Discovery World Executive Director Paul Krajniak bristles at the term "museum" when applied to his institution. He prefers the term "accelerator," and two new developments contribute quite literally to its energetic buzz. One is "Energy and Ingenuity," an interactive exploration of energy and its uses. The other is "Tesla Lives!," a live theater show about the 19th- and 20th-century innovator Nikola Tesla...

Milwaukee Shakespeare's closure has left a chasm in the city's Shakespeare offerings-one that Boulevard Theatre's intended production of As You Like It could have helped bridge. It goes without saying that Artistic Director Mark Bucher's decision to switch from As You Like It to a play about housewives quibbling on the sidelines of a soccer field may not have pleased everyone. To be sure...

Some artists don't offer up their secrets too willingly. Such is the case with Dennis Balk, whose work is currently on display at Inova/Kenilworth (through April 5). Balk deploys a vast arsenal of media and disciplines, from mythology to nanotechnology, arousing an edifying incomprehensibility in his audience. Nonetheless, he's careful to ensure it's porous enough...

When is an art gallery more than an art gallery? When it's the Alleged Gallery-an exhibit space, rehearsal studio and skateboard haunt that emerged in New York's Lower East Side in the early '90s and quickly became a vital creative and social hub for the area's dense population of wannabe filmmakers, artists, actors and musicians. Many of the emerging artists who exhibited there have since established themselves as full-fledged celebrities: Mark Gonzales...

The Sum of Us, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre's newest production, has the upbeat feel of an Australian soap, the sticky-soft heart of a family drama and an anticlimactic ending that leaves us with the phrase "shit happens" resounding in our ears. Set in an Australian industrial suburb in the present...

A few strategically placed Styrofoam boulders sprouting sprigs of vegetation, a backdrop of lonely sun-scorched slopes and a very eager tour guide are the spare but effective means through which First Stage's TheDinosaur Play shuttles its audience back to the Jurassic period. The imaginative leap required by the play's quick transition from present to prehistory won't be too taxing to all but...

It seems that for poet James Liddy fluid passage from place to place or past, present and unknowable future was not something to be feared but embraced. Last November he passed away, and though no chronicle of this final journey can exist, three books published posthumously help deepen our understanding of the spatial, spiritual and intellectual sojourns that colored his language and his life, and the fellow travelers...

The Milwaukee Rep's new production of Carlo Goldoni's Mirandolina (through Feb. 22) proves that women's liberation still had a long way to go in 18th-century Europe. The sure-headed title character may be mistress of her own successful inn, but she can't escape playing mistress to other men's whims. Even her dead father maintains a grasp on her fate with his dying decree. The spirited heroine and her twittering female counterparts also can't resist living up to the ungenerous portrayal of their sex supplied by those who applaud themselves for being impervious to them. In fact, the playwright ensured that Mirandolina's most estimable quality...