By ANNE SIEGEL MILWAUKEE, WI – It may seem unusual for the state’s largest performing arts organization to open its doors after the pandemic with a comedy from the genteel South. Yet, a closer look at this production of Steel Magnolias offers something that the audience has been missing for almost two years. That’s the […]
By ROY BERKO In 2010 a gay Mississippi high school student was banned from coming to her senior prom by the school’s Board of Education because she wanted to bring her girlfriend as her date. She challenged the ruling, which resulted in the cancellation of the prom. The student and the ACLU sued the district. The federal […]
By ANNE SIEGEL The opening of Zora Howard’s Stew marks a return to the stage for one of Milwaukee’s longstanding companies, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre. For the past 20 months, one of the loveliest theaters in the Midwest – the Cabot Theatre – has been dark. Actors, directors, technicians and others in the theater community wondered […]
By ROY BERKO For the last several years more and more attention has been placed on The Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements, woke language, microaggressions, radical feminism, transgenderism, Critical Race Theory and aggression against Asians. They have become issues for laws, politics, education, media and the arts. After almost two-years of non-live production, the […]
By ROY BERKO The death penalty carries the inherent risk of executing an innocent person. Since 1973, more than 186 people who had been sentenced to death have been exonerated. Research by the National Academy of Science indicates that about 4.1% of the people currently on death row are likely to be innocent. The Exonerated, now […]
By ANNE SIEGEL SPRING GREEN, WI. – This summer, while audiences were flocking to the large, outdoor theater to view Shakespeare under the stars, another small miracle was taking place inside the intimate (200-seat) Touchstone Theatre. American Players Theatre (APT), which operates these two venues, welcomed far smaller crowds to see An Iliad. The APT […]
By ANNE SIEGEL Under a towering grove of old growth trees, on an exceptionally balmy evening, the Summit Players were hurriedly making preparations for their production of free Shakespeare in Wisconsin parks. This year they are presenting one of the Bard’s lesser-known plays, The Winter’s Tale. Including 2020, when the pandemic forced them to cancel […]
By ROY BERKO Beck Center often coordinates with Baldwin Wallace Music Theatre program to produce some of the Cleveland area’s best musical theatre. Not only does the stage often sparkle with BWU students, but thespians from all over the area are cast in some of the Beck shows. Hosted by Kathleen Rooney Faubel, a BWU alum whose […]
By ANNE SIEGEL It has been a long wait, but the people of southeast Wisconsin finally get to be in the room where it happens. Hamilton has arrived. And what a reception it’s getting. The mostly sold-out performances in this three-week run offer a top-ranked professional tour, which is also visiting two other Wisconsin cities […]
By ROY BERKO Suzan-Lori Parks, Lynn Nottage and Tonya Barfield are noted as emerging African-American playwrights. Another member of that sorority is the award-winning Dominique Morisseau, the author of “The Detroit Project,” a three-play cycle which includes The Skeleton Crew, Detroit ’67 and Paradise Blue. The third in the cycle by the MacArthur Genius Award […]