A Dog’s Life

Theater Preview

Jan. 07, 2009

midnight

What do you make of it when the new year begins with a pair of musicals about domesticated animals? A short distance from the Marcus Center's touring Broadway production of Cats will be a much smaller musical about dogs at the MilwaukeeRep's Stackner Cabaret. The Rep's Dogpark: The Musical even closes on the same night that Cats leaves town.

The two productions are far from the popular conceptions of their subjects, however. In fact, the big-time Broadway show Cats breezes through town with a deafening, eager-to-please racket that is more reminiscent of dogs, while Dogpark is a humble, self-reflective production that is more characteristic of a domestic cat.

Dogpark, aworld-premiere musical by the writing team of Jahnna Beecham and Malcolm Hillgartner, was commissioned specifically for the Rep's 2008/2009 season. The show carries obvious appeal as the imaginative story of a group of dogs with a variety of different personalities brought together at a park by their owners. It's been years since Marilou Davido's memorable performance as a dog named Sylvia in the Sunset Playhouse's thoroughly entertaining production of an A.R. Gurney play, so local theaters seem long overdue for another canine-centered show.

Dogpark's promotion, "What Happens In Dogpark, Stays in Dogpark," suggests a cleverly written show from the duo behind previous Rep cabaret hits Chaps! and They Came From Way Out There. (Way Out There collaborator Michael J. Hume also contributed to the Dogpark script.)

Lenny Banovez will play a show dog named Champ, and Katherine Strohmaier is set to portray Daisy, a canine who longs for fur extensions. Banovez will be familiar to cabaret audiences who saw last season's Hula Hoop Sha-Boop. Joining them are Chip DuFord as Bogie, a "territorial rebel without a collar," and Rep newcomer Jonathan Spivey as Itchy, a balloon-obsessed dog with attention-deficit disorder.

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Given the show's fun personalities, Dogpark should be another hit for Beecham, Hillgartner and Hume.

Dogpark: The Musical opens Jan. 10 at the Stackner Cabaret.

Comments (1)

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I didn't see this show, but in my experience with ...

I didn't see this show, but in my experience with the cheap seats you describe at the rep the view is more than a bit skewed. The directors/designers sometimes block/build the show as though it's proscenium and not thrust. Sight lines are often "a little off" when they really don't need to be. This means either: the director is inept and not good at blocking for a thrust (in which case why the high paycheck?) or the director is intentionally focusing on the more expensive seats to encourage us to pay more (which is to say, the director is short-changing new comers. Not a good long term strategy).
Also, my experiences at the rep often fail to provide something that is really all that different from what the multiplex offers. There's no interaction, no direct engagement, no reason what's happening on stage couldn't be just as well happening on a screen (with added close ups, montage, and special effects). Theatre needs to play to it's strengths, to do what film can't. The rep generally choses to play theatre flat, passive, mild and cold (in terms of McLuhan's Hot vs Cold media).
As a result, i think you've maybe got the progression backwards. We're more likely to see new audiences attending intimate and exciting productions at small companies, get turned on to theatre and then make their way to the rep. At least they might, if the rep did any kind of outreach or had any respect for these smaller companies.

Anonymous more than 16 years ago