Peggy Sue Dunigan - Page 14

Cross, hook, jab and uppercut-know anything about boxing? Sturgeon Bay's Third Avenue Playhouse imports Sossy Merchanics in a Stage Door Theatre Company performance billed Tricky Boxing August. While no audience member needs to know anything about boxing to throughly enjoy the high energy production, the team of Brian Sostek and Megan McClellan pairs in the nostalgic 1940's fictional tale of boxer Dancing Danny David and how he acquired the 'knockout of his life.'

Sit down for a sophisticated cocktail on the Green Bay shores at Door County's Peninsula Players Theatre (PPT) this weekend. Then enter through the theater doors at eight in the evening to enjoy the stage adaptation of Agatha Christie's best selling novel which has sold over 100 million copies to date: And Then There Were None. Considered one of Christie's masterpiece mysteries, the plot centers around a 'Ten Little Indians' poem. A poem eventually changed to 'Ten Little Soldiers' for an American version published around 1940, as the story continued to mesmerize readers and become the best selling mystery novel of all time.

After attending American Folklore Theater's Packer Fans From Outer Space twice in one week, the smiles and laughter can still be remembered, a Door County memory to revisit regularly, even when the company's name changes next year to Northern Sky Theater. Lee Becker, Frederick Heide and James Kaplan collaborated as composers, lyricists, and writers of professional theater that brings to the Peninsula Park Stage this cadre of unforgettable characters in an unimaginable story. A story set in 1953 where one Juddville apple farmer, Harvey Keister, saves the intergalactic Packers from extinction by the intergalactic Bears, and in the battle, saves the earthly Green Bay Packers from their demise as Wisconsin's football team.

There's magic in the summer air at Third Avenue Playhouse. Sturgeon Bay's Stage Door Theater Company opened their new season with Lanford Wilson's Talley's Folly. In this 1980 Pulitzer Prize winning play set in Lebanon, Missouri, with some resemblance to a Door County July, an age worn folly, a Victorian boathouse, conjures a moonlight rendezvous for two heartbroken cynics, Sally and Matt.

Perhaps the power of American Players Theatre can be determined by an audience's silence when exiting the Touchstone Theater after a Sunday evening performance, the haunting quiet almost reverent appreciation for what had transpired minutes before. In Spring Green, Sarah Day illuminates the stage in an approximately one hour forty five minute no intermission performance. APT's one woman play retells award winning author's Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, a play she adapted in 2007 and based on her memoir from the year after her husband John Gregory Dunne died in 2003 A time when Didion simultaneously coped when her daughter Quintana suffered from septic shock, often lying n the hospital's ICU hovering between life and death.

Outdoor theater experienced under Spring Green's star studded Wisconisn sky at American Players Theatre easily engages the audiences. When the renowned company alights on the Up the Hill Theatre with one of William Shakespeare's finest comedies Much Ado About Nothing for their summer 2014 season. the enthralling performance directed by David Frank electrifies the audience with charm and laughter.

The distinguished experience of Director Kenneth Albers returns to American Players Theatre (APT) in rural Spring Green for David Mamet's multiple award winning play, American Buffalo. First produced in 1975, the three person drama fills the indoor Touchstone Theater with the talents of Brian Mani, James Ridge and Brendan Meyer in perhaps one of the most poetic uses of profanity heard and placed on stage.

In a tribute to the quintessential wit of Oscar Wilde, Spring Green's American Players Theatre (APT) opens their 2014 season at the Up the Hill Theatre by staging The Importance of Being Earnest. A play often considered one of Wilde's great literary achievements, APT under the direction of William Brown casts the comedic farce as a classical romantic comedy touched by revisiting the affectionate humor between a vintage Laurel and Hardy routine.

Wisconsin theater moves to the magnificent outdoors this summer with diverse venues presenting great classical and original productions throughout the state. In Spring Green, Wisconsin, American Players Theatre (APT) has been performing legendary playwrights under the stars for more than 30 years. At the Up the Hill Theatre, Shakespeare's comedy that spars witty conversations between the sexes Much Ado About Nothing features acclaimed actors Colleen Madden and David Daniel in the beloved roles of Beatrice and Benedict. In the company's new indoor Touchstone Theatre, Brenda DeVita directs her first production as APT's new Artistic Director. Sarah Day plays Joan Didion in the adaptation from Didion's award winning memory in her play The Year of Magical Thinking. APT extended their season in 2014 with five Up the Hill Play and now four productions instead of three in the Touchstone that runs through November.

Michael Pink's World Premiere Mirror, Mirror conjures a spell that leaves the audience speechless except for the applause of a standing ovation in Uhlien Hall at Milwaukee's Marcus Center for the Performing Arts. In collaboration with the Milwaukee Ballet Company, Andrews Sill and the Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra, Composer Philip Fenney, Lighting Designer David Grill and Costume and Scenic Designer Todd Edward Ivins, Pink's masterpiece production on the Thursday night opening of the fairy tale Snow White presented a majestic full-length theatrical ballet for Milwaukee audiences.

As one of the first fully produced Young Company productions, Fist Stage and their First Stage Theater Academy presents this premiere organization of high school talent in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet at Milwaukee's Golda Meir School. The production marks a collaboration with the National Endowment for the Arts and their program Shakespeare for a New Generation in an effort to expose teens to the wonders of the classic literature.

Friday night for the inagural performance, Milwaukee's Skylight Music Theatre presented Daron Hagen's world premiere I Hear America Singing in the Studio Theatre at the Historic Third Ward's Broadway Theatre Center. The Milwaukee born and bred Hagen, a graduate from Brookfield Central High School and afterwards the University of Wisconsin-Madison before attending Julliard, composed a message that “love abides,' whether in love of art, country, music, personal relationships or self. An innovative production that defies conventional definitions.

This May, the Milwaukee Ballet stages Artistic Director Michael Pink's World Premiere full-length ballet Mirror, Mirror. With Pink's innovative genius and darker, dramatic perspective on the fairy tale Snow White, Pink enlisted Todd Edward Ivins for the ballet's costume and set design. The pair collaborated several years ago under Milwaukee Rep's Artistic Director Mark Clements for the theater company's sellout musical, Cabaret (2010), while Ivins and his designs were instrumental in the success of Ragtime (2013) and the contemporary vision seen on stage in Shakespeare's Othello (2012). The Rep's Quadracci Powerhouse became a familiar place in Milwaukee where the pair could contemplate their reinvention of a beloved fairy tale.

To celebrate women and the love/hate relationship they contemplate with their closets, Wisconsin's Sturgeon Bay', which opens the way to beautiful Door County, and Co Artistic Directors' Robert Boles and James Valcq of Third Avenue Playhouse present the late Nora Ephron's and her sister Delia's theater experience titled Love, Loss and What I Wore. The 2009 Off Broadway premiere won two Drama Desk Awards and will be considered one of the second longest running Off Broadway productions at the Westside Theatre. How fortunate Stage Door Theatre Company gives peninsula audiences a premiere opportunity to experience this worldwide hit show to end their winter season and brighten a cold spring.

Daring, dramatic and dynamic. Words to describe the conclusion of First Stage's 27th season when the company presents a 50th World Premiere co-written by Artistic Director Jeff Frank and Associate Artistic Director John Maclay adapted from the classic series of mystery stories ghost writtne by Margaret Wirt-Benson in their play Nancy Drew and her Biggest Case Ever. Staged front and center in the Todd Wehr Theater, these three words, daring, dramatic and dynamic apply to the inventive theater company and their captivating new production featuring that famous feminine sleuth Nancy Drew.

America loves cars, big or beautiful cars, and the late playwright James McLure uses a classical 1959 Thunderbird as a metaphor for his two one act plays In Tandem Theater blends into their season ending selection: 1959 Pink Thunderbird. These two one act plays directed by both Jane and Chris Flieller feature a feminine version and a masculine perspective on why the ionic pink T-bird, often immortalized in such songs as “Fun, Fun, Fun” by the Beach Boys, became romantic inspiration for hometown stories and legends, including those in Maynard, Texas, circa 1978.

To honor this incredible legacy of the feminine heroine Nancy Drew, Milwaukee's First Stage (FS), presents a world premiere in the Todd Wehr Theater on May 2: Nancy Drew and Her Biggest Case Ever. The new play co-written by FS Artistic Director Jeff Frank and FS Associate Artistic Director John Maclay becomes the 50th world premiere produced by First Stage in the last 26 years, and coalesces the men's combined notes from reading over 30 stories from the legendary mystery series. In the final script, the production will intermingle Nancy Drew's The Bungalow Mystery with The Quest of the Missing Map.

Small, professional theater companies produce theater on sparse budgets. There great contribution to city's culture includes producing plays at affordable prices and granting a variety of acting talent invaluable experience. Milwaukee's Unchained Theatre operates on a tiny budget in the heart of the city's Fifth Ward, the brainchild of James Dragolovich. In this intimate setting featuring approximately 75 seats, Stephen Sondheim's multiple Tony award winning musical with a book by George Furth Company creates magic forty years later.

This April, Milwaukee Rep staged an interesting performance written by David Bar Katz for the finale of their 60th Anniversary season. Superman, a fictional comic book hero still idolized by young and old, arrived in the production The History of Invulnerability, a play dependent on an overwhelming presence of stage technology and directed by Artistic Director Mark Clements. This historical narrative on how Superman was "born" reflects the mind of his co-creator Jerry Siegel one hour and thirty-six minutes before Siegel died.

In a classic comedy to end the 2013-2014 season, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre presents the popular farce 'Lend Me a Tenor.' C. Michael Wright directs the internationally produced Ken Ludwig play featuring actors hiding behind or running through closed doors while mistaken identities almost ruin a Cleveland Grand Opera fundraiser.