Peggy Sue Dunigan - Page 12

Oh, the glories of being 11 and going to middle school! An age and time between childhood and young adulthood where the classroom represents an entire, eternal lifetime in one day. Cartoonist Lincoln Peirce invented a comic strip in 1991 around the adventures of 11-year-old Nate Wright, his father, family and friends that soared to popularity over the last 20 years. First Stage brings these comic book characters to Milwaukee's Todd Wehr Theatre when BIG NATE: THE MUSICAL opens on February 27.

September 13, 27, 29 and October 2, 2006. These forgotten dates inherit new meaning when Milwaukee Rep stages Jessica Dickey's The Amish Project in the Stiemke Studio. Each of these four dates represents a school shooting--and one occurred in a tiny Wisconsin town-- while debut playwright Dickey focuses on October 2. October 2, 2006 the local neighborhood milkman walked into Pennsylvania's Nickel Mines schoolhouse with a gun and shot ten girls, five who survived..

An elegant genesis for dance happened throughout the past February weekend, and particularly on one Friday night. Here in the heart of Milwaukee's theatre district, finely dressed small girls or teenagers accompanied by their parents together with grown girls attached to their equally interested partners arrived at the historic Milwaukee theater in anticipation of Milwaukee Ballet and Artistic Director Michael Pink's Genesis: International Choreographic Competition.

A dynamic feminine duo illuminates Next Act Theatre this winter. The company's Midwest Premiere of Nilaja Sun's No Child transports the audience to the Bronx, New York under tjhe direction of Mary MacDonald Kerr and inspired by actor Marti Gobel. Inside the 'high risk' Malcolm X High School, teaching artist Sun attempts to resurrect her students' live and their futures.. Students 'who need a miracle a day,' she tries to encourage success by enciing them to produce and act in a historical play about convicts, Our Country's Good, all to be accomplished in a mere six weeks.

Discover an Island--an island overflowing with dreams for a enchanting oasis this February at the Skylight Music Theater. In a reprise of a Skylight 1998 production, the musical paring the award-winning Lynn Aherns and Stephen Flaherty, Once on This Island returns Milwaukee to the French Antilles seen on the Cabot Stage. A place where brilliant color, dancing and music captivates the audience through an entire, no intermission evening.

'Children's Theater' appears to be a misnomer--Instead, the name professional theater produced for children respects the work that First Stage presents in the First Step series for pre-schoolers. Goldilocks and the Three Bears opened this weekend at the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center, a musical creation by George Stiles paired with Anthony Drewe, the team of Mary Poppins fame, for any and everyone three and over. This utterly entertaining production represents the sophistication currently attached to professional theater for children, a delight for young and old to appreciate.

'Forgive me,' asks the bearded, finely dressed older man appearing on stage. He rests on a red velvet seat in a train compartment during the late 1800's and empties his pockets one by one and mentions, 'A white silk handkerchief brushed with red lips has not been washed in over a year...' Thus begins the one man performance by iconic Milwaukee actor James Pickering in Renaissance Theaterwork's adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's The Kruetzer Sonata on stage in the Studio Theater. Written by Tolstoy as a novella in 1889 when the story was often banned and unpublished, Nancy Harris reinterpreted Tolstoy's text from the original Russian. She focuses on the philosophical and psychological drama the main character, Pozdynyshev agonizes over when he has recently been acquitted for murder after a year in prison.

Surprises abound in Milwaukee Rep's Good People on stage at the Quadracci Powerhouse this winter. Pulitzer Prize-winning David Lindsay-Abaire's award-winning 2011 drama features one of the Midwest's favorite actresses Laura Gordon in the title role of Margie Walsh. A single mother living in South Boston trying to survive, to work and care take her adult, but severely mentally challenged, daughter Joyce.

Passion and intensity flow from historian, folklorist and musician Stephen Wade when he arrives at Milwaukee Rep's Stackner Cabaret this winter. On Sunday's opening night, Wade, as writer and performer, carries his work accomplished from more than two decades into this unique performance The Beautiful Music All Around Us. The stage production creates a collage of foot tapping banjo or guitar music, photographs and storytelling into one vibrant evening of 'Street Joy.'

Theater for Young Audiences (TYA) might be brushed aside, dismissed by adults who give this professional genre less significance. First Stage proves this preconception about TYA untrue when they opened an adaptation of Jerry Spinelli's 2002 New York Times bestselling novel Stargirl in the Todd Wehr Theater January 18. Award winning playwright Y York adapted the crossover novel read by adults and youth alike into a poignant character driven script filled with humor that delves into the difficulties growing up at 16 in high school. An age when remaining true to an independent personality with a belief in kindness and nonconformity suffers under peer pressure.

With Christmas Eve and December 25th fast approaching, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer will be ready to lead Santa's sleigh once again. Milwaukee's First Stage adapted the classic television special celebrating a 5oth anniversary this year into a musical two year ago, where Rudolph 'with his nose so bright' so children could savor the story in live action. The animated character celebrating a half century this year received a high honor this year, a 2014 U.S. Postal Stamp to commemorate the occasion, while Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer :The Musical revisits First Stage in Milwaukee to nearly sold out performances.

Something wonderful happens in a city when a production captures characters and a niche of suburban culture close to home. In Tandem Theatre at the Tenth Street Theatre developed this crazy charm in the last decade through multiple performances--almost 300 by the end of this current run--of their alternative holiday musical A Cudahy Caroler Christmas. Cudahy, Milwaukee and the surrounding suburbs embraced the parodies with consumptive delight.

This December, Milwaukee Repertory Theater relives a 39-year old tradition in the beautiful Pabst Theater: Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. In this recent adaptation by Joseph Hanreddy and Edward Morgan, familiar English carols and melodies echo through the theater so the audience believes they might be standing on the streets of London, Christmas Eve, mid-1800's. Director Aaron Posner returns to inspire another Ebenezer Scrooge, Milwaukee's own Jonathan Smoots.

Equally enchanting and entrancing in one evening, the Skylight Music Theatre sends Milwaukee audiences to the Emerald City to revisit The Wizard of Oz in grand theatrical style. Over the holiday season, Dorothy and her four friends, Lion, Scarecrow, Tin Man and her beloved Toto, share a journey to where everyone wishes to return: a home overflowing with family and friends.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer makes history again. First Stage celebrates the television special's 50th anniversary this holiday season because five decades ago Rudolph 'with your nose so bright' saved Christmas in this magical tale where these Christmastown misfits power Santa's sleigh during a blinding snowstorm. The animated special also rewrote television history by being one of the first seasonal shows broadcast only once a year combined with the highest ratings. First Stage reprises that success by bringing the beloved handcrafted characters, costumes and scenery to life on stage in their original adaptation from the 2012 production: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Musical.'

Mysterious circumstances and the inexplicable spirit of a six feet tall white rabbit revisit the Milwaukee Repertory Theater's exquisite 70th anniversary production of Harvey. Mary Chase's Pulitzer Prize-winning tale of Ellwood P. Dowd, a man who imagines the rabbit named Harvery is his best friend, unfolds on an elegant double turntable stage designed by Dan Conroy, a sight to delight any audience. The eloquent production humorously explores on a complex level what makes life worth living. Perhaps Ellwood's own words succinctly crystallize that premise: 'You must be oh so smart, or oh so pleasant. For years I was smart, and than I chose pleasant.'

Abridged, musicized, revised and revolutionized—Milwaukee Chamber Theatre presents an innovative version of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised] in the Broadway Theatre Center's Studio Theatre by adding a fourth actor to the frequently popular three person production. The raucous and rambunctious performance, originally conceived by Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield, unbridled opening night audiences with laughter for the evening.

Tyne Daly devotees united in Milwaukee on Wednesday, November 12 when the incomparable and irrepressible actress performed her 90 minute show titled Tyne Daly Does Anything She Wants. Close ties to the Midwestern city inspired the multiple Emmy and Tony Award winning actress to lend her incredible talent for funding Renaissance Theaterworks, a company supporting women's voices in every area of the theater for more than 20 years.

A hint of a seasonal theme inspires Next Act Theatre's Heresy while adding a political twist on on the holiday spirit. A.R. Gurney's near apocalyptic play places Mary and Joe searching for their rebel son Chris in America's jails, now under protection by Homeland Security. Pontius, a leader with a rather droll wife Phyllis, tries to befriend Mary and Joe in finding their son who was arrested without cause. While the couple waits for news of their son, a military recorder named Mark, that just happens to be the name of one of the four gospel writers in the Bible, rattles off biblical phrases referring to the nativity and condemnation of Christ with equal aplomb.

Man and Sensibilities. Machines and Sciene. Milwaukee's Off the Wall Theatre presents an American premiere of an intellectual Frankenstein based on Mary Shelley's 1818 novel more than the horror monsters the novel's name frequently invokes. The company's Artistic Director Dale Gutzman imported an adaptation by Nick Dear that premiered at London's National Theatre and focuses on the meaning of creating the spark of human life overlaid with touches from John MIlton's "Paradise Lost." Themes that Shelly intertwined into her original novel, often considered to be one of the first examples of science fiction.