Peggy Sue Dunigan - Page 8

First Stage's prestigious Young Company, a troupe of advanced high school aged professionals-in-training, recently earned top honors in the Utah Shakespeare Festival/ Southern Utah University Shakespeare Competition this October. The 12-year old company of more than 50 youths sends a select group to compete in Utah and then tackles classical theater year round in Milwaukee that continually prepares them for these elite competitions. This December, under the direction of veteran Milwaukee actor Marcella Kearns (pictured) Young Company tweaks a challenging Shakespeare play with mature themes: All's Well That Ends Well.

In December, In Tandem Theatre presents their brand new 'alternative' holiday entertainment:A Twisted Carol. True to the title, Mondy Carter's (book and lyrics) accompanied by Nathan Wesselowski's music offers more than merely a 'twisted' version of Charles Dickens' beloved A Christmas Carol. This evening of laughs and slightly deranged literary characters  brightens the festive season with In Tandem's unique take on the classic tale.

Opening night at the Pabst Theatre this December celebrated the 40th Anniversary of Milwaukee Rep's A Christmas Carol. The city's mayor Tom Barrett was on hand with an executive from Wells Fargo, the production's corporate sponsor. Each man echoed that theater, especially this longstanding tradition of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, creates family memories that last a lifetime and brings the community together.

In the 50th anniversary year of the award winning, animated television special, the live production A Charlie Brown Christmas captured the imagination of Milwaukee audiences this past weekend. First Stage presents a theatrical interpretation of the beloved holiday classic, adapted by Eric Schaeffer and overflowing with young voices, which continues to light up the hearts and laughter in Peanuts' fans since 1965.

'I know of only one duty,' said George Bernard Shaw, 'And that is to love.' While Milwaukee Chamber Theatre (MCT) presents a trilogy of one acts titled Love Stories--- including Shaw's short, three-scene play titled 'Village Wooing'---next door to the Studio Theatre the Skylight Music Theatre features Shaw's My Fair Lady, a version of Shaw's 'Pygmalion,' both at the Broadway Theatre Center. Numerous themes echo through these separate shows regarding social class and male/female relationships, particularly those experienced in marriage. Actual life partners and actors Tami Workentin and James Pickering prove to be the genuine actors, true gems in this production, illustrating love inside and outside the theater to the delight of Milwaukee audiences.

Milwaukee Repertory Theater transports London's inimitable West End theater tradition to Milwaukee on their Quadracci Powerhouse stage. One of the theater's most successful playwrights, Agatha Christie, and her murder mystery The Mousetrap, haunt and humor theatergoers this November and December. The beguiling The Mousetrap production places several unusual characters in a guest house while snowbound in a small town near London. There's no where for anyone to escape after a seemingly unrelated murder occurs, and the audience applauds every moment as the nursery rhyme tune 'Three Blind Mice.' plays in the background several times during the performance while the guests figure out why they are all considered suspects.

Assembling an amazing array of talent appearing on the Cabot Theatre Stage, the Skylight Music Theatre's My Fair Lady lingers in the audience's mind long after their standing ovations.---just as Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's magnificent musical did when the production first opened on Broadway in 1956. Bloomin' with classic melodies, enduring and memorable, the acclaimed Dorothy Danner directs this brilliant cast with beautiful, fantastical costumes (especially hats) fashioned by Chris March.

In a backstage dressing room of New York's Metropolitan Opera, Enrico Caruso appears as David Cecsarini, Artistic Director of Next Act Theater. The company's perfectly paired production also features Christopher Tramantana as Caruso's faithful valet, Mario. In playwright William Luce's Bravo, Caruso!. the audiences recalls that even gifted performers face trials and tribulations. During this production, Caruso prepares for what will eventually be his final  performance, this time as the Rabbi Eleazar in the Met's La Juive on Christmas Eve, 1920, far away from where Caruso's heart desires to be, in Napoles, Italy, his homeland that he loves.

Every time Guys on Ice takes to the stage writer and lyricist Fred Alley's spirit soars again. Milwaukee Rep's Stackner Cabaret presents this unique musical for the holiday season directed by Northern Sky Theater Artistic Director Jeffrey Herbst and also Alley's boyhood friend. .Music Director and composer James Kaplan mans the keyboards along with Bo Johnson. Played out on the intimate cabaret stage, up close and personal for Miwlaukee audiences, Lloyd, Marvin and Ernie the Moocher revive the age old Northern Wisconsin tradition--Ice Fishing-- with several humorous and poignant 'twists.

Happiness and cheer come calling at First Stage with the debut of A Charlie Brown Christmas. The company's Artistic Director Jeff Frank had been writing this produciton on his own Christmas to-be-produced list in a continual effort to bring the1965 award-winning television special to the theater since he arrived in 1999. Only recently have the copyrights been released through Eric Schaeffer's stage adaptation, and Frank immediately seized the opportunity to warm Milwaukee's hearts and introduce a new generation to the world created by Charles Schulz. Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the Peanuts gang take over the Todd Wehr Theater beginning on Friday, November 27 for a superb holiday celebration.

Boulevard Ensemble Theatre opened their 30th season at the East Side Plymouth Church presenting an absolutley charming romance Handle with Care. Award-winning author and playwright Jason Odell Williams' wrote a heartwarming comedy and intertwines several religious traditions when a young Jewish woman, Ayelot, travels from Israel to America with her Grandmother Edna to rural Virginia, and tonight of all nights, Christmas Eve, they land in the small town of Goodview.

American Players Theatre (APT) stages Pierre D. Marivaux's romantic romp The Game of Love and Chance surrounded by the warmth of Spring Green's Touchstone Theatre. What could be more enchanting and elegant on their intimate stage than a golden Rococo chandelier illuminating Nathan Stuber's mimimal and sophisticated set design? Only these APT actors who dazzle the audience dressed in their lush, period Robert Morgan costumes.

An evening at Artistic Director Dale Gutzman's Off the Wall Theatre (OTWT) continually thrills the intellect and imagination while raising the heart rate. To honor a French theater tradition beginning at the turn of the 20th century (1897), OTWT stages a Milwaukee Grand Guignol, a production consisting of four one act plays, similar to the original programming of this specialized theater genre.

Renaissance Theaterworks (RTW) inhabits the Studio Theater at the Broadway Theatre Center and presents a true ballad--a dramatic narrative told over generations often set to music and dance--where this powerful tale recounts the life of 14 year-old Emmett Till. Over the thrid October weekend, Ifa Bayeza's The Ballad of Emmett TIll visiblly moved Milwaukee audiences using an evocative stage designed by Madelyn Yee, ghost like in representing a church sanctuary centered on a coffin-like altar where a circular window, an archtectural rose window, a wheel from a cotton gin or perhaps star, was placed above the 'altar.' Arches, like skeletons of stained glass windows, framed both sides of the backdrop The innventive set combined with a dream cast imaginatively directed by Marti Gobel breathes life into this young boy's ballad.

When the curtainss opened in Uhlein Hall last weekend at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, Milwaukee Ballet unfolded Michael Pink's world renowned Dracula to a mesmerized audience. While the stage Dracula seduced his prey, the ballet company danced with sensual abandon in technical beauty that captivated the audience through the three act evening accompanied by the accomplished Milwaukee Symphony Ballet Orchestra directec by Andrew Sill. To up the production's intensity, stunning lighting effects conjured by the award-winning designer David Grill focused color shimmered on backdrops or a moon rising above the dancers where spectacular lighting illuminated the theater.

What does somenone do when his or her world is turned upside down and there's no where to go? James Henry, the litlte boy in author Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach discovers this dilemma after a terrible accident places him alone in an orphanage. That is, until his two aunts Spiker and Sponge, his only living family, take him into their home, which he hopes will be the family he longs for..So begins First Stage's  29th season with the Theater for Young Audiences premiere of the new musical sharing the identical name: Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach.

A 'boy ballet with bite' arrives in Milwaukee this October to foreshadow the Halloween holiday weekend. Milwaukee Ballet presents the iconic Dracula under the leadership of Artistic Director Michael Pink and Production Manager Douglas McCubbin. The two men met almost 15 years ago when McCubbin danced Dracula's title role in the 2000 Royal New Zealand Ballet production, which then forged a fast friendship between the two artists ever since. Six months after Michael Pink arrived in  Milwaukee, McCubbin followed by joining the Milwaukee Ballet and again performed the title role under Pink's direction in 2005. 

With only a few performances remaining of Northern Sky Theater's (NST) 2015 season, their fall selection Lumberjacks in Love draws to a close. Douglas Mancheski retires the Dirty Bob shanty lumberjack he has played on and off since meeting Fred Alley in 1997. An event when Alley first discovered the actor and asked Mancheski to collaborate on the 'Little Dress' song that was immediately added to the popular NST musical. The solo song and dance continually brings smiles to audiences when Mancheski twirls in a ruffled white skirt on stage. Although Mancheski's burly lumberjack days are numbered this year, until NST's next production, he will still be a shanty boy through the holidays in Milwaukee.

Looking for adventure--A fairy tale, fantasy and a tale about finding family? The classic children's story Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach returns to First Stage under the clever direction of Matt Daniels--a well-known name in Milwaukee. His talents extend to acting, directing and teaching theater academy classes to name only a few and this week he focuses on opening the Theatre for Young Audeince (TYA) production on October 16 in the Todd Wehr Theatre.

n revealing a true story through an autobiographical musical, songwriter Benjamin Scheuer performs his coming of age titled The LIon. Milwaukee Rep's Stiemke Studio presents this up-close and personal production after being named an outstanding solo performance on both sides of the Atlantic. On stage, Scheuer and his acoustic guitars, except for one electric string version, transform the theater with his impressive displays of musicianship over the 70 minute, no intermission production.