Strange Snow runs Feb. 22-Mar. 17 at the Broadway Theatre Center’s Studio Theatre
Highlighting this week’s arts’ scene, Strange Snow falls in the Broadway Theatre Center’s Studio Theatre and In Tandem Theatre Company takes the gauge of Eric Coble’s The Velocity of Autumn, which blows into the Tenth Street Theatre.
Theater
Strange Snow
“My favorite plays are gritty relationship plays, like this one, that offer a nice balance of humor and pathos,” says Milwaukee Chamber Theatre artistic director C. Michael Wright of Stephen Metcalfe’s Strange Snow. “There is great honesty and humanity in Metcalfe’s writing.” In this play, two Vietnam War veterans struggle to clear the emotional fallout lingering long after war’s end. Onetime war buddies Davey and Megs will be portrayed (respectively) by two MCT veterans, Marques Causey and Ken T. Williams; they will be joined by Krystal Drake as Davey’s sister, Martha.
Metcalfe is a playwright, screenwriter and novelist who was originally commissioned to write Strange Snow by the Manhattan Theater Club in 1982. Subsequently, the play was adapted into the film Jacknife, which starred Robert De Niro, Ed Harris and Kathy Baker. In both its live-on-stage and feature-film guises, all three characters have been portrayed by white actors. For this production, however, Wright is excited to center the story around an African American family in the late ’70s, a change which will add complexity to the dynamic between all three characters.
Feb. 22-March 17 at the Broadway Theatre Center’s Studio Theatre, 158 N. Broadway. For tickets, call 414-291-7800 or visit milwaukeechambertheatre.com.
The Velocity of Autumn
In Tandem Theatre Company’s production of Eric Coble’s The Velocity of Autumn features Angela Iannone as Alexandra, a woman who finds herself in a showdown with her family over where she’ll spend her remaining years. After locking herself in her Brooklyn, N.Y., brownstone with enough Molotov cocktails to take out the entire block, her estranged son, Chris (Steven Marzolf), climbs through the second-story window to act as the family’s unlikely mediator.
In Tandem describes Coble’s play as “a wickedly funny and wonderfully touching discovery of the fragility and ferocity of life.” Their design team includes Steve Barnes (sets), Jonathan Leubner (sound), Kathy Smith (costumes) and Holly Blomquist (lighting). Some adult language and situations make Velocity best suited for ages 16 and older.
Feb. 22-March 17 at the Tenth Street Theatre, 628 N. 10th St. For tickets, call 414-271-1371 or visit intandemtheatre.org.
Dance
Making/Unmaking
The upper floors of the handsome warehouse at 1635 W. St. Paul Avenue provide top of the line storage for private visual art collections. The building’s married owners, John Shannon and artist Jan Serr, recently opened the first floor as a public art exhibition space, named The Warehouse, to exhibit work from their own collection of contemporary art and to show work by other artists. To introduce this new arts hub, they invited choreographer Debra Loewen to fill the 4,000 square foot gallery with a site specific dance performance by her Wild Space Dance Company.
“I don’t know if I’m making a moving visual art work or a dance,” Loewen said. “It’s not following a melody. The rhythm is of the application of paint. The space is a blank canvas. You make the first mark, then the next. You leave parts bare. You allow the beauty of imperfection. The dancers bring their human presence, not abstract, but patterned. I’m trying not to make it look like any dance you’ve ever seen.” The cast includes some of the best young dancers in town and marks the comeback of Wild Space veteran Dan Schuchart, dancer, choreographer and professional scene painter. He’ll fashion dancers. (John Schneider)
7:30 p.m. Feb. 21-23 & 2:30 p.m. Feb. 24 at 1635 W. St. Paul Avenue. Limited seating; advance purchase recommended. Call 800-838-3006 or visit wildspacedance.org.
More To Do
Small Craft Warnings
Off the Wall Theatre’s Dale Gutzman describes Small Craft Warnings as “one of Tennessee Williams’ most self-revealing works—a veritable storm of laughter and pain, a thunderous show
of conflict and compassion and a seldom-done work of serious stature and theatrical flair.” It’s an expansion of an earlier one-act play, Confessional, that was included in Williams’ Dragon Country compilation of 1970 and centers on a motley group of people gathered in a seedy coastal bar in Southern California. As for that “motley group,” Gutzman mentions “Monk: A soft-spoken bar owner with a bundle of secrets; Doc: An unlicensed, alcoholic doctor given a chance to redeem himself; Violet: A languid, lost women who uses her one skill to get the men she needs to support her; Quentin: A self-loathing, gay Hollywood writer who cannot stand anyone who likes him...” That’s by no means all; each carefully written character has a story to tell. Feb. 21-March 3 at Off the Wall Theatre, 127 E. Wells St. For tickets, call 414-484-8874 or visit zivacat.com/OffTheWallTheatre.
“In the New Chamber”
In a concert devoted to performing a diverse and provocative sample of 21st-century’s music composed by women and non-binary composers, Present Music once again calls attention to composers who are creating great new music that is rarely performed elsewhere. Their “In the New Chamber” concert features chamber music curated by Present Music’s Eric Segnitz and performed in the new Jan Serr Studio. As they explain the concert’s raison d’être, it’s “in part a reaction to the lack of access that women composers face. [Our] performance history significantly surpasses this lack of recognition: In 2018, women composed nearly half of the works performed.” Feb. 21 and 22 in the Jan Serr Studio, 2155 N. Prospect Ave., sixth floor. For tickets, call 414-271-0711 or visit presentmusic.org.
“Russian Romance”
The Kettle Moraine Symphony continues its 50th-anniversary season in a concert titled “Russian Romance,” a moniker that, however, does not apply to the most historically and musically significant work on the program: Dmitri Shostakovich’s powerful Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, Op. 47 (1937); not much romance, here, but deep human emotional content, nonetheless. Far more apropos to the title is the gentle and lovely Serenade for Strings in C Major, Op. 48 (1880), by Shostakovich’s fellow countryman, Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Arrive early for a pre-concert talk at 2 p.m. presented by Dr. Peter Gibeau, music professor and KMS principal bassist. Sunday, Feb. 24, at 3 p.m. at Slinger High School Performing Arts Center, 209 Polk St., Slinger. For tickets, call 262-334-3469 or visit kmsymphony.org.
