The Rep's ROUTE 66 Gets Extension Through 5/9

Now through May 9, The Rep will be presenting Route 66, an all-new production, featuring some of the most popular songs of the road. The cast includes Danny Calvert, Adam Estes, Zachary Dylan Robbins, and Justin Robinson. Performances are Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:30PM, Fridays at 8PM, Saturdays at 4PM and 8PM, and Mondays at 2PM and 7PM. For tickets, visit: www.milwaukeerep.com.

ROUTE 66 was a great success when we first produced it for Milwaukee Rep in 2001. That same year we brought back a new version of THE MARVELOUS WONDERETTES to the Stiemke Theater. In the ensuing years, THE MARVELOUS WONDERETTES has gone on to over 30 regional and commercial productions around the country, including an award-winning 18-month run in Los Angeles and a 16-month run Off-Broadway (there's also a really great cast album - available at just about any music store that sells CDs.) In contrast, ROUTE 66 has played in many more theaters - over 125 theaters in 32 states - and has been out on two national tours. And it all started here, in your own Stackner Cabaret.

ROUTE 66 started its theatrical life in the Stackner as a one-act. Shortly after that original production, I was asked by the good people at Oregon Cabaret Theatre in Ashland about creating an expanded version of the show for their theater. I jumped at the chance and began taking the show apart. We added new songs, took some songs away, added numerous costumes and locales and finally added that elusive intermission - all to make the show better, faster and funnier. Of course, you'll be the final judge of that last part, but I do think funnier is a part of the equation here.

Now in its 55th season, Milwaukee Repertory Theater is dedicated to providing the highest level of professional theater to Milwaukee and Wisconsin. It all began in 1954, when Milwaukee native Mary Widrig John forged a plan to create a professional theater for the city.

The Rep remains committed to producing new works for the stage. A relationship between The Rep and playwright Steven Dietz has produced two world premieres written with The Rep's Resident Acting Company in mind. FORCE OF NATURE premiered at The Rep in 1999; PARAGON SPRINGS premiered in April of 2000. In the fall of 2000, The Rep premiered WORK SONG, a critically acclaimed, successful play about Frank Lloyd Wright by Eric Simonson and Jeffrey Hatcher. The play has subsequently been performed around the country. In the fall of 2002, The Rep premierEd Simonson's visceral adaptation of Herman Melville's MOBY DICK, which Time magazine named one of its top ten Theater Productions in the nation for 2002. For the 2007/08 Quadracci Powerhouse season, Charles Randolph-Wright's THE NIGHT IS A CHILD and Jeffrey Hatcher's ARMADALE were both world premiere productions. 

Currently, The Rep supports a Resident Acting Company of 10 members whose work in large and small roles helps assure strong productions on our stages. Having the company allows The Rep to develop complex and ambitious productions, such as RICHARD III and MARY STUART (2003/04 season), A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY and SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE FINAL ADVENTURE (2005/06) and TARTUFFE (2006/07). Members of the prestigious 2008/09 Rep Resident Acting Company include: Jonathan Gillard Daly, Lee E. Ernst, Laura Gordon, Torrey Hanson, Gerard Neugent, James Pickering, Rose Pickering, Peter Silbert, Deborah Staples and Brian Vaughn.

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