Peggy Sue Dunigan - Page 16

American Players Theatre (APT) stages Pierre D. Marivaux's romantic romp The Game of Love and Chance surrounded by the warmth of Spring Green's Touchstone Theatre. What could be more enchanting and elegant on their intimate stage than a golden Rococo chandelier illuminating Nathan Stuber's mimimal and sophisticated set design? Only these APT actors who dazzle the audience dressed in their lush, period Robert Morgan costumes.

An evening at Artistic Director Dale Gutzman's Off the Wall Theatre (OTWT) continually thrills the intellect and imagination while raising the heart rate. To honor a French theater tradition beginning at the turn of the 20th century (1897), OTWT stages a Milwaukee Grand Guignol, a production consisting of four one act plays, similar to the original programming of this specialized theater genre.

Renaissance Theaterworks (RTW) inhabits the Studio Theater at the Broadway Theatre Center and presents a true ballad--a dramatic narrative told over generations often set to music and dance--where this powerful tale recounts the life of 14 year-old Emmett Till. Over the thrid October weekend, Ifa Bayeza's The Ballad of Emmett TIll visiblly moved Milwaukee audiences using an evocative stage designed by Madelyn Yee, ghost like in representing a church sanctuary centered on a coffin-like altar where a circular window, an archtectural rose window, a wheel from a cotton gin or perhaps star, was placed above the 'altar.' Arches, like skeletons of stained glass windows, framed both sides of the backdrop The innventive set combined with a dream cast imaginatively directed by Marti Gobel breathes life into this young boy's ballad.

When the curtainss opened in Uhlein Hall last weekend at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, Milwaukee Ballet unfolded Michael Pink's world renowned Dracula to a mesmerized audience. While the stage Dracula seduced his prey, the ballet company danced with sensual abandon in technical beauty that captivated the audience through the three act evening accompanied by the accomplished Milwaukee Symphony Ballet Orchestra directec by Andrew Sill. To up the production's intensity, stunning lighting effects conjured by the award-winning designer David Grill focused color shimmered on backdrops or a moon rising above the dancers where spectacular lighting illuminated the theater.

What does somenone do when his or her world is turned upside down and there's no where to go? James Henry, the litlte boy in author Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach discovers this dilemma after a terrible accident places him alone in an orphanage. That is, until his two aunts Spiker and Sponge, his only living family, take him into their home, which he hopes will be the family he longs for..So begins First Stage's  29th season with the Theater for Young Audiences premiere of the new musical sharing the identical name: Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach.

A 'boy ballet with bite' arrives in Milwaukee this October to foreshadow the Halloween holiday weekend. Milwaukee Ballet presents the iconic Dracula under the leadership of Artistic Director Michael Pink and Production Manager Douglas McCubbin. The two men met almost 15 years ago when McCubbin danced Dracula's title role in the 2000 Royal New Zealand Ballet production, which then forged a fast friendship between the two artists ever since. Six months after Michael Pink arrived in  Milwaukee, McCubbin followed by joining the Milwaukee Ballet and again performed the title role under Pink's direction in 2005. 

With only a few performances remaining of Northern Sky Theater's (NST) 2015 season, their fall selection Lumberjacks in Love draws to a close. Douglas Mancheski retires the Dirty Bob shanty lumberjack he has played on and off since meeting Fred Alley in 1997. An event when Alley first discovered the actor and asked Mancheski to collaborate on the 'Little Dress' song that was immediately added to the popular NST musical. The solo song and dance continually brings smiles to audiences when Mancheski twirls in a ruffled white skirt on stage. Although Mancheski's burly lumberjack days are numbered this year, until NST's next production, he will still be a shanty boy through the holidays in Milwaukee.

Looking for adventure--A fairy tale, fantasy and a tale about finding family? The classic children's story Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach returns to First Stage under the clever direction of Matt Daniels--a well-known name in Milwaukee. His talents extend to acting, directing and teaching theater academy classes to name only a few and this week he focuses on opening the Theatre for Young Audeince (TYA) production on October 16 in the Todd Wehr Theatre.

n revealing a true story through an autobiographical musical, songwriter Benjamin Scheuer performs his coming of age titled The LIon. Milwaukee Rep's Stiemke Studio presents this up-close and personal production after being named an outstanding solo performance on both sides of the Atlantic. On stage, Scheuer and his acoustic guitars, except for one electric string version, transform the theater with his impressive displays of musicianship over the 70 minute, no intermission production.

Take one college philosophy student, her two Jewish parents, one an English teacher, the other an event/wedding planner, and an Irish Catholic uncle and throw thiem in a South Philiadelphia aparment for a Monday night football game. This eclectic mix of characters on stage ponders moral questions from a mutilayered, throught- provoking perspective and offers a hilarious evening when In Tandem Theatre opens there season at Tenth Street Theatre with Any Given Monday.

The romance of letter writing centers Milwaukee Chamber Theatre's (MCT) Midwest premiere of Dear Elizabeth. Playwright Sarah Ruhl's character study of Pulitzer Prize winners Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell carries the two writers through their 30 plus year friendship, the ups and downs in producing award winning poetry while maintaining personal relationships.

The glitter and shimmer of show business underscores the 'American Dream' at Milwaukee Rep this October. The mulit-award winning  Broadway production Dreamgirls, floods the Quadracci Powerhouse Theater with showstopping light, song and an equally award-winning cast to dazzle Milwaukee audiences.

n a new season celebrating creative women, Skylight Music Opera opens with an elegant tribute to composer Giacomo Puccini's Tosca. Jill Anna Ponasik, Artistic Director of Milwaukee Opera Theatre, weaves the libretto by Luigi Illica and Amanda Holden's English translastion into a visually stunning and stellar version of the Italian opera which first premiered in Rome, 1900, and appears this fall on stage in the Milwaukee's Cabot Theatre.

Stage Door Theatre Company discovers a 'fine way to treat a Steinway,' Words the illustrious and prolific composer Irving Berlin wrote in his song 'I Love a Piano.' Third Avenue Playhouse presents a musical revue concieved by James Valcq based on Berlin's early career using this as the title, and the evening celebrates everything about the piano the composer treasured.  

A mellow eveing of memories opens The Rep's Stackner Cabaret for their 2016-2017 seaso. Back Home Again: On the Road with John Denver recalls the live and reminiscing of former band member and fellow musician Dan Wheetman. A man who travelled on tour with the acoustic country and folk music singer John Denver for eight years through the 1970s-80's, when John Denver took the songwriting world by storm.

When writer Dan Goggin imagined and produced his line of greeting cards featruing sassy nuns, few people would have predicted their instant success or the award-winning, full-length musical after the fact titled Nunsense. When the show's premiered on Broadway in 1985, the Nunsense phenomena continued with numerous revivals and sequels, and includes being adapted for the television screen. Fish Creek's Penninsula Players Theatre (PPT) reprises the rolicking musical from their 1987 season with a spectacular cast that shines another light on these angelic Little Sisters from Hoboken.

Nineteen years have passed since Fish Creek's Northern Sky Theater (NST and formerly AFT) premiered Lumberjacks in Love. As part of the company's 25 anniversary season, this box office hit returns for the fall season at the Door Community Auditorium. And after almost two decades, these burly Hayward, Wisconsin boys celebrate this ode to romance in the deep woods where Kathleen Rock's beautiful stage design adds an ethereal three-dimesnional backdrop to the indoor setting.

A tiny village named Killucan set in contemporary Ireland ignites family fueds and past ghosts in an irrepressible production titled Outside Mullingar at Peninsula Players Theatre. John Patrick Shanley's 2014 play flames the deep fires of hearth and heath burning in his four Irish characters: Tony Reilly, and his son, Anthony, and then their next door neighbors, Aoife Muldoon, and her daughter, Rosemary.

The connection between man/woman and beast, especially a domesticated beast, can be complicated. Ask a dog or cat owner to describe their relationship and the pets often acquire human qualities, they are usually loved beyond what anyone might expect, and profoundly impact the lives of their owners .Stage Door Theatre Company expounds on that devotion in their recent comedy Sylvia at Sturgeon Bay's Third Avenue Playhouse.