Milwaukee Public Theatre, Marquette Theatre and the Milwaukee branch of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom present a concert reading of Most Dangerous Women by Jan Maher and Nikki Nojima Louis, an inspiring social justice play that shares the chronological story of the international women’s peace movement through a combination of monologues, headlines, poems, memoirs and songs. Women who were and still are fighting to end war and instill peace in our world are quoted and referenced throughout, including Jane Addams, Joy Harjo, Jeannette M. Rankin, Mavis Smallberg, Coretta Scott King and several from Milwaukee.
The performance, directed by Marquette University’s Debra Krajec and produced by Milwaukee Public Theatre’s Barbara Leigh, features a diverse cast of female performers ages 18 through 70—four professional actors and eight Marquette Theatre students.
Krajec explains this particular production is different from typical staged readings, which oftentimes features new scripts simply read aloud by actors. “This play is established; it’s been around since 1990 and keeps evolving. It’s different in that the actors are not only reading words and playing characters, but there is also music. This is not a piece that has characters really interacting either; they are talking to the audience. Much of the music is from the time period, written by people who were activists or protesters or written by Jan and a composer she worked with,” says Krajec. The production also reflects on recent events, including an environmental activist from Honduras who was murdered this March.
“When you hear the list of all the different wars and genocides and all the stuff that’s happened just in the last 100 years, it is very sobering. And that’s really the point of doing this, to bring that truth out,” says Krajec. “It ends of a very hopeful note I think, on a poem that’s basically saying go and live your lives, have hope that someday we will have a better world and know that we’re not giving up. It’s not all gloom and doom, but it is important to stop and take note.”
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Most Dangerous Women runs April 22 and 23 at 7:30 p.m. and April 24 at 2:30 p.m. at Marquette’s Evan P. & Marion Helfaer Theatre, 525 N. 13th St. A resource guide developed by Mount Mary University students and sociology professor Lynne Woehrle will be available at the show. Maher, Krajek and UW-Milwaukee professor Merry Weisner-Hanks will participate in talkbacks after each performance. For more information and tickets, call 414-288-7504 or visit showclix.com/events/12806.
Theatre Happenings:
n The Boulevard Theatre continues its 30th anniversary season with Eugène Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano, a one-act, comedic “anti-play” about conversations that begin logically and become nonsensical, and the “absurdity of manners and small talk.” Show runs April 26-May 8 at Plymouth Church, 2717 E. Hampshire. For tickets, call 414-744-5757 or visit brownpapertickets.com. Cash only at the door.
n UW-Milwaukee’s Department of Theatre presents HOT L Baltimore, a dramatic comedy that “reveals the private lives of an unconventional community about to be turned inside out.” Show contains adult content and runs for one week only, April 27-May 2, at the Mainstage Theatre, 2400 E. Kenwood Blvd. For tickets, call 414-229-4308 or visit arts.uwm.edu/tickets.
n Wine in the Wilderness, directed by Marti Gobel, is focused on “race and what defines strong women within the African American community” and is set during the Harlem riots of 1964. This Marquette Theatre show runs April 28-May 1 at Evan P. & Marion Helfaer Theatre, 525 N. 13th St. For tickets, call 414-288-7504 or visit showclix.com/event/wine-in-the-wilderness.
n Terrence McNally’s piece It’s Only A Play is described as a “wild and scathing satire on the world of show business” and will make its Midwest premiere at Off the Wall Theatre, April 28-May 8 at 127 E. Wells St. Tickets can be purchased by calling 414-484-8874 or visiting offthewalltheatre.com.
n The Solitary Confinement Workgroup of the ROC Wisconsin campaign presents the award-winning play Mariposa & the Saint: From Solitary Confinement, a Play Through Letters by Julia Steele Allen, based on a true story of a woman locked in solitary confinement for nearly three years. See it Thursday, April 28, 3 p.m. at Calvary Presbyterian Church, 935 W. Wisconsin Ave., and Friday, April 29, 7 p.m. at St. Matthew’s ELCA, 1615 N. Wauwatosa Ave., Wauwatosa. No admission fee. For more information, visit rocwisconsin.org or call 414-831-2070.
n UW-Parkside Theatre Arts Department’s season closer is The Government Inspector, a comedic satire about bureaucracy and corruption in a small Russian town. The show runs April 29-May 6 at The Rita, 900 Wood Road, Kenosha. For tickets, call 262-595-2564 or visit uwparksidetickets.universitytickets.com.
n Sharpshooter and sophisticated show-woman Annie Oakley comes to Waukesha Civic Theatre in Annie Get Your Gun. Show runs April 29-May 15 at the Margaret Brate Bryant Civic Theatre, 264 W. Main St. For tickets, call 262-547-0708 or visit waukeshacivictheatre.org.
