Mike Fischer wrote theater and book reviews for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel for fifteen years, serving as chief theater critic from 2009-18. A member of the Advisory Company of Artists for Forward Theater Company in Madison, he also co-hosts Theater Forward, a bimonthly podcast. You can reach him directly at mjfischer1985@gmail.com.
Mike’s work as WPW’s Festival Reporter is made possible through the sponsorship of the United Performing Arts Fund (UPAF). Learn more: https://upaf.org/
Long before World Premiere Wisconsin, there was the Village Playhouse, which has been staging annual one-act festivals of new work by Wisconsin playwrights for nearly 40 years. Opening on June 9 in Milwaukee and featuring six world premieres, the Playhouse’sContinue reading
The Loneliness One dare not sound – And would as soon surmise As in its Grave go plumbing To ascertain the size – . . . I fear me this – is Loneliness – The Maker of the soul ItsContinue reading
Following an initial concert presentation and ensuing developmental lab in 2019, Filipino-American artist Lourds Lane’s SuperYou – a musical for which she wrote book, music, and lyrics – was ticketed for an off-Broadway opening in May 2020 at the DarylContinue reading
The Cast of THE KENOSHA VERBATIM PROJECT with narrator Dr. Julius Crump
This past weekend, each of the three World Premiere Wisconsin plays I saw – Margaret in Madison, Lincoln & Liberty Too in DePere, and The Kenosha Verbatim Project in Kenosha – involved versions of civil war, with communities tearing themselvesContinue reading
Playwright Marcia Jablonski was working as a freelancer in California when she realized she’d need to write the play that would become The Last Hotel; it will make its debut this Friday as part of World Premiere Wisconsin, courtesy ofContinue reading
“Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.” – Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte I.Continue reading
“I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.” – Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie I. Jamie is a psychiatrist. BlaiseContinue reading
Quick: Which of Shakespeare’s many female characters has the most lines? It’s not Rosalind, Cleopatra or Juliet but Margaret of Anjou, one of just three Shakespeare characters to appear in four Shakespeare plays (and no, Falstaff isn’t one of theContinue reading
I. Boxed In Even before Karen Estrada took the stage for a mesmerizing solo performance, I was struck by the set. It was opening night in Sturgeon Bay for Jennifer Blackmer’s I Carry Your Heart With Me, directed byContinue reading
With six World Premiere Wisconsin plays opening next weekend, this blog post offers you not one preview, but two, involving world premieres that ostensibly have nothing in common but their debut date of Friday, May 19; they don’t even openContinue reading