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 was made possible through the sponsorship of the United Performing Arts Fund (UPAF). Learn more: https://upaf.org/
Theatermakers assembled for WPW’s Closing Celebration hosted by Northern Sky Theater. Photo by Len Villano.
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
“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
Reading of Gov. Ever’s World Premiere Wisconsin Day Proclamation, featuring artistic leaders from across Wisconsin. Photo: Paul Ruffolo.
“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
In 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
There 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
So 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
Like 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
Wisconsin 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
When 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
If 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
In 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
Everybody 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