Tom and Evan Leahy Band featuring Stas Venglevski
This week’s highlights include Milwaukee Chamber Theatre’s Young Playwrights Festival Showcase, which returns to Broadway Theatre Center’s Studio Theatre for an eighth year.
Young Playwrights Festival Showcase
Milwaukee Chamber Theatre will present its eighth Young Playwrights Festival Showcase this month, celebrating the winners of its local high-school playwriting competition. Each of the three winning plays will be presented at each performance. The new plays are Pinta El Fuego by Markia Silverman-Rodriguez (Pius XI High School); 1-800-123-BOYS by Jazmin Reyes (Reagan High School); and The Divine Komedy by Max Engel (also from Pius XI). This year’s presentation will also feature an afternoon of “Honorable Mention” staged readings from three runners-up.
MCT’s Young Playwrights Festival Showcase is the culminating event in a series of free playwriting workshops at several Milwaukee-area high schools. Ten plays are chosen each year from an annual competition that encourages students to write original one-act plays exploring themes, genres and relationships from their unique perspectives. (John Jahn)
Jan. 10-13 at the Broadway Theatre Center’s Studio Theatre, 158 N. Broadway. For tickets, call 414-291-7800 or visit milwaukeechambertheatre.com.
Cabaret Café Concert at Oconomowoc Arts Center
Father-and-son multi-instrumentalists Tom and Evan Leahy will be joined by accordion virtuoso Stas Venglevski for a program that draws from folk, Irish, Americana and bluegrass music. Tom and Evan are part of the long-running Irish folk band Leahy’s Luck, a band that has been performing for more than two decades. Venglevski, who emigrated to the U.S. in 1992 from the Republic of Moldova (formerly part of the U.S.S.R.), is widely considered a master of the bayan accordion.
Venglevski has performed with symphony orchestras in Milwaukee, Chicago and Tacoma, Wash., and has released 18 albums. Attendees at this concert can expect to hear the songs of Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, The Grateful Dead, Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty, among others. (Blaine Schultz)
Jan. 11-12 at the Oconomowoc Arts Center, 641 E. Forest St., Oconomowoc. For tickets, call 262-560-3172 or visit oasd.k12.wi.us.
Things My Mother Taught Me
Olivia and Gabe are moving into their first apartment together; they’ve just completed a long road trip to their new home: Chicago. But moving in doesn’t go as planned, becoming especially unpredictable when all the parental units show up to help. Their furniture will not fit, the moving truck goes missing and their parents get into squabbles; what else can possibly go wrong?
The idea of “mother knows best” funnily gets flipped upside-down in this heartwarming rom-com. As playwright Katherine DiSavino (Nana’s Naughty Knickers) explains, Things My Mother Taught Me “takes a generational look at relationships and how sometimes parents are passing their best lessons on to their children without even meaning to.” Racine Theatre Guild’s production stars Norgie Metzinger as Gabe, Lindy Ross as Olivia and co-stars Larry Rowe, Emily Mueller, Frank Russ, Mary Kveton and Savannah Bishop. (John Jahn)
Jan. 11-27 at Racine Theatre Guild, 2519 Northwestern Ave., Racine. For tickets, call 262-633-4218 or visit racinetheatre.org.
SueMo’s Winter Dance Concert
Symbiosis can occur when different organisms live in close association. New creative relationships with several Milwaukee artists from different disciplines have given birth to Symbiosis, this season’s winter concert by the ever-evolving five-year-old contemporary dance company SueMo: A Dance Experience. A live performance by spoken-word poet Brooklyn Lloyd becomes the beating heart of a new dance. A performance by drummer Jacob Durbin inflames the nervous system of another premiere.
The main event, a premiere titled Imagery Portrayed, responds to personal and organizational growing pains. Filmmaker and photographer Heather Mrotek, SueMo’s creative director, worked closely with founding artistic director and choreographer Morgan Williams, the dancers and a team of lighting designers to create a multi-storied, multimedia work on the subject of creative development and change. “It’s about the death of things that hold us back,” Mrotek says. “It’s about being reborn in our art. It’s about hard work; the dancers work hard.” Williams compares it to beating the boss level in a video game and adds: “Once you’re through it, you can input the connections, you can share love, you can enrich the whole community and that’s all we want to do.” Seen in rehearsal, it’s very exciting. (John Schneider)
7:30 p.m. Jan. 12 and 3 p.m. Jan. 13 at the Marcus Center’s Wilson Theater at Vogel Hall, 929 N. Water St. For tickets, call 414-273-7206 or visit marcuscenter.org.
