Local playwright and funnyman Patrick Schmitz is a busy guy. This month he has not one, but two different scripts making their formal debut in two different formats.
Today's...or, actually...This Sunday's Tom Sawyer
On March 6th, Wisconsin Hybrid Theatre breaks with tradition and working with a script not written by Charles Sommers. Patrick Schmitz's Radio WHT comedic twist on Twain's classic Tom Sawyer. The parody of classic live radio drama stars Schmitz as Wally Becher. The radio cast includes a number of usual suspects including Jack Farrwell, Ira Hampton, Deb Burnham. A new character by the name of Kat Newhall (anybody's guess as to who that might be) will play Tom and the ghost of the late Pete Vliet will play Huck Finn. Weird. And kinda cool.
Radio WHT's Tom Sawyer can be found on 91.7 WMSE's frontier radio somewhere between 8:30 and 11:30 am.
Back And Forth
Schmitz's tribute to Midwestern theatre Back and Forth approaches the present not long after the Radio WHT show. The show set in a small-town theatre community somewhere in Wisconsin was informed on by Schmitz's interview with no less than 75 people involved with local theatre. (So it better be good). Actually, I'd seen a staged reading of the show and it sounds interesting.
A fully-staged production of the latest from the playwright of Rudolph the Pissed-Off Reindeer makes it to the stage of the Alchemist Theatre March 18th – 26th.