered in the Stiemke with seating along both longitudinal sides of the stage.

The Niceties runs through November 3rd and is directed by Annika Boras who did an amazing job putting Ms. Levy and Ms. Sprawl into their roles and facing down the hard edges that this play presents.