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Madison breaks down in Michelle Wildgen's acclaimed novel
on 11/20/09 at 9:00 am | Michelle Wildgen admits that in books and movies, she's not generally a fan of dystopian scenarios. "I almost never respond to that," she says over coffee at Café Zoma, near her home in the Atwood neighborhood. "Most of what you see is post-apocalyptic, but I was interested in what happens on the way to the apocalypse. Where's the pre-apocalypse? And do people tell themselves it's something else?" she asks with a wry smile. |
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University Theatre head David Furumoto mixes and matches global influences
on 11/13/09 at 9:00 am | "The theater is our laboratory. It's where our students do their work, where they learn. Our audiences are doubly important in that regard." So says David Furumoto, the new head of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's University Theatre, and a tenured associate professor of acting in the department of theater and drama. |
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All About Eve is a promising start by the Forward Theater Company
on 11/08/09 at 10:47 am | If Saturday night's near-capacity crowd for All About Eve is a reliable indicator, there's definitely an appetite for professional theater in Madison. |
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Inside agitator: Star UW history professor Jeremi Suri wants to shake things up
on 11/05/09 at 9:00 am | Jeremi Suri wants the UW-Madison, where he's a rising-star history professor, to be bolder, more daring, more adept at reaching out. Unafraid of controversy. More, come to think of it, like Suri himself. "We should be a place that takes risks [and] pushes boundaries between disciplines and in the way we teach." |
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Jeremi Suri on...
on 11/05/09 at 9:00 am | As a historian, Suri is an engaging commentator. Here are his off-the-cuff thoughts on a grab bag of current issues. President Obama's record so far: "I think he's done quite well, especially on foreign policy. He's shown, out of instinct as much as experience, that you gain influence by reaching out to people. Reaching out is not a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength, and [the U.S.] has benefited from that enormously." |
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Religion is a drag in StageQ's charming, irreverent The Stops
on 10/31/09 at 10:18 am | Meet Ginny, Euglena and their friend Rose in StageQ's latest production, The Stops, directed by John-Stuart Fauquet. It's a giddy musical blend of drag show and church-lady comedy à la Church Basement Ladies. |
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The frights are funny in Strollers Theatre's Musical Comedy Murders of 1940
on 10/30/09 at 11:15 am | Halloween weekend seems like a fitting time for a local theater group to open a mystery like The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940. Like the holiday itself, the Strollers Theatre production of this whodunit is more about fun than fear. As the German maid Helsa is throttled and dragged off in the first scene, what ensues are giggles, not gasps. |
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University Theatre's beautifully designed Imaginary Invalid is funny, offbeat
on 10/24/09 at 10:17 am | The phrase "17th-century French theater" probably doesn't scream "big fun!" to a lot of playgoers. You might imagine stuffy costumes, stilted dialogue and the like. But in the case of the University Theatre adaptation of Molière's 1673 play The Imaginary Invalid, you'd be dead wrong. |
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Bawdy laughs in Bricks Theatre debut An Adult Evening with Shel Silverstein
on 10/15/09 at 10:21 am | I approached the Bricks Theatre's first-ever production, An Adult Evening with Shel Silverstein, with two questions: Would it tarnish my innocent childhood memories? And more important, would it be funny? The answers are "no" and "yes," respectively. |
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Robert Rauschenberg's closeup
on 09/25/09 at 9:00 am | You don't have to look hard to find uncanny parallels between the 1960s and our own decade: the election of a charismatic young president; a frayed social and political climate; and a prolonged war with seemingly no satisfying resolution. While some artists confront times like these head-on, others focus on personal or purely visual concerns. Some, like Robert Rauschenberg, do all three. |
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Lorrie Moore, at long last
on 09/04/09 at 9:00 am | At 52, novelist and short-story writer Lorrie Moore has lived in Madison nearly half her life. Yet Moore, in both her work and the way others perceive her, retains a curious insider-outsider relationship to the Midwest. |
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APT's fine Long Day's Journey into Night is bleak stuff
on 08/28/09 at 11:50 am | As the third and final play to open this season in American Players Theatre's new indoor venue, Long Day's Journey into Night again demonstrates how the Touchstone Theatre is allowing the company to produce fare that wouldn't work "up the hill." |
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Kennedy Center chief speaks at Overture Center
on 08/25/09 at 11:18 am | Despite the dismal economy, this is no time for nonprofit arts organizations to think small. So said Michael Kaiser, president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. in a talk at Overture Center. |
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Shades of grey in Mezzotints exhibit at Chazen
on 08/24/09 at 3:09 pm | If you can get past the somewhat corny pun in its title, Mezzotints: Prints of Darkness, the newest exhibition at the Chazen Museum, is a worthwhile introduction to a fascinating medium. |
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Courtroom madness in Romance by Strollers Theatre
on 08/14/09 at 11:08 am | Watching the news lately, it seems that America is increasingly becoming a nation of screamers. Maybe I'm a little too worn out, then, to appreciate the seven men in David Mamet's Romance, a 2005 courtroom comedy currently being staged by Strollers Theatre. |
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Light summer laughs in Hay Fever at APT
on 08/09/09 at 12:25 pm | Noël Coward's Hay Fever is as light and fluffy as a cream puff. If you're looking for deep meaning or biting social critique, well, seek elsewhere. But if you're looking to laugh and enjoy a fantastic vehicle for APT core company actor Tracy Michelle Arnold, this is your show. |
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Despite a big setback, Madison stages have plenty to offer for 2009-10 season
on 08/07/09 at 9:00 am | In the landscape of Madison's 2009-10 theater season, there is one glaring gap: no Madison Rep. But theater audiences of all stripes still have plenty of choices for a night out. While it's virtually impossible to list every upcoming show -- and schedules are bound to change somewhat -- here's a look at some highlights of what the next theater season has to offer. |
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From Nature exhibit keeps it real at MMoCA
on 08/03/09 at 5:11 pm | Sometimes it can seem as if realism is the Rodney Dangerfield of the contemporary art world: it just doesn't get enough respect. |
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Torture, abduction and Bette Davis in debut season of Forward Theater Company
on 07/30/09 at 1:27 pm | Madison's newest theater group, Forward Theater Company, has announced its 2009-10 season schedule, only four months after the company's formation. |
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APT opens Touchstone Theatre with taut Old Times
on 07/12/09 at 12:00 pm | This weekend, American Players Theatre (APT) officially opened its new indoor stage, the Touchstone Theatre. And after seeing APT's production of Harold Pinter's Old Times, now I know exactly what artistic director David Frank meant when he told me in May that the Touchstone would be a home for "plays we could never do up the hill." |
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Entrepreneurs by necessity
on 06/25/09 at 9:00 am | Forced to reinvent themselves and their careers, some have found great satisfaction in charting their own course and creating something they can truly call their own. Here's a look at four area residents now making a go of it as independent businesspeople -- and some of what they learned along the way. |
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Frothy fun in The Philanderer by American Players Theatre
on 06/22/09 at 1:00 pm | Although George Bernard Shaw's The Philanderer was one of his three Plays Unpleasant, he also subtitled it "A Topical Comedy." Let that be a tip-off to the somewhat split identity of this 1898 play. |
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American Players Theatre survives and thrives in down economy with new facility
on 06/12/09 at 9:00 am | "I'll never forget my first time here," says David Frank of American Players Theatre in Spring Green. "It was a very hot July; the Porta-Potties had a pretty obnoxious smell. I was at a matinee and it was like being on a griddle. And there were 300 people watching an uncut production of The Winter's Tale. I thought, that's some audience!" laughs Frank, his vivid blue eyes sparkling as he recalls the summer of 1991. |
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'Contemporary Traditions of Folk Art' fuses traditions at Promega
on 06/11/09 at 9:00 am | Happily, the world is filled with all sorts of art, from bizarro installations that tax your brain to laid-back art that, if it could, would kick back on the beach and party You'll find an example of the latter kind at Promega's gallery within the Biopharmaceutical Technology Center in Fitchburg. |
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Return to Function at MMoCA is about everyday stuff
on 06/05/09 at 9:00 am | "I was very interested in the fact that people were dealing with political, economic or everyday issues," says Madison Museum of Contemporary Art curator Jane Simon of the exhibition Return to Function, which she organized. "It's kind of a radical notion when juxtaposed with other aspects of contemporary art." |
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New talent gets a chance in Queer Shorts 4 evening of one-acts by StageQ
on 05/29/09 at 9:00 am | When asked to describe Queer Shorts, StageQ's annual festival of ultra-short plays, Tara Ayres phrases her answer a bit like the saying about Midwestern weather: If you don't like it, just wait a few minutes. |
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Say yes to Nawlins at The Bayou
on 05/22/09 at 9:00 am | From the moment you step into the Bayou, the new Cajun and Creole spot on South Butler Street, it's clear that owner Dale Beck has worked very hard to create a New Orleans-in-Madison feel. |
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Sex, drugs and R. Crumb
on 05/08/09 at 9:00 am | In the '80s, a much hipper high school friend showed me some issues of a magazine called Raw. Edited by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly, Raw revealed a side of comics far from the Sunday funnies or DC and Marvel superheroes. At the time, Raw shook up my sense of what comics could be with its bold, edgy style. |
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Pioneering comics, disturbing gender attitudes in 'Underground Classics' at Chazen
on 05/04/09 at 1:00 pm | Before Raw in the '80s, and well before today's acclaimed graphic novelists like Marjane Satrapi, were the early pioneers of underground comics. The Chazen Museum documents their scene in a new exhibition, "Underground Classics: The Transformation of Comics into Comix". |
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Years after its debut, Hair retains its hold
on 04/17/09 at 9:00 am | After its 1968 Broadway debut, songs from the hit musical were covered by artists like the Fifth Dimension and Nina Simone. A film version followed in 1979. And now, 41 years after its debut, Hair is enjoying a Broadway revival, and UW-Madison's University Theatre is also donning its tie-dye. |
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