When I walked out of the Milwaukee Rep’s Always…Patsy Cline I was more than a little disappointed. By the time I’d left the Jay and Patty Baker Theatre complex, I’d had the show pretty much in perspective. Yes: to be fair, Kelly Faulkner is charming as Patsy Cline. And no—she doesn’t have a voice with anywhere near the kind of haunting depth that Cline had, but is it right to exp...

Over the years, the practice of turning hit films into Broadway musicals hasn't guaranteed critical success. The Broadway musical based on the 1988 film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, however, hit the mark, standing as a solid piece of musical theater that is thoroughly enjoyable in and of itself...

The American Folklore Theatre has established quite a reputation for itself over the years. The rather narrow genre of Wisconsin-based musical comedy is now approaching its 40th year in existence. The theatre company that brought the world Guys On Ice, Lumberjacks In Love and Cheeseheads The Musical opens another Wisconsin-themed musical next week as it presents the world premiere of Guys And Doe...

The atmosphere at the Off The Wall Theatre is pretty laid-back and relaxed. I’d been there last night to see their Broadway Fundraiser—Broadway Gold. The theatre is black draped in red with some reflective surfaces. As the show washed over me, it began to occur to me just how many Broadway musicals I’d seen these past five years. Being someone not particularly fond of musicals, it was a litt...

This month, another touring off-Broadway hit rolls into the Marcus Center for a couple of weeks. Running at the Marcus Center’s Vogel Hall now through April 26th, there’s something distinctly unique about The Altar Boyz. A light comedy, The Altar Boyz plays the kitschy end of musical theatre so completely over-the-top that it gains an undeniable depth on further analysis. Conceived by Mark Kes...

Ice fishing tends to be one of those winter activities that the uninitiated find intensely bizarre . . . a bit like curling. Indeed, the idea of cutting a whole in the ice in a four-walled wooden closet with no floor in the middle of a desolate lake probably comes from a very, very frozen and possibly deranged people, but in parts of Wisconsin it make perfect sense. The strangeness of the activ...

One of the most popular of Giacomo Puccini’s operas, La Boheme tells the funny but tragic tale of Parisians in the 1830s looking for love and artistic fulfillment. The Skylight Opera Theatre, which hasn’t attempted this beloved production for more than 40 years, selected it to open its new season. Tonight’s opening . . .

It was only a matter of time until Oprah attempted Broadway, and so in 2005 she produced an adaptation of Alice Walker’s violent, controversial novel, The Color Purple (or, perhaps more accurately, an adaptation of the 1985 film adaptation of the book, which starred Oprah herself). The musical is considerably lighter . . .

Certain authors are gifted with the ability to create characters that simply cry out to be transferred to movie screens and theater stages. Alice Walker provided a shining example in Celie, the principal character in her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Color Purple. Steven Spielberg first brought Celie to life on the silver screen in 1985, when he earned 11 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. Later, Quincy Jones (who wrote the movie's score) and lead-producer Scott Sanders set the stage for a theater production in "Oprah Winfrey Presents The Color Purple."