Windfall Theatre closes its 23rd season with the Milwaukee premiere of the Off Broadway musical hit Death Takes a Holiday, created by multiple Tony Award-winning musical legends Maury Yeston, Peter Stone and Thomas Meehan. “Bringing this show to Milwaukee is very exciting for us,” says Windfall’s artistic producing director and director of the show, Carol Zippel. “We’re a small but feisty company and we do try to bring as many premieres or little-known gems from well-known playwrights to town as often as we can. We’re always kind of thrilled when we find another nice nugget.”
Death Takes a Holiday takes place in 1922 at a villa in Italy shortly after World War I. Death is tired out from all of the carnage of the war and he’s supposed to “take” a woman who should have died in a car crash, but he can’t do it for some reason. “This is the first time in millennia that he hasn’t been able to do his job and he’s mystified by that, so he wants to know why and decides to take on human form for 48 hours to find out why people fear him and what it is to be alive, to feel and to love,” Zippel says. “The play has really very sensitive moments in it and a lot of humor as well. It’s a lovely story.”
The production features “a beautiful cast of 14 singer/actors,” Zippel says, including Ben George as Death, Amanda J. Hull as his love interest, Grazia, and Leslie Fitzwater as Grazia’s mother. Paula Foley Tillen, music director for the show, will accompany on piano alongside a cellist. Musical numbers range from ’20s jazz and Baroque to operatic sounds and lush ballads.
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“Audiences will have a very enchanted time if they come to see the show. It works on you in many different levels and it makes you think but it also makes you feel,” she concludes.
Death Takes a Holiday runs May 6-21 at Village Church Arts, 130 E. Juneau. For tickets, call 414-332-3963 or visit brownpapertickets.com. For more information about the show, visit windfalltheatre.com or Windfall Theatre’s Facebook page.
Theatre Happenings:
n Memories Dinner Theatre presents From Door to Door, a heartwarming, bittersweet comedy by James Sherman about three generations of American women and the story of their ever-evolving lives over the course of 65 years. Show runs May 3-18 at 1077 Lake Drive, Port Washington. For more information and tickets, call 262-284-6850 or visit memoriesballroom.com.
n Milwaukee Youth Theatre presents Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night Friday, April 29 at 7 p.m. at Lincoln Middle School, 820 E. Knapp St. For more information and tickets, call 414-390-3900 or visit milwaukeeyouththeatre.org.
n SandMark Productions’ Midwest premiere of A Disappearing, written by local award-winning playwright Mark Wyss, centers around a 9-year-old boy who inadvertently disappears due to a Craigslist magician named “Great Marvin” at his birthday party. Where did he go? Find out May 6-21 at the Walker’s Point Center for the Arts, 839 S. Fifth St. For tickets, visit eventbrite.com.
n Off the Wall Theatre brings to its stage It’s Only A Play, by Terrence McNally, an “uproarious hit comedy about the foibles and woes of Broadway show business.” Show runs April 28-30 and May 1-8 at 127 E. Wells St. For more information and tickets, call 414-484-8874 or visit offthewalltheatre.com.
