Home / Arts

Online Exclusive

Since their eponymous sketch comedy show ended in 1995, all five members of the Kids in the Hall have stayed visible, albeit TV personality-visible, not major-star visible. Mark McKinney spent a few years on “Saturday Night Live;” Scott Thompson became the host of “My Fabulous Gay Wedding;” Kevin McDonald guest starred in over a dozen sitcoms and Bruce McCulloch made the oc...

New book on Britain’s seminal, experimental Wire

Wire lead singer-guitarist-songwriter Colin Newman has said in recent interviews that "Wire equals change." His band's latest album, Change Becomes Us, upholds this statement, featuring an eclectic and challenging mix of...

Michael Stanley’s latest African police mystery

In contemporary sub-Saharan Africa, traditional witch doctors remain feared and powerful members of many communities, and Botswana, the site of a new book by Michael Stanley, is no different. In Deadly Harvest...

Milwaukee novelist returns with ‘Jail Coach’

 Too-smart-for-his-own-good Jay Davidovich is the centerpiece of Hillary Bell Locke’s new novel Jail Coach. Davidovich is a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a loss prevention specialist whose job is to protect company...

Moses Gates explores the world’s hidden cities

 Moses Gates has been around the world. To be more exact: around, above and below. But that doesn't make him a high-flying airline pilot or a down-and-dirty West Virginia coal miner. The title bestowed upon him and his ilk...

Biography of the director behind Dr. Jekyll and ‘Porgy and Bess’

 After reading Mamoulian: Life on Stage and Screen (University Press of Kentucky), David Luhrssen's comprehensive, illuminating biography of the pioneering director, I'm tempted to call its subject “the Kevin Bacon...

James Causey’s new novel struggles with urban violence

 Twisted, a new book by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist James E. Causey, is the sequel to his 2011 release The Twist. Both stories center around the young journalist Travon Brown and his struggle to make sense of an urban...
 Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) composed one of the great masterpieces of sacred choral music, the “German Requiem,” by astutely, even assiduously, avoiding standard requiem texts and references. Its emotional power was drawn from the deaths of Brahms’ mother as well as his...

Florentine Opera’s Near-Perfect Finale

 The Florentine Opera’s season finale, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, was an unqualified delight. Not only was it a tribute to this gentlest of the great composers, but a reminder that the tendency to “reinvent” operatic...

Michael Pink's Swan Lake

 In rehearsal for Milwaukee Ballet's Swan Lake, Luz San Miguel dances the delicate curved arabesques of the White Swan with more than grace and perfect technique; she seems endlessly apologetic. The mournful girl knows that...

Graceful, elegant performance with the MSO

 The young Italian-German violinist Augustin Hadelich is the rare artist who can make Mozart sizzle. Many musicians find the refined style of Mozart by containing expression. Hadelich seemed released by it. At Milwaukee...

Ensemble Musical Offering performs Telemann, Bach

 While the lives of Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) and Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) were not closely intertwined, they did intersect in more than just a casual manner. Of immediate interest is the upcoming...
 Sadly, Façade: An Entertainment, a collaborative production of Danceworks Performance Company, Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra and Milwaukee Opera Theatre, was ruined for me by the unworkable acoustics of the...
A new music conservatory has positioned itself to become a cultural hub for the Washington Heights neighborhood on Milwaukee's West Side. That's what West End Conservatory founders Neil Davis and Isaiah Joshua hope for the...

Wild contrasts at the Milwaukee Ballet

 In Mozart Requiem, the first of three wildly contrasting works presented by Milwaukee Ballet in its immensely enjoyable “Spring Series” last weekend, Amy Seiwert's choreography mirrors the structure of Mozart's work for...

Milwaukee Ballet's Eclectic Spring Series

 With Mozart, Sammy Davis, Jr. and DJ Wax Tailor as musical inspirations, the three contemporary works in Milwaukee Ballet's Spring Series could hardly be more different. Once again, Artistic Director Michael Pink has...
I have always admired the continuing exploration of literature that is a fundamental aspect of the Prometheus Trio. Over the years I have heard quite a bit of music on their concerts never before encountered. Such was the case with Frank Bridge’s Trio......
I knew violinist Ilana Setapen was good. I had heard her in recital and in chamber music. But I didn’t realize how wonderfully and exceptionally good she is until hearing her play Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with Milwaukee Symphony last Saturday night. Setapen is associate concertmaster of the orchestra. I would guess that there are few......

Present Music with Margaret Leng Tan

Margaret Leng Tan, the world’s first toy piano virtuoso, was the star of Present Music’s concert “Toys!” She was perfectly accompanied by the Present Music string ensemble......

Classical Review

“Shining Stars” was the appropriate title of the Wisconsin Philharmonic's May 2 concert. In addition to the orchestra's usual instrumentalists there appeared the winners of its youth concerto competition as well as a smattering of youth orchestra members. Another “shining star” was Joseph Schwantner, the American composer of the first work, Chasing Light. This four-movemen...
There was an exciting revelation at Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra last weekend: the bandoneon featured in a concerto by the Argentinian master of the tango, Astor Piazzolla (1921- 1992). Piazzolla's tangos show up regularly in diverse contexts....
Two seasons ago Vladimir Feltsman commented negatively about the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Steinway and urged its replacement on a live local public television broadcast. That concert was re-broadcast, and apparently eventually led to the donors' gift of a new piano. The old MSO Steinway has a resonant ring, but also a loose rattle and unevenness. It was time to move on....

Classical Review

The snowstorm last week forced a cancelled rehearsal of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and prevented the arrival of the guest soloist, pianist Andreas Haefliger. Conductor Andreas Delfs quickly revised the plans to something the orchestra could do with just one rehearsal. William Schuman’s Symphony No. 5, which the MSO has never before played, and a Mozart piano concerto were scrapped. In...

Classical Review

The ludicrous production of La Traviata that opened at Skylight Opera last weekend proved that a great Verdi melody is indestructible. This unbelievably misguided venture only works in the final scene, when all its incompetence, bad direction and quarter-baked ideas mercifully recede enough for focus on the bare . . ....

Classical Preview

American composer John Adams (b. 1947) once stood under the same Minimalist umbrella as Steve Reich and Philip Glass, but as the ’90s wore on, he developed into something of a “post-post-modernist,” as demonstrated by such works as The Death of Klinghoffer (1991) and the Violin Concerto (1993)....

Classical Review

It is irresistibly interesting to speculate what goes on in guest conductor rehearsals with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. Were ideas persuasively delivered, spoken or unspoken?...

Wild Space opens its season with ‘Milwaukee 360’

You are apt to be quite taken with the beauty of Downtown Milwaukee and its environs as they appear in a wraparound panorama from atop the eight-story parking structure of the former Pabst Brewery, set high on......

Dance Review

Three was the straightforward title of the Milwaukee Ballet's spring program of three dances in three styles by three choreographers. More than anything, it demonstrated artistic director Michael Pink's devotion to his dancers, showcasing them individually......
All artists need the opportunity to fail. Risk-taking is indispensable. What serious opportunities for trial and error exist for artists in Milwaukee after they leave the relative safety of a college program? This is not an idle question. Danceworks recognizes that it is a community’s job to provide laboratories for artists and they have accepted their share of the responsibility. Liz Hilde...

Dance Preview

One would be hard-pressed to conjure up a name more closely associated with the Milwaukee dance scene than Ed Burgess. Burgess, currently marking his 20th year on the UW-Milwaukee dance faculty, has directed, choreographed or performed with just about every arts group in town, including the Milwaukee Ballet, Milwaukee Shakespeare, Wild Space Dance......
We thought that was fun and decided to make these evenings combinations of environmental work and traditional theater work. The range of the work that our choreographers were bringing to the process demand ed that we present the performances in this way.” The theater’s lobby, courtyard and stage are of equal importance for performances created specifical ly for these spaces. A piece by...

DANCE PREVIEW

Lately it seems that everything from window displays to theater bills are heavily doused in Christmas spirit....

Theatre Gigante’s ancient tale of revenge

 This month, Milwaukee theater veterans Isabelle Kralj and Mark Anderson stage an adaptation of the ancient Greek legend of Electra in their Theatre Gigante production. It's a tale of revenge that has echoed throughout...
 First Stage’s adaptation of Lois Lowry’s dystopian children's novel Gathering Blue is set in a world where the weak and disabled are left to die in the wilderness. A girl named Kira is afflicted with a twisted leg, but her gift for...
The story of Aphra Behn is one that could have easily been fabricated for the sake of a good story. In the 17th century, she was briefly married, traveled abroad and reputedly met an African slave leader. She returned to...

Skylight Studio’s light-hearted finale

The Skylight Studio Theatre Series final production this season, Sing Me a Story, fits well into their concept of engaging audiences in closer interactions with the cast—a cabaret experience without food and drink...

A comedy of social relations

 The theater's nature as a highly social art form can mean delightful things for plays focusing on social relations between characters. British playwright Shelagh Stephenson's The Memory of Water is a compelling look at the...

‘Living Out’ sets the price for status

 Boulevard Theatre ends its season with a thought-provoking look at class differences, “the price” of status and the sacrifices made in trying to balance work and family in Living Out. Lisa Loomer’s play centering on a nanny...

Off the Wall’s ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’

 The 1976 novel Kiss of the Spider Woman isn't exactly the sort of story many would have expected to get a stage musical treatment. The story of imprisoned people in Argentina isn't the type of thing that cries out for song and...

In Tandem closes season with ‘Apartment 3A’

 Marked with sparklingly witty dialogue, Jeff Daniels' Apartment 3A is an enjoyable interpersonal comedy about the nature of meaningful human connection. In Tandem Theatre rounds out its season with a well-rendered version...
 Musical revues can be kind of repetitive. They add a nice contrast to the rest of what inhabits local stages, but the format can feel forced no matter how it's dressed up. The Harmonettes has some unique angles, however. The...

Toni Martin shines in ‘Spike Heels’

 A contemporary take on Pygmalion, Theresa Rebeck's Spike Heels involves a woman who is learning from two different men. Each man wants something different from her...