In every city that claims to have a theater scene, you need two major kinds of theaters. You need big budget theaters, like The Milwaukee Rep with their multi-million dollar budgets complete with massive beautiful sets, costumes, lights, etc. (you get the idea). But equally as important to the development of young artists are the small companies operating out of storefront theaters that you have never heard of and, frankly, may have a hard time finding. This was my experience with Dance Revolution Milwaukee’s MKE Follies.
MKE Follies is an every-other-month variety show, with an emphasis on the word variety, held at The Box Milwaukee. This is a comedy blog and if anyone is less qualified to review dance than me, I would like to meet them. But I’m going to do my best. Let’s start with what I’m least qualified to review and move towards comedy. There were two dance performances done by Catey Ott Thompson and the duo of Melissa Vesel and Hannah Drake. I am a complete philistine when it comes to dance, but to my extremely untrained eye, seeing quality dance in such an intimate setting is nothing short of breathtaking. I’ve never been a room with nearly 50 people that was so quiet as when Ott Thompson performed.
OK, so we’ve moved on from dance to music. Marie Warren and Barry Paul Clark, a cellist and upright bassist respectively, performed two pieces: Alfred Schnittke’s Hymnus II and Domenico Gabrielli’s Canon a Due. The Gabrielli piece was lovely, but I didn’t really “get” the Schnittke. Again, you should remember that I am a comedy writer. Overall, I thought that their performance was wonderful and seeing and hearing art that you don’t understand is tremendously important, so I’m glad I had the opportunity.
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You did it! You made it through my ramblings on things that I don’t know anything about. Right now you are probably yelling at your smart phone or tablet or whatever you are reading this on. You are saying, “Jordan, you are a moron! Stop writing! You aren’t even that good looking!” and I wouldn’t blame you, except for that last part. That’s just mean.
Now let’s move on to the meat and potatoes: Comedy. Allison Dunne and Liz Ziner delivered two very funny sets. Dunne has a very cool demeanor during her set, which matches her jokes. She is not afraid to joke about serious topics and her laid back sensibility towards them makes the jokes hit on all cylinders. She is definitely a comedian to pay attention to.
Ziner is a young comedian in the city who is working incredibly hard to get her name out there. She has only been performing for a little over a year and has already performed at clubs and bars all over state.
Overall the evening was a great success. I will definitely be going to back to see another of MKE Follies and I think that you should too. It’s a great opportunity to support local artists as well as a great local company. MKE Follies is a wonderful event.
Remember to follow Punchline on Twitter @punchlinemke for more news and reviews. @Punchlinemke on Twitter, where I retweet comedians so that you don’t have to.
