Post Script

Director Laura Gordon describes Ring Round the Moon (adapted by Christopher Fry from Jean Anouilh’s An Invitation to the Castle) as “a sneaky play” made up of many other genres, including comedy, romance, farce, and social critique. And indeed, it plays like a patchwork of dramatic impulses, as if the rarified setting – a tropical greenhouse on an opulent French estate on the night of a lavish ball – had rubbed off on the author and left him so giddy, he was unable to stick to one tone or theme. The resulting mad-cap evening includes disguises, mistaken identity, reunions of long lost friends, secret plans, amorous assignations, and characters hiding behind furniture and running for the exits. American Players Theatre’s entertaining production of the play, at the Hill Theatre through September 20th, handles each of these elements with ease. But skill can’t completely overcome the script’s choppy third act, which makes the three-hour play feel longer. 

I blame Shakespeare’s finest, wittiest, most satisfying comedy, Much Ado About Nothing, for my dating woes as a young person. Reading the play in college, (long before I saw productions at American Players Theatre in 1992, 1999, 2007 and 2014) I discovered the truly indomitable character of Beatrice – a wise-cracking, provocative, yet tenderhearted woman who was sometimes too sharp-tongued for her own good. She courted through verbal combat and confessed to loving a scoundrel in spite of herself. Using Beatrice and Benedick’s sparring as a roadmap to romance, I am certain that I confused and repelled more suitors than I charmed. But with each potential match that fizzled, I became more and more determined to find my Benedick. Their exchanges were so smart, so playful and so electric. Watching the mounting tension between them eventually translate into passion was thrilling – the pay-off could not have been greater. 

When I cast my mind back to the fall of 1990, different kinds of memories offer themselves to me. A college junior, I spent a semester in London seeing as many plays as I possibly could, including a new production at the National Theatre called

2023 has been a year of great change and transition, as theaters around the country adjusted to a “new normal.” Again. Broadway is back (along with so-so movie-to-stage adaptations and jukebox musicals) but many regional theaters are not, either closing their doors, taking a year-long pause on programming, or shrinking their seasons to something more financially feasible. Subscribers are also back, but not in pre-pandemic strength. And artistic directors are playing a nation-wide game of musical chairs as the old guard throws up their hands and a new generation tries to make money, make changes, or simply make the best of it. 

As we struggle to articulate the fundamental differences between live performance and AI, there has been much hand-wringing in the industry about what to do next, but no real answers. The only truism of the moment is that many fewer people are showing up for shows and as a result, many fewer artists are being employed in professional theater. Cast sizes are shrinking, staffs are being slashed, many new play development programs have been pushed to the back burner and, with the retirement of The Washington Post’s theater critic Peter Marks this month, professional criticism is almost extinct. 

I was personally so distressed by the situation that I abruptly moved my family to the Pacific Northwest in August. 

As an avid theatergoer and reviewer I have attended quite a few performances that were suddenly halted in the middle. 

“Hold please—“

The first time Brian Cowing worked with Children’s Theater of Madison, he was only 7 years old. As a Middleton first grader, he auditioned for a role in The Wizard of Oz, and was cast as a munchkin and one of the wicked witch’s flying monkeys. “My first time onstage, I actually got to fly in the Oscar Mayer Theater,” he says. “It was a huge show and an amazing introduction to performing.”

Almost 20 years later, Cowing is assuming the role of interim artistic director of the youth theater company, as CTM conducts a national search for a permanent replacement for the organization’s outgoing leader, Roseann Sheridan. 

“It’s been quite a journey,” Cowing says with a laugh, over a cup of coffee on a recent weekday morning. 

William Shakespeare’s classic tale of romance and tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, has fascinated audiences for more than four centuries. It has also inspired artists to translate the story into new media, from paintings, novels and poetry to films, ballets, operas, musicals, symphonies and even manga. This summer at American Players Theatre, the iconic play about young lovers from two feuding families, is presented in two languages — spoken English and American Sign. Directed with extraordinary vision by John Langs and featuring noted Deaf actor Joshua Castille as Romeo, it is an exquisitely beautiful production that awakens the well known text, making it feel fresh, vital and deeply poignant.

Similar to Deaf West’s Broadway production of the musical Spring Awakening, adding Deaf characters into the mostly hearing world of the play deepens the divide between the two groups, highlighting gaps in communication and amplifying the tragedy. There are already so many moments in Romeo and Juliet where messages are misplaced and characters refuse to hear arguments from others; making the language barriers visual reinforces that theme. 

The iconic PBS program Sesame Street got a lot of us Gen-Xers (and all the people who came after us) off to a good start. Thanks to the groundbreaking show and the magic of Jim Henson’s muppets, we made friends with monsters, practiced our numbers and letters in both English and Spanish, and learned fundamental concepts like sharing, dealing with emotions, and understanding people who were different from us. Even before we started preschool or kindergarten, we cared for Cookie Monster, Kermit the Frog, the Count, Big Bird and the odd couple roommates, Ernie and Bert. 

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a TV program featuring singing, dancing, puppets and animation that prepared recent college grads for adulthood, the same way Sesame Street got us ready for kindergarten? That is the premise of Avenue Q, onstage currently in the black box theater at Middleton High School, produced by Middleton Players Theatre, through August 13. 

American Players Theatre is not a company that does things in a hasty, slap-dash way. But when the COVID-19 pandemic closed all the theaters in 2020, the troupe put together an online performance of three short plays by Anton Chekhov, recorded in the actors’ homes in front of laptop cameras after only a few hours of rehearsal. The plays were broadcast on PBS so that while the public was confined to their homes, they could get a small glimpse of the theater they were missing. 

The first of many online performances we would watch that year, the form was wonky, the sound was temperamental, the props and costumes were improvised, but the plays were very funny and the performances were memorable. More than that, they were a balm in a distressing time. 

Six, the supercharged, over-the-top celebration of girl power, pop music and sixteenth century royal intrigue came strutting into Overture Center on August 1. The show winds up the venue’s 22/23 Broadway season with high energy performances and lots of bling, onstage in Overture Hall through Sunday.

Looking like a bedazzled Vegas act and sounding like a dozen different divas who’ve dominated the Billboard charts in the last decade – from Beyonce, Britney Spears, Shakira, Adele and Avril Lavigne, to Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, Alicia Keys and Ariana Grande – the present incarnation of Henry VIII’s six wives announced to the near capacity crowd opening night that they had a score to settle, first with each other and then with history itself.