Jay Baker News

Home Grown Theatre and XS Lighting have created one of the first "Green Shows" using entirely LED lighting in Kansas City. Bare: A Pop Opera runs through Wednesday August 13 at the Goppert Theatre on the Avila University campus. Home Grown Theatre Company is a non-profit company run solely by students.

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.

Jivin' Jazz---What else does an audience need to raise the roof of The Milwaukee Rep's Stackner Cabaret in their red hot revue opening this March: Ain't Misbehavin': The Fats Waller Musical Show. Sultry and red-hot aptly describes the entertainment these five multi-talented dancers/musicians/singers energize the cabaret with for two hours, literally keepin' the audience jumpin' for the entire evening.

If ever there were a play to illuminate the theater's power to relate human truth, this could be An Iliad. If ever there were an actor to relate Homer's ancient story through poetry, this surely could be James DeVita. Place this pair in The Milwaukee Rep's Quadracci Powerhouse where An Iliad opened this past weekend, and in 60 years of The Rep's illustrious legacy, almost 42 which has been seen by this ticket holder every season, this stunning production ranks of as one of the top ten.

What can be defined as slavery? In multiple ways, slavery continually exists and humans can all be slaves to someone or something. At the Stiemke Studio this past February weekend, The Milwaukee Rep opened The Whipping Man. The 2006 award-winning Off Broadway play written by Matthew Lopez returns three men, the owner's son and two of his slaves, to their family homestead in a complex and riveting American Civil War drama set a few days before the assassination of President Lincoln.

“I miss being loved,” the legendary Judy Garland sighs in The Milwaukee Rep's first Quadracci Powerhouse production of the year, End of the Rainbow. Peter Quilter's “play with music” highlights the star's last few weeks of her extraordinary successful yet troubled life and the title refers to the song that often defined Garland. The “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” the theme from her iconic film The Wizard of Oz that catapulted the young actress into the spotlight.

To capture the long standing tradition of The Milwaukee Rep's adaptation of A Christmas Carol that opened last weekend at the Historic Pabst Theater, many families or friends crowd around the grand Christmas tree adorned and standing in the center of Milwaukee's Patty and Jay Baker Theater Complex. They punch the button on their smart phones; take pictures of these memories withstanding the test of time, an annual event to be cherished. The Rep's production of A Christmas Carol has run consecutively each December for 38 years, a holiday present waiting to be opened again and again.

Four guys, forever classy wearing white dinner jackets, appear in the musical revue Forever Plaid at The Rep's Stackner Cabaret. And when Frankie, Jinx, Smudge and Spanky perform their four-part harmony in the fictional singing group, they exude slightly clueless personalities while, to the audience's delight, their musical talent exceeds expectations.

A scintillating and sensual evening unfolds for The Rep's first Stiemke Studio production this fall. Award winning playwright and author David Ives presents an intimate, layered portrait of men and women relationships in his Venus in Fur, a play based on Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's 1870 novella Venus in Furs. While all the publicity might focus on the sadomasochism¾a term coined by combining the names of the Marquis de Sade and Sacher-Masoch¾this production encompasses the great battles between male and female, God and man, antiquity and modernity, and most visibly, love and power.

The Milwaukee Rep embarked on a new journey when Mark Clements presented a resplendent Ragtime to open the company's 60th anniversary season in September 2013. As Clements begins his second term as Artistic Director, this Ragtime production carries the audience for a ride on the 'wheels of a dream' with a lingering presence few will encounter. Every theatrical and musical detail, from the casting, costumes, lighting and stage design rose above any expectations the audience previously envisioned. Opening night for the Rep's 60th season proved awe inspiring, almost angelic, assuring the supreme possibilities inherent in any art performance.

Sundance Institute today announced the participants for its annual Creative Producing Labs and Creative Producing Summit, both held the week of July 29 at the Sundance Resort in Sundance, Utah. These activities are part of the Institute's year-round Creative Producing Initiative, which encompasses a series of Labs, Fellowships and other events that support independent producers.

Gulfshore Playhouse has announced they have received a $100,000 donation last week from Patty and Jay Baker, local philanthropists and supporters of the Arts.

As Sir Robin carols merrily to King Arthur in Monty Python's Spamalot, 'In any great adventure, if you don't want to lose…you won't succeed on Broadway if you don't have any Jews.' Eric Idle's cheeky lyric, which unfailingly generated knowing guffaws from Broadway audiences, proves to be more than a little grounded in truth, as BROADWAY MUSICALS: A JEWISH LEGACY convincingly attests.

As Sir Robin carols merrily to King Arthur in Monty Python's Spamalot, 'In any great adventure, if you don't want to lose...you won't succeed on Broadway if you don't have any Jews.'

As Sir Robin carols merrily to King Arthur in Monty Python's Spamalot, 'In any great adventure, if you don't want to lose…you won't succeed on Broadway if you don't have any Jews.' Eric Idle's cheeky lyric, which unfailingly generated knowing guffaws from Broadway audiences, proves to be more than a little grounded in truth, as BROADWAY MUSICALS: A JEWISH LEGACY convincingly attests.

Gulfshore Playhouse is preparing their seventh season with a variety of diverse productions, presentation formats, and venues. Naples' first and finest professional theatre company is growing to six Mainstage productions this year, running from October through April.

Gulfshore Playhouse is preparing their Scintillating Seventh season with a variety of diverse productions, presentation formats, and venues. Naples' first and finest professional theatre company is growing to six Mainstage productions this year, running from October through April.