Scene Partners
Vineyard Theater

As he did in his previous work Wet Brain, which ran at Playwrights last summer, John Caswell mixes a believable situation with the fantasies of his characters to create a weird, dream-like world in Scene Partners. Wet Brain had a family dealing with the father’s alcoholism and descent into madness fused with allusions to sci-fi and outer-space aliens.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
November 2023
Harmony
Ethel Barrymore Theater

Harmony, the long-gestating musical about the Comedian Harmonists, a real-life singing group in 1920s and ’30s Germany, whose careers and lives were destroyed by Hitler’s anti-semitic policies, has its heart in the right place, but hits a few discordant notes along with melodious ones.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
November 2023
Spamalot
St. James THeater

The new production of Spamalot, the 2005 spoof “lovingly rippped off” from the classic Python parody of the Arthurian legend, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” is riotously funny. Directed and choreographed with guffaw-inducing abandon by Josh Rhodes and first seen at Washington’s Kennedy Center, maintains the outrageous irreverence of the group’s original TV series and films as a cast of expert zanies reenacts the familiar bits from the film and expanded musical sequences.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
November 2023
School of Rock
Broadway Theater Center - Cabot Theater

Don’t be late for this class: the School of Rock is astonishing audiences at Milwaukee’s Skylight Music Theater. Based on the successful 2003 film, School of Rock was prime material to be produced on stage. No less a composer than Andrew Lloyd Webber bought the rights to School of Rock and launched his own Broadway outing of Rock in 2015.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
November 2023
Crazy for You
Florida State University for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

The title of the new season’s show at Asolo Rep may be the same as earlier versions of it, but this “Crazy for You” isn’t just equal. It’s hard to imagine a better one, especially scenically and as a musical highlighting dancing. Still the script’s been updated, mainly in style, from the one that took Broadway honors (itself an adaptation of a 1930 musical and other shows) in 1992. Result: an excellent contemporary take on a ‘30s romantic classic story.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
November 2023
Little Shop of Horrors
Florida Studio Theater - Gompertz

It’s not surprising that to open its 50th anniversary, Florida Studio  Theater would stage an amazingly popular rock satirical musical that premiered 1982. It was based loosely on a 1960 film that satirized horror dramas, urban plight concerns, and efforts to powerfully and financially dominate the world.  At FST, Sean Daniels has directed the drama to be more realistic without losing any of the satirical humor.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
November 2023
Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley
Acacia at Norvill Commons

This year, Scrooge isn’t the only show in town this holiday season. In addition to the perennial A Christmas Carol soon to be playing downtown at the Victorian-themed Pabst Theater, there’s another play from merry Old England that is sure to capture hearts everywhere.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
November 2023
Poor Yella Rednecks
City Center - Stage 1

Comic books, kung fu movies, ’80s TV shows and pop music all collide with hilarious and touching results in Qui Nguyen’s raucously funny and extremely moving Poor Yella Rednecks at Manhattan Theater Club’s Off-Broadway City Center space. A sequel to his autobiographical Viet Gone (presented by MTC in 2016), Rednecks chronicles the rocky and jagged road his family trod as they immigrated from South Vietnam after the fall of Saigon to the tiny, ironically named town of El Dorado, Arkansas.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
November 2023
Sabbath's Theater
Pershing Square Signature Center

Two shows opening on the same night, one on Broadway, the other off, have many surface resemblances. Both sport a cast of three, run a little over 90 minutes with no intermission and focus on a late-middle-aged male protagonist facing serious issues of mortality and the quality of his relationships.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
November 2023
I Need That
American Airlines THeater

Like Sabbath’s Theater, which opened off-Broadway on the very same night, Broadway’s I Need That sports a cast of three, runs a little over 90 minutes with no intermission and focuses on a late-middle-aged male protagonist facing serious issues of mortality and the quality of his relationships. Dig a little deeper, though, and the two are worlds apart.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
November 2023
Three Sisters, The
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Asolo

Put together author Anton Chekhov, superb American translator Paul Schmidt who makes Chekhov easy to listen to and understand, and director Andrei Malaev-Babel, who’s an ace at interpreting Russian drama, directing and at teaching the Demidov method of acting. Result: The Three Sisters is a rare treat in performance by students of  Asolo/Florida State University’s Conservatory for Actor Training with some alums, faculty, and acclaimed local actors as guests.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
October 2023
Refuge Plays, The
Laura Pels Theater

In the first act of The Refuge Plays, Nathan Alan Davis’s massive family saga, the elderly matriarch Early (the magnificent Nicole Ari Parker) advises her great-grandson Ha-Ha (yes, that’s his name, played with sweet innocence by JJ Wynder) to read and re-read Ralph Ellison’s classic novel of African-American alienation, “Invisible Man.” She tells Ha-Ha that Ellison writes in code and you have to experience the book many times to crack the code and find the author’s meaning.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
October 2023
Aladdin
Marcus Performing Arts Center

Showman P.T. Barnum may have declared that his circus was the “greatest show on Earth,” but as far as musicals go, Disney’s ‘Aladdin’ may be the greatest musical to hit Milwaukee in a long time. The national touring production of this well-known show is currently playing through Sunday.

The show is a huge, well-organized musical machine, filled with Middle East flavor and paying homage to the 1992 animated film on which it is based. It’s not the only musical currently playing in town, but it’s certainly got the largest budget.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
October 2023
Once on this Island
West Coast Black Theater Troupe

A folktale told to TiMoune, a little Caribbean girl, Once on This Island becomes her story as a young girl who saves the life of a mixed-race nobleman hurt in a storm. Having fallen in love with him, she leaves the parents who adopted her and seeks him in his palace. Goddesses of the elements will go to watch over her in her quest of marriage, but there’ll be conflict not only with social and racial mores but also with opposing devilish-God. Besides, the prince’s choice may already been determined.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
October 2023
Gutenberg! The Musical
James Earl Jones Theater

Gutenberg! The Musical! is as sweet, light and fun as a big chocolate-chip cookie—and about as nourishing. But that’s okay. This fluffy, insider meta-musical for those who love musicals is nothing more than a diversion, mildly tweaking the conventions of Broadway and ribbing those who are obsessed with them.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
October 2023
Laughs in Spanish
Broadway Theater Center - Studio Theater

In a bilingual twist on mother-daughter relations, Laughs in Spanish attempts to keep the comic vibe flowing in all but a few of the play’s more thoughtful moments. The play, which opens Milwaukee Chamber’s 49th season, is extremely successful in keeping things light while also tackling some more serious subjects.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
October 2023
Splash Hatch on the E Going Down
Next Act Theater

Milwaukee’s Next Act Theater opens its fall season with a sizzling urban drama, Splash Hatch on the E Going Down by Kia Corthron. This Wisconsin premiere is a not-to-be-missed highlight of Milwaukee’s current crop of plays. Corthron’s story focuses on the intimate tale of a young woman who faces both ends of the life spectrum, birth and death. Simultaneously, the 1997 play explores broader social issues in regards to race, poverty and environmental awareness.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
October 2023
Copenhagen
Unicorn Theater

Michael Frayn’s heady and intense Copenhagen, at Berkshire Theater Group, asks what if Adolph Hitler, had atomic bombs in his arsenal? The answer to that question lay with Nobel Laureate, Werner Heisenberg (Harry Smith), who headed the potential nuclear program for Nazi Germany. Kept on a short leash by the Gestapo, he went to great effort to deliver a paper in occupied Copenhagen.

Charles Giuliano
Date Reviewed:
October 2023
English
Barrington Stage

The play English, by Iranian-American playwright Sanaz Toossi, was selected by freshman artistic director, Alan Paul, well before it won the Pulitzer Prize in May. Because the original actress was unavailable she has stepped in to portray Elham. Thereby, the Barrington Stage production, directed by Knud Adams, is a double triumph. The play is complex, topical and timely while her acting proves to be utterly charming.

Charles Giuliano
Date Reviewed:
October 2023
Melissa Etheridge: My Window
Circle in the Square

Melissa Etheridge was the rock queen of longing in 1980s and ’90s with soulful yearning ballads like “I’m the Only One” and “Come to My Window.” Her sandpaper voice caressed her lyrics producing a tender ache. In addition to her chart-topping music career, she has become an activist for climate change and LGBTQ rights, a breast cancer survivor, and supporter of research to end opioid abuse.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
October 2023
Jaja's African Hair Braiding
Samuel J. Friedman Theater

The workplace play is a tried and true template affording opportunities for dramatic conflict and comic interplay among staff and customers in a single setting. The formula has accommodated such diverse works as A Memory of Two Mondays, Superior Donuts, Glengarry Glen Ross, Skeleton Crew, Tabletop, Jitney, Steel Magnolias, Seared, and  Clyde’s. The “Barber Shop” film franchise is another example.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
October 2023
Parental Advisory: a breakbeat play
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Stiemke Studio

In honor of hip hop’s 50th anniversary, Milwaukee Repertory Theater presents Parental Advisory, a breakbeat play. The Rep’s intimate Stiemke Studio stage has been turned into a recording studio for the show, with theater patrons representing a sort-of concert audience.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
October 2023
Up on the Roof
Florida Studio Theater - Court Cabaret

The title “Up on the Roof” refers to the Brill Building on NYC’s Broadway. There songwriters created new songs with sounds and sensibilities in the 1950s through ‘60s. Florida Studio Theatre’s Court Cabaret stages many of those hits whose popularity has endured. So has the fame of song creating teams, now being emulated by four pleasing FST performers with Broadway-like pianist and visual projections.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
September 2023
Purlie Victorious
Music Box Theater

In these touchy political times, it’s exciting to see a satiric comedy that takes risks and isn’t afraid it might offend someone. At the Music Box Theater, audiences are laughing hysterically at racism and violations of civil rights.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
September 2023
Swing State
Minetta Lane Theater

The opening moments of Rebecca Gilman’s moving new play Swing State, now at the Minetta Lane Theater after an acclaimed run at Chicago’s Goodman Theater, searingly combine the ordinary with the depths of angst. In a lived-in Wisconsin farmhouse, a woman in her 60s is performing the most routine of tasks, mixing eggs and flour.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
September 2023
Infinite Life
Atlantic Theater - Linda Gross Theater

Annie Baker offers us another painful but beautiful slice of life in her play, Infinite Life at Atlantic Theater Company. As she did in such weird, wonderful works as Circle Mirror Transformation, The Aliens, and John, Baker dissects a seemingly mundane situation with little theatricality but with such unexpected humor and heartbreaking reality that we recognize ourselves in its quiet, shatteringly relatable moments.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
September 2023
Country Sunshine: The Legendary Ladies of Nashville with Katie Deal
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Stackner Cabaret

As usual, the Milwaukee Repertory Theater opened its fall season with an aperitif at its intimate Stackner Cabaret before unloading the “big guns” of a major production in its much-larger theater. This year’s Stackner Cabaret 2023 season debut is Country Sunshine: The Legendary Ladies of Nashville with Katie Deal. As advertised in the title, this is a tribute to many past and current country singers who combined southern charm and flashy outfits with powerful voices.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
September 2023
Pay the Writer
Pershing Square Signature Center - Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theater

Playwright Tawni O’Dell uses the same gag twice in her new play Pay the Writer at the Signature Center (the play is not a production of the Signature Theater Company, but is renting the space). African-American literary lion Cyrus Holt (a robust Ron Canada) twice stops himself after uttering an eloquent observation on life, says “That’s good” and rushes to jot it down in a notebook for future reference.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
August 2023
Creedence Clearwater Remixed!
Florida Studio Theater - Goldstein Cabaret

Blending the history of band Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR) and biography of the creator of most of its original songs, Creedence Clearwater Remixed! aims to connect with audiences who love CCR’s music. Florida Studio Theater’s Goldstein Cabaret has never been more colorful than now with its changing lighted “scenery” or the plaids and the checkered shirts worn by performers or the images suggested by CCR’s songs.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
August 2023
Rock & Roll Man
New World Stages

The jukebox genre, incorporating established pop or rock hit tunes without or without a biographical storyline to tie them together, has been flooding Broadway for decades with specimens ranging from top-shelf (MJ, Mamma Mia, Jersey Boys, Beautiful: The Carol King Musical) to bottom of the barrel (Good Vibrations, Leader of the Pack, Baby, It’s You). Rock & Roll Man, the latest entry in the nostalgia sweepstakes now at Off-Broadway’s New World Stages, falls somewhere in the middle.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
August 2023
Back to the Future
Winter Garden Theater

In Broadway’s The Shark Is Broken, Robert Shaw complains about the proliferation of sequels and remakes in popular movies. That disease has overtaken Broadway, as well. Prime example: Back to the Future, the musical version of the popular 1985 sci-fi film comedy now on Broadway after an award-winning run in the West End. At least Shark offers a different spin on Jaws, but Future is a retread of a familiar favorite.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
August 2023
Shark is Broken, The
John Golden Theater

“What do you think it’s about?,” asks Alex Brightman, referring to the deeper meaning of “Jaws,” the movie his character Richard Dreyfuss is filming with co-stars Roy Scheider (Colin Donnell) and Robert Shaw (Ian Shaw, playing his father). After Dreyfuss and Scheider posit weighty theories on responsibility and destiny, the no-nonsense Shaw answers, “It’s about a shark!”

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
August 2023
Cymbeline
Forest Home Cemetery & Arboretum

Milwaukee’s Optimist Theater is best-known for producing its annual Shakespeare in the Park series, which travels to various venues throughout the local community in July and August. Over the years, Optimist has produced many of Shakespeare’s most-beloved works, but for its tenth (and current) season, it has chosen Cymbeline.

This rarely produced play is considered problematic for reasons not the least of which is where to put it in the Shakespearean canon. While not quite a tragedy, Cymbeline has comic elements, too.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
August 2023
Comedy of Tenors, A
Florida Studio Theater - Gompertz

The time is 1936. The place is a Paris pink-and-blue, lavish apartment with adjoining balcony. Opera producer Saunders is harboring star tenor Tito Merelli and wife Maria while awaiting two other opera tenors to join Tito in an enterprising “Three Tenors Concert.” They don’t appear, and that’s where fun (for audiences) begins.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
August 2023
Here Lies Love
Broadway Theater

After beginning life as a 2010 concept album, then two separate off-Broadway runs at the Public Theater (2013 and again the following season), engagements at London’s National Theatre and Seattle Rep, Here Lies Love, the immersive disco musical charting the tumultuous rise and fall of Imelda Marcos, the capricious first lady of the Philippines, has arrived on Broadway. The result is unlike any other Broadway show currently running or in recent memory.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
August 2023
Feelin' Groovy 8: 9 Weeks of Peace and Music
Music Box Theater

Houston’s Music Box Theater continues to amaze audiences with their seemingly bottomless reservoir of musical creativity and comedy flair. With its long-running and very talented quintet of regular stars, Rebekah Dahl, Brad Scarborough, Kristina Sullivan, Cay Taylor, and Luke Wrobel, the brilliant troupe has been delighting full house crowds for more than a dozen years. That popularity shows no signs of a let up.

David Dow Bentley
Date Reviewed:
July 2023
Rock & Roll Man
New World Stages

OK, so they weren’t exactly dancing in the aisles at New World Stages the night I attended Rock & Roll Man. However, what the audience was doing to show their love for everything that was flashing before their eyes during the musical’s fast-paced, two-act, wonder-filled 2 hours and 20 minutes was hooting, hollering, whistling, laughing, clapping, snapping their fingers, gyrating in their seats and most surprising of all shedding nostalgic tears of joy, all of this while basking in the glorious glow of rock & roll.

Ed Rubin
Date Reviewed:
July 2023
Cottage, The
Hayes Theater

 If you’re looking for a fizzy cocktail to help you cool off from the global triple-digit heat wave, you couldn’t find a funnier or more intoxicating concoction than Sandy Rustin’s bubbly The Cottage. Set in the bucolic English countryside in the 1920s, Rustin’s theatrical bauble is a combination of lighter-than-air Noel Coward romantic mix-up and Georges Feydeau bedroom farce, with a dash of absurdist meta-theatricality.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
July 2023
All Play (13th Annual Sarasota Improv Festival Finale)
Florida Studio Theater - Gompertz

A highlight of Florida Studio Theatre’s 13th Annual “Improv Festival” was the “All Party” gathering for improvisations delivered by the first spontaneous troupes or groups to volunteer to perform them. FST’s Director of Improvisation, Will Luera, announced subjects to be improvised, okayed the order of improvisors, and even determined the time some of
the skits ended. 

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
July 2023
Flex
Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater

You don’t need a working knowledge of basketball to enjoy Flex, Candrice Jones’s infectious and fast-paced new play on friendship and competition in a high-school girls team at Lincoln Center’s Off-Broadway Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, but it would help. There is a lot of talk about point guards, fouling, and free throws, but the more important themes involve the limits and responsibilities of teamwork and the roles of gender and race in sports and class.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
July 2023

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