Post Script

Back before the much celebrated playwright Annie Baker invited us to a community center drama class in her play Circle, Mirror, Transformation, and before she brought us to the run-down movie theater of her Pulitzer Prize winning play, The Flick, she made her off-Broadway debut with Body Awareness, a fairly conventional comedy set on a quaint, very PC college campus in Vermont. Kathie Rasmussen Women’s Theatre is presenting this intricate and intelligent one-act, which is onstage at the Bartell through April 7th. Ably directed by Jeanne Leep, it’s a study in language and the creation of meaning, set within a family drama rife with complicated relationships and misunderstandings. Funny, challenging, and at times heartbreaking, the play gently pokes fun at the verbal and mental gymnastics we go through to say what we mean, to be understood, and to assert our own voices.

In the tradition of introducing the littlest audience members to the wonder of live theater, Children’s Theater of Madison recently opened Diary of a Worm, a Spider, and a Fly, a bouncy musical adaptation of a series of charming books by Doreen Cronin. And to warm up the pint-sized attendees, the title characters come out into the audience prior to the show to say hello and get everyone excited for what’s to come.

CTM’s regional premiere of the musical Tuck Everlasting begins with a frail and aged Winnie Foster (Trudy Barash) listening to a delicate tune on a music box, given to her by a friend long ago. On the keepsake’s lid is an intricate carving of a tree — mirrored in the enormous the tree that towers over the performers, carefully wrought to fill the entire back wall of the Overture’s Playhouse (stunning design by Christopher Dunham). This tree overlooks a revolving stage-cum-giant clock—the ideal platform for a magical journey that examines life, death and immortality through buoyant songs, inspired choreography and delightful performances by the 28-person cast, led by the luminous 13 year-old Malea Niesen and uber-talented APT regular James Ridge.

Puss in Boots, the folktale about the clever cat who wins a princess for his poor but kind-hearted master, has been around for centuries. But it’s never looked quite like this. The seven day outline-to-opening-night company Are We Delicious set its sights on the classic fairytale just one week before debuting its original, fully staged adaptation at the Bartell Theatre, which runs through January 27th.

From “Winnie the Pooh,” to “The Velveteen Rabbit,” to the “Toy Story” movies, there are many fantastic tales for children about playthings coming to life. Now it’s time to add “The Miraculous Journey of Edward Toulane,” to that list, or better yet, see First Stage’s gorgeous production, chronicling the adventures of a very special china bunny and a his many companions, onstage at the Marcus Center through February 11th.

At the end of Jonathan Larson’s musical Rent, Mark Cohen sings:

December 24th, 10 p.m.. Eastern standard time.
I can’t believe a year went by so fast
Time to see, what we have time to see...

For the 30- and 40-somethings in Overture Hall last night, seeing the twentieth anniversary non-Equity tour of the once groundbreaking show, it was tempting to wonder how two decades “went by so fast.” And it was “time to see” how the soundtrack of our youth held up, in this post-millennium world.

Granted, the era of answering machines, payphones, and filmmakers using actual cameras with film inside seems quaint, and a little archaic now. But the bigger question was, does Rent still have “the power to ignite the air?” Do the characters resonate with audiences? Does the show still say something important? 

For audience members who grew up in small towns in Wisconsin, much about Four Seasons Theatre’s heartwarming production of The Spitfire Grill will look familiar. Everyone seems to know everyone else. There’s one place where the locals hang out to get a cup of coffee and catch up on the latest gossip. Things invariably used to be better, whether that means the local quarry has recently shut down, or GM closed the plant, or the place just looks drearier than it used to. Young people are moving away and the optimism that townspeople once had has been worn down over time. And undoubtedly, there’s nothing more interesting--or suspicious--than someone new settling in the hamlet.

When CBS commissioned Charles Schulz to write a 30-minute Christmas special featuring his famous cartoon alter ego Charlie Brown, network executives did not get the sweet, typical holiday program they expected. Far from an exuberant celebration of presents and jingle bells, the 1965 animated program began with Charlie Brown’s gloomy statement that he just didn’t understand Christmas, and didn’t know how to get into the holiday spirit.

Mark Twain is known as one of America’s foremost writers and humorists. His books, such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are standards on school readings lists and he has been referred to as the father of the great American novel.

But that doesn’t mean he wrote good plays. As sports fans learned when Michael Jordan turned in his basketball jersey for a baseball uniform, being the best in the world in one field does not guarantee success in another. Which brings us to Is He Dead?, a play by Mark Twain that was never produced in his lifetime, and was not published until 2003, when it was rediscovered among his papers by a Twain scholar. More artifact than art, It’s currently onstage in the Mitchell Theatre at UW Madison through December 10th.