Post Script

First Stage has produced the festive classic "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" nine times over their 31-year history, beginning back in 1990. But this season the tale of the horrible Herdman children invading the annual nativity pageant and wreaking holiday havoc has a couple of twists. First, this is a musical version set in the early 1960s, and second, it's led by "Christmas Pageant" veterans director Molly Rhode and lead actress Karen Estrada, who both worked on the show as kids.

Movies are very rarely made better when they are turned into Broadway musicals. In the case of School of Rock, onstage at Overture Center through November 25, the premise had a much better headstart than most screen-to-stage ventures.

First, it’s already about music. More precisely it’s about Dewey Finn a washed-up, wannabe heavy metal guitarist whose only real goal is to win the $20,000 prize in a local battle of the bands contest. It’s also about a pack of elitist, straight-laced kids who need more rebel yell in their lives and less scheduling from their high-pressure parents. And seeing nine year-olds discover the power of music to express deep emotions is fun, particularly when they connect to their inner Ozzy Osbourne by picking up an electric bass or guitar and playing their little hearts out — for real. Plus, kid-centered musicals like Billy Elliot, Matilda, Willy Wonka, and revivals of Annie have struck box office gold in recent years. Why not put a dozen instrument wielding kids onstage and see what happens?

The Skylight’s production of “Hairspray,” running through December 30 in the Cabot Theatre, is simply a riot.

It’s a riot of hot pink, infectious tunes, flashy dance moves, social justice and true love conquering all. And underneath the clouds of Ultra Glow hairspray, towering hairdos, and teen idols of 1962, “Hairspray” has a very simple message. In the words of Tracy Turnblad, the spunky, plus-sized heroine, “I just think it’s stupid that we can’t all dance together.”

Out-of-work actors are incredibly resourceful people. Due to economic necessity they cultivate lots of other marketable skills, working as office temps, yoga instructors, or waiters and waitresses between onstage gigs. And a few of them decide that instead waiting for the perfect role to come along, they will simply write a one-person show that highlights all of their individual talents (“Buyer and Cellar,” “Fully Committed,” etc.). Another example of this genre if Ginna Hoben’s, “The Twelve Dates of Christmas,” onstage at Next Act Theater through December 9. This small but mighty show chronicles one year in the life of a heartbroken actress, a small-town girl from Ohio who’s trying to make it in New York City while simply surviving a horrible break-up and the twelve months of dating hell that follow.

When Ken Fitzsimmons took the mic onstage at the Barrymore Theater on November 11th, it was clear that he wasn’t sure exactly what to say. As artistic director for the performance of The Greatest War: World War One, Wisconsin and Why It Still Matters, Fitzsimmons groped around for a description of what we were going to see. And after experiencing the dynamic, multi-media tribute to millions of people worldwide who fought and died in that horrific war, ending exactly one century ago, his hesitation to label the performance was completely understandable.

To mark its 10th season, Forward Theater is presenting its first musical; the award-winning show Fun Home, which runs in Overture’s Playhouse through Nov. 25. In her director’s notes, Forward’s artistic director Jennifer Uphoff Gray stated that it was a long-term goal, but she had been waiting for just the right musical for the company to produce. As the standing-ovation crowd on the Nov. 3 performance can attest, she found it, and it was worth the wait. Fun Home is the perfect size for the space and the company. It showcases superlative performances from Wisconsin actors, and it tells an important story that is utterly unique.

The Madison Theatre Guild’s production of the political drama The Best Man arrives just in time for the midterm elections. Onstage at the Bartell Theater through November 17, Gore Vidal’s talky script pits two presidential candidates against one another at the 1960 national convention, each struggling to win their party’s nomination. But the overly-long production is neither compelling as a period piece nor uplifting as a reminder of the democratic values that the country was founded on. And it cannot begin to compete with the over-the-top high jinks of the nightly news. What’s left is a low stakes look at backroom political deals that are as unremarkable as they are expected. Although The Best Man is bolstered by a uniformly strong cast, there is no man in this race that would get my vote.

Evidently, it is easy to be charmed by an unconventional literary genius, but very difficult to love one. That is the crux of Engaging Shaw, American Players Theatre’s final show of the 2018 season, running in the Touchstone through November 18. Directed with gentle humor by David Frank, the company’s producing artistic director emeritus, the play is an entertaining mash-up of historical fact, quotations from Shaw himself, and playwright John Morogiello’s imagined — but definitely Shavian — rhetoric between two real people who were much too wise to woo peaceably.

Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” is a story that has grabbed audiences by their lovely, vulnerable necks ever since its debut in 1897. The novel has been adapted for practically every form of media since its publication— there are more than 200 films, dozens of plays, operas, cartoons, TV shows, comic books, rock songs, video games and dance compositions that feature the mysteriously seductive, undead, blood-seeking villain. But perhaps one of the best ways to experience this gothic horror story is through Michael Pink’s ballet, onstage as the opener to the Milwaukee Ballet’s season, at the Marcus Center through October 28. Over the years “Dracula” has taken many detours into melodrama, camp, parody, and gore. By contrast, Pink’s version is elegant and lyrical without shying away from any of the intensity of the spine-chilling story.

A few years ago I was teaching an arts outreach class in Milwaukee about combatting racism through theater and the subject of racial slurs came up. We talked about the casual way people from previous generations sometimes throw around words that are, by contemporary standards, obviously offensive. One of the students — a Hispanic eighth grader — just smiled and said “Grampa’s say the funniest things.” I remember being struck by how easily he shrugged it off because, according to him, white people over 60 just don’t know any better.