Post Script

From the Cabot stage in the Broadway Theatre Center, where Skylight Music Theatre’s current production of Michael Frayn’s Noises Off runs through April 2, let me invite you to London, where a very special ceremony is taking place . . .

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Royal Albert Hall for the 1982 Olivier Awards, celebrating this season’s best live theater performances on stages all over England. Returning to the ceremony already in progress, I think it’s safe to say that Otstar Productions Ltd.’s Nothing On has stunned the audience here, sweeping nearly every awards category. The wacky British sex farce by Robin Housemonger has been keeping audiences in stitches, touring extensively throughout the UK before taking up residence at the Barbican for an extended, sold-out run. 

As the musicians for the Florentine Opera’s Così Fan Tutte: Remix took their seats onstage in Vogel Hall this weekend, there were some notable differences between this group and the typical orchestral accompaniment to Mozart’s work. Instead of traditional concert blacks, many of the players wore acid washed jeans and leather jackets. And after the clarinet, bass, and trumpet players were seated, a young musician strode in with his electric guitar. This would obviously be out of place for the work when it was first performed in Austria in 1790, but it fit right in with the production’s new setting – in the student union of a small, American, liberal arts college in the 1980s. Yes, you read that right. This mash-up is Mozart meets the Reagan era, with all its big hair, shoulder pads, rugby shirts, and bleach-splattered denim. 

So, why would the Florentine Opera commission a new version of a canonical work that is set two centuries after it was written, sung in English instead of Italian, and only 75-minutes long, instead of the traditional three-and-a-half hours? 

When we meet Hedwig, she is caught in the in-between again. Between shows. Between genders. Between countries and ideologies. Between relationships. And it’s wearing on her. 

Born as “Hansel” to an absent American GI father and a cold German mother, Hedwig grows up in partitioned East Berlin — “a slip of a girly boy” chafing at his communist surroundings and boxed in on every side. When his American lover Luther proposes marriage, offering him a chance to escape over the wall to begin a new life in the U.S., there’s just “one small piece of himself he must leave behind.” But a botched sex-change operation leaves Hedwig mutilated, anatomically neither a man nor a woman. And a year after their marriage, Luther leaves too. 

Dasha Kelly Hamilton doesn’t bake. Not because she’s defying the expectations of the patriarchy, although she’s not opposed to that. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t like following precise directions. Maybe it’s because she has plenty of skilled bakers in her family who can create special sweet treats for her. But her aversion to working with sugar and flour in the kitchen did not hinder her thoughts on the subject of baking, as she developed her one-woman show, Makin’ Cake, which was presented by Four Seasons Theatre at Overture Center’s Playhouse on March 10 & 11. 

When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took office in 2019, she wore bright red lipstick and large, gold hoop earrings to her swearing-in ceremony. In a tweet later that day, AOC commented on her appearance at the solemn occasion. “Lip and hoops were inspired by [Supreme Court Justice] Sonia Sotomayor, who was advised to wear neutral-colored nail polish to her confirmation hearings to avoid scrutiny. She kept her red. Next time someone tells Bronx girls to take off their hoops, they can just say they’re dressing like a congresswoman.”

Like AOC, many Black, Latinx, Asian, and Indigenous women regard hoop earrings as much more than an accessory. They can be a statement of confidence, a link to family, a connection to history, or a signifier for beauty and femininity. Hoop earrings can also be a basic part of one’s cultural identity, an act of defiance, or a non-verbal warning to others. 

In The SpongeBob Musical for Young Audiences, First Stage is taking kids and their families underwater for the ocean adventures of SpongeBob SquarePants, the persistently optimistic, yellow kitchen sponge in brown shorts who lives in a pineapple under the sea. Directed with enthusiasm and ingenuity by Tommy Novak and choreographed by Kateline Zelon, the 75-minute adaptation is a condensed version of the Broadway musical, which debuted in Chicago in 2016. Running downtown through April 2 in the Marcus Center’s Todd Wehr Theater, The SpongeBob Musical is a charming and silly story about a trio of small but determined heroes, celebrating friendship and solving problems by using teamwork.

William Blake was an 18th century English poet, artist, and advocate of free love. Largely unacknowledged for his writing in his lifetime, he is now lauded as one of the most important artists of the Romantic period. He was also, evidently, considered a little crazy by his contemporaries. 

Even with this briefest of biographies, it’s clear that Blake was the perfect historical and literary figure for playwright Mickle Maher to hang his play on. Next Act Theatre’s current production of Maher’s verse comedy, There Is A Happiness That Morning Is, is a funny, lyrical play that presents poems – and events in real life – from several, completely different perspectives. It questions how we make meaning and how meaning can shift in an instant. It also shows that discovering the truth of a situation can be dizzying, complicated, and disappointing, but that after teaching the same texts – or being in the same relationship – for decades, new things can still be revealed. 

Stephen King’s horror stories are filled with indelible characters, supernatural atrocities, and mysterious locales — from haunted houses and possessed cars, to unholy cemeteries and spooky corn fields. The author is so good at scaring the bejesus out of his audience that King’s books have inspired adaptations for decades. 

But while many of the prolific novelist’s titles have become blockbuster movies, forays into theater with King’s material have, historically, been less well received. (The 1988 Broadway musical Carrie is one of the industry’s most infamous flops, closing after only five performances and losing millions of dollars.) And yet, fans of King’s terrifying oeuvre continue to use his gory stories of suspense to create theatrical pieces. Celebrated Belgian director Ivo van Hove is currently working on a stage adaptation of King’s classic The Shining, which will premiere later this year on the West End. And last fall, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre mounted a terrific production of Misery, the story of an author who is imprisoned, terrorized, and tortured by his biggest fan.

Although I have spent a lifetime making wishes — on birthday candles, eyelashes, wishbones and stars — I have never been visited by a magical wish-granter in training, or whisked away to a fantasy world where wishes are cataloged, processed and filed. That extraordinary experience is reserved for Finder, the main character in Children’s Theater of Madison’s current play, Finder and the North Star. Written by CTM education director Erica Berman and presented as part of the World Premiere Wisconsin festival, this enchanting, brand new play is playing at the Starlight Theater stage at Madison Youth Arts Center through March 5. Directed by C. Michael Wright, the play is an interesting exploration of how wishes are made and how one individual faces her fears to make her wish come true. 

Long before Andrew Lloyd Webber put a pen to paper to compose Cats or Phantom of the Opera, he collaborated with lyricist Tim Rice on a musical about the rise and fall of controversial Argentinian first lady Eva Perón. After seeing a documentary about her in the early 1970s, Rice was obsessed with the story, even visiting Buenos Aires to do his own research on the charismatic leader. The resulting musical, Evita, was translated from a concept album to a Broadway production, and in 1980 the hit show garnered seven Tony Awards. With a complicated, historically-based story, two killer lead roles, and a plethora of musical styles – from experimental, wonky dissonance, to Latin tangos, to ’40s radio ballads, to guitar riffs and soft rock sounds of the ’70s – Evita is a challenging piece that isn’t performed frequently enough. Now, after originally programming a concert version of the piece pre-pandemic, Skylight Music Theatre has outdone themselves, with a fully staged spectacle that is a combination of incredible choreography, brilliant performances, and exceptional music. Playing in the Cabot Theatre in the Broadway Theatre Center, the show runs through February 19.