Urban Fairy Tales At MGAC

The darker edge of fairy tales continues to be quite hip these days. The darkness in what modern culture laughingly refers to as children’s fare makes its way to the stage of the Off The Wall Theatre next month a promising Jeremy Welter stage adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland. The show stars Welter as the Mad Hatter and Liz Mistele as an Alice “with the mouth of a sailor and the innocence of a child.” Cute. The show opens on February 3^rd. More on that as it approaches . . .

A bit closer to the now, the Milwaukee Gay Arts Center is featuring a photo exhibit with a modern take on classic fairy tales.  Local art photography outfit Pear Photography has worked with local actress Elizabeth Shipe (most recently seen in In Tandem’s production of Art of Murder) on a series of concept photo shoots illustrating  various classic tales from Red Riding Hood to Alice In Wonderland to Cinderella and so on.  In a way, the project is a testament to the process by which a group of people looking to have fun for their own amusement can quickly become a bit more complicated and eventually enjoyed by others. With almost no commercial intentions originally, it's one of those stories of an attempt to get some really cool pictures for one's Facebook profile that suddeny becomes quite a bit more complicated than originally expected. 

The photos also feature the work of other local actors. (Jason Waszak shows-up as a Mad Hatter in blue jeans.)

Photos from the set can be seen on Shipe’s Facebook page. There's also a behind-the-images blog in which Shipe relates some of the stories behind the pictures.

An opening reception for the Urban Fairy Tale Gallery show takes place on Friday, January 28^th at 7:30pm. The reception, which is free and open to the general public, continues until 10:30pm. Atendees are encouraged to come dressed as a fairy tale character. Attendees’ donations to the MGAC are greatly appreciated.