Village Playhouse of Wauwatosa presents everyone’s stories are true; 5 Blue-Haired Ladies Sitting on a Green Park Bench comes to Memories Dinner Theater; Next Act hosts The Comedy of Othello…Kinda Sorta; Alchemist Theatre presents Fool For Love; and Danceworks puts on tap shoes for What’s Tappenin’?
THEATRE:
everyone’s stories are true
As author, poet and playwright Sabley Sabin writes, introducing her new play, everyone’s stories are true, “We clear our throats to draw the listeners from their preoccupations, and there is that precious moment of attention. Sometimes, the best we can do is say, ‘um,’ and hesitate. And sometimes we push our words, out loud, in the direction of the listener, and we become known.”
Replacing Village Playhouse of Wauwatosa’s summer production, Little Women, The Musical, is Sabin’s three-act play, which Village Playhouse of Wauwatosa described as “a collage of human experience, reflections on language, relationships and our need to both connect and stand alone.” Human communication can bring us closer together or further separate us; our lives are a varying combination of interpersonal interaction and isolation, of connecting and disconnecting from one another. Such is the stuff of everyone’s stories are true.
Aug. 11-27 at Inspiration Studios, 1500 S. 73rd St. For tickets, call 414-207-4879 or visit villageplayhouse.org.
5 Blue-Haired Ladies Sitting on a Green Park Bench
Seven months ago, a coterie of elderly women, by chance, gathered at the same park bench. These gatherings have become somewhat routine by the time we first meet them. John A. Penzotti’s nostalgia-laced, heart-warming comedy, 5 Blue-Haired Ladies Sitting on a Green Park Bench, is sure to strike a resounding chord with women (and men) of a certain age. Riffing off one another’s tales, reminiscences and acute observations, these ladies collectively show us that the old saying that “age is just a number” has, indeed, much truth to it. As with all Memories Dinner Theater productions, a plated meal comes with the performance (buffet on Tuesday, Aug. 29).
Aug. 15-30 at Memories Dinner Theater, 1077 Lake Drive, Port Washington. For tickets, call 262-284-6850 or visit memoriesballroom.com.
The Comedy of Othello… Kinda Sorta
Written and directed by Patrick Schmitz and starring the Shakesparody Players, The Comedy of Othello…Kinda Sorta continues a lengthening line of parodic treatments of classic William Shakespeare plays. (Previous Kinda Sorta productions have been askew skewerings of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet.) The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice, written in or around 1603 and based upon Cinthio’s A Moorish Captain (1565), is, perhaps, literature’s finest rendering of the themes of love, jealousy, betrayal and revenge. A comedic treatment of this tragic story will be something to behold.
Aug. 10-12 at Next Act Theatre, 255 S. Water St. For tickets, call 414-278-0765 or visit nextact.org.
Fool For Love
Pulitzer Prize-winning author, playwright and actor Sam Shepard (who just passed away this past July 27) wrote Fool for Love in 1983. The “fools” of the play are May and her ex, Eddie, who have, by chance, once again encountered each other. Eddie is eager to reunite for good; May wants nothing to do with such a plan. The play’s Old Man character, no mere observer of the strife-ridden interactions between the erstwhile lovers, is, in fact, a central player in this emotional drama. As reviewer Elyse Sommer once astutely observed: “Like all of Shepard’s best plays, despite the evocative Mojave Desert outside the motel room in which it plays out, the landscape here is of the emotions…”
Aug. 10-19 at the Alchemist Theatre, 2569 S. Kinnickinnic Ave. For tickets, visit brownpapertickets.com and search for “Fool For Love” (or event number 3035681).
DANCE:
What’s Tappenin’?
Tap is that highly kinetic form of dance in which sound waves generated by shoes striking the floor at various paces and volumes create just as much a sense of story, action and emotion as, say, facial expressions or upper-body movement. What’s Tappenin’? showcases multiple styles of the dance form (believed to have originated in the mid-1800s) that not only highlight its long traditions but, as Danceworks says, will include “a few fun surprises along the way.” (John Jahn)
Aug. 11-13 at Danceworks Studio Theatre, 1661 N. Water St. For tickets, call 414-277-8480 or visit danceworksmke.org/purchase-tickets.
