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/
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
O’, she’s warm! If this be magic, let it be an art Lawful as eating, – The Winter’s Tale I. Having already experienced plague-related closures of all London theaters during the first ten years of his career, Shakespeare endured farContinue reading
Playwright Danielle Dresden didn’t know triple threat actor Kiki Moritsugu very well when the two first worked together in 2019. They were staging a show at TNW Ensemble Theater, where Dresden and life partner Donna Peckett have spent their careersContinue reading
“If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.” – E.M. Forster, “What I Believe” (1938) In a world where we’re all urgedContinue reading
When playwright Alice Austen began adapting a Greek classic for a First Stage audience, she knew she was in trouble. “When I started working on this, I panicked,” Austen said, speaking by phone about her transformation of Aeschylus’ The EumenidesContinue reading
History is what hurts – Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious I. Remembering the Past “Iris’s nightmares terrified her.” That’s the first sentence in India Hill Brown’s The Forgotten Girl, a terrific YA novel featuring an 11-year-old girl for whomContinue reading
Through the first half of the four-month World Premiere Wisconsin festival, all but two productions in Fond du Lac as well as one-night readings in Spring Green and Green Bay have showcased theater companies in Madison and metro Milwaukee. That’sContinue reading
“I cast spells. Good spells. Healing spells.” – Sam D. White, Hush the Waves “Do you know what magic does, Charlie? It gives people hope, and hope is dangerous.” – Stephen King, Fairy Tale I. SettlingContinue reading