In no other way can Americans so well express the core and blood of their democracy; for in the communities lies the final test of the acceptance of the arts as a necessity of everyday life . . . AContinue reading
Through the Looking Glass: WPW Heroines Find Their Superpower
7 June 2023“Who’s the person in the mirror? I don’t know her name. – Lourds Lane, “Fragmented” I. The best moment in Lourds Lane’s SuperYou, receiving its world premiere developmental production with Skylight Music Theatre as part of World Premiere Wisconsin, comesContinue reading
Into the Woods: Retracing First Steps in Wisconsin’s World Premiere Journey
31 March 2023“Into the woods, and who can tell what’s waiting on the journey?” The characters at the beginning of Into the Woods don’t know, as they sing these words from Sondheim and Lapine’s beloved musical. Similarly, I’m quite sure that incrediblyContinue reading
Rainbows Forever: Reflections on StageQ’s CapitalQ Theatre Festival
27 June 2023In March, the Waukesha School District banned Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton’s “Rainbowland” – an innocently utopian yearning for a world free from intolerance and hate – from being performed at a first-grade spring concert because it “could be perceivedContinue reading
Blame Mom
26 June 2023There were years she did not let me touch her . . . [and] my wisdom came too late . . . She is a child of her age, of depression, of war, of fear . . . Only helpContinue reading
Hope Dies Last: Reflections on WPW Plays at Waukesha Civic, Peninsula Players, and Northern Sky
23 June 2023So all my books, certainly this one, tries to create a memory of what was, and what is, and what can be. Basically, that’s what it’s all about. Studs Terkel, Dec. 2003 Interview I. In Lost & Found –Continue reading
What if the Bard’s Characters Really Were Real? New Play Places Them on the World’s Stage, Living in the Here and Now
21 June 2023Like every fan of Ontario’s Stratford Festival, playwright Rick Bingen has experienced the magic of walking around a smallish town and regularly bumping into the actors who ply their trade each night on the four stages comprising the best summerContinue reading
From South Korea to Green Bay: Musical OUT OF THE BLUE Sings Universal Story to Bridge the Divide
19 June 2023Wisconsin native Erin Hunsader (book and lyrics) was a second-year graduate student at NYU-Tisch when she and fellow grad student Haesun Suh (music) began working on their musical Out of the Blue as their MFA thesis project. It’s come aContinue reading
String Theory: Prism Youth Theater Company Imagines a New Way to Play
15 June 2023When I spoke with Leo Madson one day before the opening of The Hidden Strings – the devised Prism Youth Theater Company piece that he is directing as Prism’s World Premiere Wisconsin entry – he was sailing on Lake MichiganContinue reading
The Dream of a Common Language
14 June 2023If from time to time I envy the pure annunciations to the eye . . . what in fact I keep choosing are these words, these whispers, conversations from which time after time the truth breaks moist and green –Continue reading
The (Al)lure of a New Musical: Northern Sky Hopes to Hook Audience with THE FISH WHISPERER
12 June 2023In the small Wisconsin town of Shewauga, the fish aren’t biting – which means the tourists aren’t coming. For a town that depends on an annual influx of such outsiders, that spells disaster. Can a stranger named Hannah Waters –Continue reading
Asking the Big Questions: New Peninsula Players Comedy Goes Deep
9 June 2023Everybody is a wonderin’ what and where they all came from Everybody is a worryin’ ‘bout where They’re gonna go when the whole thing’s done But no one knows for certain and so it’s all the same to me IContinue reading