The theatre season continues. Actors not yet attached with a project in the flurry of openings in the early part of the season may wish to consider some time in Elm Grove this fall. This weekend Elm Grove community theatre group Sunset Playhouse is looking to cast for  its upcoming production of Annie. The show is being directed by seasoned musical theatre talent Ray Jivoff, who most recently p...

Community theatre doesn’t always get the kind of respect it deserves. Wtiness the discrepancy in ticket prices between a perfectly solid community theatre show and say . . . a touring Broadway show—there’s a kind of a doubles standard in the way people think about theatre. Honestly, touring professional actors lack much of the vitality found in smaller productions. And while the a...

As the father of a talented four month old girl, I can’t wait to introduce her to the stage. The First Stage Children’s Theatre is a great opportunity to give kids a chance to develop an understanding of performance firsthand, but Sunset Playhouse also offers classes . . . some for kids as young as 2 years old . . . so if the program is still running in 2013, my daughter and I might find our...

  The Sunset Playhouse continues its 2011/2012 Season this October with a production of Prelude To A Kiss. . . a tender romance with a bit of darkness. Playwright Craig Lucas was said to be channeling the fears of an entire community with the initial emergence of AIDS in the early ‘80’s when he wrote the play about a young bride who switches bodies with an old man. The Sunset Playhou...

Summer doldrums got you down? Looking for some indoor fun to beat the heat? Sunset Playhouse has just the solution with its very entertaining production of The Drowsy Chaperone. Set in the Prohibition era, this new musical is a delightful romantic romp. An onstage narrator takes the...

The Drowsy Chaperone sounds like a Broadway musical from the '20s. But it's not quite that simple. Instead, it's a musical from the '90s about a fictional musical from the '20s called The Drowsy Chaperone. This musical love letter to an earlier era of Broadway debuted in Canada, and it was...

The Drowsy Chaperone sounds very much like the title of a vintage Broadway musical. It’s not. It’s actually the title of a musical about a fan of a fictitious vintage Broadway musical named, oddly enough The Drowsy Chaperone. The fan plays the record and finds himself transported to the world of the fictitious 1928 musical. Inside 50 years, this is going to be a very strange artifact, as fut...

“A pigmy. A snake. A one-legged man and a pair of shockingly bald identical twins.” A nice tagline for what should be a really interesting live show by the Wisconsin Hybrid Theatre this weekend. Radio WHT, the vintage-style live radio comedy group performs its annual mother’s day show this weekend as it brings its particular spoof on Sherlock Holmes to the studio stage of the Sunset Playho...

The Sunset Playhouse�of Elm Grove is looking for talent to be featured in its Musical Mainstage�series for 2011-2012. Here’s a look at what they have ahead. September 12th-13th. (I love the logos the Sunset commissioned for the series. This one kind of looks like it came from a breakfast cereal box…or perhaps a box of laundry detergent . . .) It’s a celebration of music written ad/or m...

As the national dialogue about budgets, teachers and pay continues to boil, it’s nice to see an outpouring of appreciation for an often-thankless profession. The Sunset Playhouse’s latest show is a tribute to the student-teacher relationships that inspire the kind of support seen in recent days. A story that’s been around for nearly a decade and a half, Tuesdays With Morrie one man’s tri...