Peggy Sue Dunigan - Page 6

Twenty years and 21st century technology bring Kevin Henkes' beloved picture book, Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse to First Stage this May and June to send their audiences into summer on a brilliant high. In a production combining three Henkes' stories, including 'Chester's Way' and 'Julius, Baby of the World,' Kevin Kling's theatrical adaptation of Henkes' tiny mice tales delightfully portray Lilly, 'Queen of the World.' Stories where Lilly discovers friendship and family carry her through those times when as Henkes wrote: 'Today was difficult, tomorrow will be better.'

How curious and curiouser an English children's fantasy written in 1865 for three sisters has been translated into 174 languages and never been out of print since, never once. Lewis Carroll's surreal tale 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,' usually shortened to 'Alice in Wonderland,' appears on stage at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts when Artistic Director Michael Pink and Milwaukee Ballet present their version of Alice in Wonderland, which first premiered at the Washington Ballet in 2012, With this immense production of Alice, MKE Ballet Costume Manager Mary Piering completes 32 years in the company's costume shop at 5th and National to refit the more than 120 costumes for the one weekend only performances. A visit to the shop the week of rehearsals found Piering stitching on a small headpiece, putting the finishing touches on the entire cast's wardrobe.

The popular Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse returns to First Stage for Kevin Kling's theatrical adaptation of Kevin Henkes best selling children's book beginning this May. A picture book written in 1996, Henkes' story features a tiny little girl mouse struggling to be who she is, wearing glitter sunglasses and mismatched outfits--as Lilly called herself, 'The Queen of the World' who liked everything' and in 2016, celebrates 20 years still tucked firmly in children's hearts.

“A work of art is above all an adventure of the mind,” quotes Eugène Ionesco, the author of the Boulevard Theatre's charming and provocative production Bald Soprano.. Ionesco, considered one of the forerunners of absurd/surreal theater, wrote the one-act play (90 minutes, no intermission) at the beginning of his career in 1948. A time in his forties when he first began dabbling in the “anti-play,” an artistic comment on cultural and social conversation and mores, seen from his French perspective that had survived the devastation of Paris and other European countries, including the Nazi invasions and regime during World War II.

Milwaukee Rep closes a successful season in sublime style staging a production of August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize winning play Fences on the Quadracci Powerhouse stage. Lou Bellamy, who worked extensively with the acclaimed African-American playwright at St. Paul, Minnesota's Penumbra Theatre Company, directed the spellbinding Rep performance. On a stunning, realistic set courtesy of Vicki Smith, the Pittsburgh brownstone with a comfortable wood porch, “lays in the lap of the audience on the thrust stage” according to the Rep In Depth, and places Wilson's flawed characters directly near the seats of the theatergoers, Seats where Wilson's portrait of humanity, seen through the African American experience, exposes compassion and struggle.   

'Life is too important to be taken seriously,' quoted Oscar Wilde, the famous and infamous author who wrote the ever popular 'The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People' in 1895. In Tandem provides an endearing musical version of Wilde's play from an original 1960 production Ernest in Love by collaborating with Milwaukee Opera Theatre. In an adaptation written by Anne Croswell with music composed by Lee Pockriss, the performance had been revived in the early 2000's. on Broadway Director Jane Flieller hits all the right notes with touching humor when she assembled an accomplished, elegant cast to revive Wilde's clever romantic tale of social class and turn of the 20th century society.

On a Sunday morning at Milwaukee's Intercontinental Hotel, First Stage hosted a brunch featuring world premiere Ella Enchanted author Gail Carson Levine. Levine answered questions from her primarily youthful audience alongside Director John Maclay's warm hospitality to the delight of her fans. After a charming duet from the show sung by Taylor Kass and Cole Winston Ella and Prince Char in the Brilliant Cast on stage later that afternoon, the audience eagerly anticipated hearing from Levine.

American's national Mother's Day arrives, Sunday, May 8, and Next Act Theatre presents a heartwarming, poignant and powerful production to close their season at exactly the right time of year titled Motherhood Out Loud. Conceived by Susan R. Rose and Joan Stein, more than a dozen playwrights revisit motherhood through a series of themed vignettes beginning with 'Chapter One: Fast Births' and finishing with 'Chapter Five: Coming Home.' Directed by Milwaukee's acclaimed Laura Gordon, each chapter features four actors--Doug Jarecki, Michelle Lopez-Rios, Deborah Staples and Tami Workentin--who play the numerous mothers/fathers of various ages and stages throughout the evening.

One of the hidden elements entwined in Noel Coward's wry play Fallen Angels becomes the French love song 'Memes les Anges'--which translates the first line to: 'Even the angels succumb to love.' On stage in the beautiful Cabot Theatre,  Milwaukee Chamber Theatre's  (MCT) delightful production of Coward's 1925 play, written when he was in his 20's, use this love song's words combined with the lyrics to Cole Porter's 'Let's Misbehave' to underpin the deceptive meaning of the scintillating humor in Coward's words. 

Antigone--an ancient play first written by Sophocles in approximately 400 B.C.--challenges audiences in the 21st century and centers around strong women, political drama, and difficult moral choices necessary for the characters to choose. This classic play dramatically illustrates that over centuries, humanity changes little with modern circumstances. First Stage Young Company tackles this acclaimed tragedy under Joshua Pohja's direction by choosing modern language using a translation from the prestigious French dramatist Jean Anouilh written in 1943. Anouilh often centered his stories on idealistic youth, in this play a young princess, who fights for a divine and personal morality over royal social compromise. Pohja dedicated the production to young Middle Eastern women, similar to Malala who also raised her singular voice against her adversaries even under threat of death.

In the 1940's, women managed factories while welding to build warships and also sat in a bomber's cockpit, climbing into the air to aid America's war efforts. Produced by Renaissance Theaterworks (RTW), the World War II story titled Censored on Final Approach and written by a former Marquette University Director of Theater, the late Phylis Ravel, takes flight on stage in the Studio Theater to reveal how these women coped. RTW collaborated with current theater students and technicians to remember these women pilots who sacrificed their lives for the war. To do this, these courageous WASPS (Women Air Force Service Pilots), females ahead of their time, confronted their male competition and tradition to fight for their right to fly and live everything their feminine selves could be.

The battle between saying 'yes' and 'no,' wages a magical war when spoken by a princess.,First Stage's World Premiere Ella Enchanted arrived at the Todd Wehr Theater this past weekend based on Gail Carson Levine's popular award winning novel. Company Associate Artistic Director John Maclay fill this turned on end adaptation of 'Cinderella'  with joy through the book/lyrics written by Karen Zacarias and her musical collaborator Deborah Wicks LaPuma. This fabulous artistic team complements equally fantastic double young performer casts. On opening night, Alison Pogerelc, Grace Becker, Elizabeth Robbins and Max Pink completely enchant the audience.

With two world premiere ballets and ten Beatles songs front and center on the Uhlein Stage, Milwaukee Ballet presented their Kaleidoscope Eyes at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts in an exquisite opening night performance. Emmy award-winning Lighting Designer David Grill, a dream team technician for the ballet's Artistic Director Michael Pink, collaborated with three acclaimed choreographers, Garrett Smith, Timothy O'Donnell, and Trey McIntyre, for a triple dose of 'Oh Wow' contemporary dance' performed with love, as the Beatles would say, 'From Me to You,' the ballet to the city's audiences.

Women of the World unite for Milwaukee Rep's poetic, powerful world premiere titled Sirens of Song featuring the musical history through a women's perspective sung through familiar melodies of the 20th century. While the music begins in December 1901 with the Daughters of Freedom, the Stackner Cabaret provides the ultimate setting for Scenic Designer Scott Davis' abandoned clothing shop filled with manikins dressed in period costumes-all surrounded by a grand, gilt broken picture frame where these three actors make their Rep debuts. A revue written by Kevin Ramsey and his niece Pearl Ramsey, the two collaborators weave world events through a century worth of popular music. Woo a women's heart at Milwaukee Rep's poetic, powerful world premiere titled Sirens of Song featuring  history tuned to a women's perspective and sung through familiar melodies of the 20th century. While the music begins in December 1901 with the 'Daughters of Freedom', the Stackner Cabaret provides the ultimate setting for Scenic Designer Scott Davis' abandoned clothing shop filled with manikins dressed in period costumes-all surrounded by a grand, gilt fragmented picture frame where these three actresses open their Rep debuts. A  world premiere revue written by Kevin Ramsey and his niece Pearl Ramsey, the two collaborators weave world events through a century worth of popular music.

What allows a child or person to say yes or no to any request. To use intellect and free will to voice their choice? First Stage follows a World Premiere with another World Premiere this spring by presenting an adaptation of Gail Carson Levine's 1997 Newbery Award winning book Ella Enchanted. The novel garnered a cult follwoing for this Cinderella story turned on edge. First Stage commissioned the production together with Adventure Theatre MTC in Maryland while two more women Karn Zacarias wrote the stage play and lryics alongside composer Deborah Wicks LaPuma. With more than ten original musical numbers, the production celebrates young girls and women in every sense, although young men have a place in Ella's heart.

Perhaps only someone looking from the the outside can see more clearly than those living on the inside of the United States. This principle operates with brillant clarity when Milwaukee Reperatory Theater presents the World Premiere American Song by acclaimed Ausstralian author and playwright Joanna Murray-Smith. The Rep commissioned the play almost four years  iago in 2012 and then opened on the Quadraccie Powerhouse stage this past weekend. Set in the America's heartland, a supposedly rural Wisconsin town, American Players Theatre actor James DeVIta gives an incomprable portrayal of a parent in agony, a father in midlife named Andy.

The former star of television's 'Adventures in Paradise' Gardner McKay, also an author, sailor and man of the sea his entire life, wrote Sea Marks in 1981. The two person play portrays an unlikely couple, one living in Ireland, and the other in Liverpool, past their passionate youth who revive the age-old art of writing love letters to woo. While Gardner wrote his play in the 21st century, and subsequently won a LA Drama Circles' Critics Award, the 1960's setting remains more than half a century removed from contemporary cell phones with email and texting at one's fingertips. Soulstice Theatre stages the heartwarming, winsome play in their intimate St. Francis Theater with winning results.

First Stage World Premiere The Snow arrived this winter to the Todd Wehr Theater, while famed playwright Finegan Kruckemeyer traveled from half way across the world to appear on March 6 for the play's production debut. Commissioned by Oregon Children's Theatre and Magik Theatre in collaboration with First Stage, Kruckemeyer's The Snow told a tale of two towns both named after Margareta 'Mama' Kishka and the huge snow walls surrounding the towns in isolation, cut off from sun and supplies. A tiny boy Theodore together with a gentle giant named Oliver try to solve this never-ending winter through their courageous adventure written in the tradition of Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson.

With little more than 25 seats available att the Off the Wall Theatre (OTW), Artistic Director Dale Gutzman presents William Shakespeare's Hamlet--An intimate, visceral, up close and personal Hamlet condensed by Gutzman after several years of research and eleven weeks of cast rehearsals. Working also as Production Director, Gutzman doubles acting several roles in his interpretation he states was inspired by the English, multi award winning Peter Brook, hailed to be one of the greatest living directors of contemporary theater.

Hat Queens--the women in Skylight Music Theatre's Crowns: A Gospel Musical call themselves Hat Queens--,and honor women who proudly wear a magnificent hat on Sunday to display their unique being and personality. Award-winning actress and playwright Regina Taylor adapted the book 'Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats' by Michael Cunningham and Craig Mayberry for the stage to produce a non-linear, almost poetic string of joyful songs and stories to bring these African American women and traditions to life that fills the Cabot Theatre with joyful music.