Years ago, I saw a production of Laughing Stock at the Milwaukee Rep. It was early-on in my life as a theatre critic. It was in the era when Joseph Hanreddy was the Artistic Director of the Rep. And now UWM is doing a production of the comedy.
It's a clever love letter to the theatre. A group of actors are doing summer rep theatre in a barn. We see quite a few cliche archetypes and personalities of theatre types feeding through the comedy. If it's done well, the particularly bad play-within-the-play productions might turn out in some laughs. The best part about seeing this staged with UWM students is their inexperience. THe students in question haven't really had a whole lot of experience onstage and they're playing people who ARE experienced professionals, as I recall. So you have relatively inexperienced actors playing experienced actors playing characters in bad plays in a barn in the summer. Kind of a weird and quite possibly thoroughly disorienting experience. And it sounds like a lot of fun.
Directed by Michelle Lopez-Rios, UWM's production of Laughing Stock runs March 5th- 9th at UWM's Mainstage Theatre on 2400 E. Kenwood Blvd. For ticket reservations, call 414-229-4308
