Bird enthusiasts and theatergoers probably have a lot more in common than I would care to analyze. That being said, I though t it was kind of interesting that birders painstakingly look after something called a “life list”—a list of species they’ve seen in the wild over the course of their lives. Kind of reminds me of a similar list I’m personally keeping track of—all the Shakespeare ...

Renaissance Theaterworks continues its season next month. They'll be following-up a well-executed comedy (one of the best to be staged so far in a year drenched with locally-produced comedies) with a really serious drama as they open a production of David Harrower’s 2007 drama Blackbird. A woman (played by Carrie Coon) approaches a man (played by Brian Mani) 15 years after the affair that ...

With the flurry of openings this past weekend, local stages are beginning to gear-up for the holidays. There are well over a dozen Christmas shows opening right after Thanksgiving . . . and almost nothing opening this coming weekend, so I have little to do but sit and wait for the avalanche of Holiday shows for the next couple of weeks. Luckily enough, there are a few bright spots in the next coup...

At some point over the course of a week, my wife will ask me what I’m seeing the following weekend. And she’ll ask me if there’s anything that she would want to see. The wife of a theatre critic does NOT want to see everything that her husband goes to. As this is the case, she trusts me to suggest what I’m seeing that she might want to go to. And this week, she will have seen two shows ...

Marie Kohler, one of the most prominent writers in local theater, is the playwright-in-residence at Renaissance Theaterworks. She started with 1992’s A Girl of the Limberlost, which was followed by Counting Days in ’95. Midnight and Moll Flanders became her first huge success as a playwright...

Play Time: Despite a plethora of Friday night entertainment choices, the Milwaukee Chamber Theatre had a huge turnout at its Brooklyn Boys premiere. In his welcome, Artistic Director C. Michael Wright applauded Konrad Kuchenbach for sponsoring the Skylight Bar apres-party. UW-Milwaukee was well...

What with the economy being the way it is, local theatre companies continue to look for ways to keep afloat. Between grants, subscriptions and single tickets sales, funds can still end up being relatively tight. In the interest of supplementing funds from other sources, there are a number of upcoming fundraisers for local theatre groups. Here are details on three occurring in the next three months...

Pink Banana Theatre Company comes to the Broadway Theatre Center’s Studio Theatre this Friday to open its latest show: Tales From The Dugout: A One Acts Festival of Relationship Madness. The show runs late nights after productions of Renaissance Theaterworks’ Barney & Bee. Pink Banana is excited to be working with Renaissance Theaterworks on the program.The show consists of eight shorts about...

It's the early 1970s and Jo and Stephen are hosting a dinner party. It will last just over an hour and the only people who will be in the dining room the whole time are the people in the audience, as this is Renaissance Theaterworks' production of Barney & Bee, a fast-paced farce written by Noises Off! author...

Generally speaking, I like to avoid seeing two shows in a single day. Invariably, the schedule for a weekend gets a bit compressed and I’ll have to see a matinee and an evening show on a single Saturday or Sunday or something. It happens about once per month. (Next time looks to be approaching in mid-April . . .) Usually when I see two shows in a day, I can expect to spend at least 1/8 of that d...