Of all of Neil Haven’s work, the hotel comedy Stuck is probably the most . . . mature, I guess. The comic playwright behind the ever-popular Who Killed Santa? develops a fun little premise as a retro hotel plays host to an agoraphobic elevator operator who never leave the elevator but to shower and use the women’s room.    Having seen a couple of different productions of the show, I don’...

nI don't know if I have different standard for local productions. I just know that the big touring shows that roll through town feel like tremendous waste of time, money and talent...not unlike Broadway itself. So why do I still like Neil Haven's Who Killed Santa?nThe adult puppet show that involves a dirty old Santa, a drunken Rudolph and resurrection through sex with a corpse is anything but sop...

A Christmas murder mystery with puppets, Who Killed Santa? isn’t a guilty pleasure so much as it is weird, simple fun. The show, which surmises a holiday party at Santa’s place with various iconic Christmas characters, has been staged a number of times over the past few years. The cast features a mix of people who have appeared in the show before. Bo Johnson returns as a seedy, abusive Santa....

    Over the years, playwright Neil Haven has proved himself to be pretty versatile. From a comedy about a woman afraid to leave an elevator to a vaguely bizarre comedy about internet dating and even a short about anthropomorphized ducks in Las Vegas, Haven’s style has varied quite a bit.With his latest, he tackles a very complex family dynamic between five different characters. And though th...

    Neil Haven’s work has been an interesting and uneven mix. From the heartwarming holiday show Who Killed Santa? to a cleverly-constructed comedy about an agoraphobic elevator operator, Haven’s work has an enjoyable energy about it. My wife and I still occasionally talk about a comic short he wrote for Pink Banana Theatre featuring a group of ducks in a fountain in Las Vegas. Ha...

It’s exceedingly difficult to be surprised by local theatre. Neil Haven’s one-weekend show The Playdaters managed to amount to a little more than expected. The initial premise is kind of interesting . . . Haven and Jeremiah Munsey star as a couple of guys playing a game with online dating. They challenge each other to do strange things with strangers on first dates with a variety of women pl...

It could be construed by some as the last real weekend of summer. And as the theatre season begins to get into full swing, a few odd acts hit local stages. Here’s a look ahead at what’s happening this weekend: Thursday, August 26th: 6:30pm The Amazing Acro-Cats These not-so-common house cats from Chicago return to the Alchemist Theatre this weekend for four shows starting tomorrow night. Th...

� � This year, August ends with a quick, little comedy presented by In Tandem Theatre.�The�Play Daters is a fresh, new comedy by reasonably local playwright Neil Haven. The comedy, which tells the tale of a couple of guys working to exploit a dating website, originally debuted in a student production at The University of Nevada, Las Vegas.� The script has been updated since, making it to the sta...

There are a number of elements that absolutely must be present in order for a city to maintain a sustainable, substantially diverse theatre scene. Chief among them is the cultivation of work by local playwrights. These next couple of months, a series of shows open featuring new work by local playwrights. Here’s a quick glance at what’s already onstage and what’s ahead:   In Tandem’s exc...

In Tandem Theatre continues its season with a production of Neil Haven’s Stuck. The show opened this past weekend. I’d seen the show before when it’s inaugural UW-Whitewater production came to the In Tandem’s 10th Street Theatre in August of ’08. Directed by In Tandem co-founder Chris Flieller, the show has considerably more aesthetic depth to it than the original production. Flieller...