Founded in 2014 by Katherine Beeson, Cream City Theater is a small, independent company focused on offering audiences plays that are new, different or have not been done in the Milwaukee area for many years. The company’s upcoming show is Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a story about George, a history professor, and his wife, Martha, who invite a new young teacher and his wife to their home after a university party. They’ve all been drinking and Martha and George proceed to argue, which in turn causes Nick and Honey to add their own personal drama to the evening. George is determined to make his wife pay for revealing all their secrets.
“I think the most powerful thing is the title,” says Beeson. “Virginia Woolf was a writer who depicted people and relationships without illusions—naked emotions and real reactions. Since George and Martha have lived their lives in a world they created, the question becomes whether they could ever be honest with each other when their defenses are stripped away.”
The show will be performed at Theatre Unchained, which Beeson says works well because “it brings the audience very close to the story and they will feel that they are literally in the room with George, Martha, Nick and Honey as the evening unfolds and disintegrates.”
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? runs March 19-29 at 1024 S. Fifth St. For advance tickets, visit creamcitytheater.com. Tickets will also be available at the door. March 26 is pay-what-you-can, with all profits from that performance benefiting St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.
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Theatre Happening
■ Memories Dinner Theater presents Jeff Daniels’ comedy Escanaba in Da Moonlight. Set in Escanaba, Mich., it follows Reuben’s hunting story of all hunting stories in his attempt to bag a buck for the family name. Show runs March 13-22 at 1077 Lake Drive, Port Washington. For tickets, call 262-284-6850 or visit memoriesballroom.com.
■ NETworks presents Disney’s Beauty and the Beast at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, March 17-22 at Uihlein Hall, 929 N. Water St. For tickets, call 414-273-7206 or visit marcuscenter.org.
■ The Milwaukee Repertory Theater features four multi-talented performers in its next show, Low Down Dirty Blues, which boasts 22 jazz and blues songs. Show runs March 20-May 24 at the Stackner Cabaret, 108 E. Wells St. For tickets, call 414-224-9490 or visit milwaukeerep.com.
■ Charles Dickens’ novel Great Expectations, adapted for the stage by Barbara Field, follows Pip’s journey of learning the expectations of a true gentleman. Show runs at Acacia Theatre March 20-29 at Concordia University’s Todd Wehr Auditorium, 12800 N. Lake Shore Drive, Mequon. For tickets, call 414-744-5995 or visit acaciatheatre.com.
■ Root River Theatre Company, a new group based in Franklin, brings to stage Love Letters by A. R. Gurney, which shares the bittersweet journey of two lovers and how their life paths lead them apart. Show runs March 20-22 at Crowne Plaza Hotel’s Aviation Theater, 6401 S. 13th St. For more information and tickets, call 414-301-9246 or visit rootrivertheatre.com.
■ Milwaukee Public Theatre presents Stories from the Medicine Wheel, an original show featuring traditional tales and characters from the Potowatomi, Oneida, Ojibwa, Menominee and Ho-Chunk Nations told by a local cast with dynamic, handcrafted puppets designed by Heather Henson, artistic director of Ibex Puppetry and Jim Henson’s daughter, and Mark Ruffin, Emmy Award-winning designer for “Sesame Street” and other Muppet projects. The show is 6:30 p.m. on Friday, March 20 at the Cousins Center Auditorium, 3501 S. Lake Drive, St. Francis. For tickets, call 414-347-1685 or visit milwaukeepublictheatre.org.
■ Sunset Playhouse presents Will Durst and his one-man show BoomeRaging: From LSD to OMG at 8 p.m. on Friday, March 20 and 2 and 8 p.m. on Saturday, March 21. Durst describes his show as a “celebration of the maturation of the boomer nation and what happens when acid flashbacks meet dementia.” For tickets, call 262-782-4430 or visit sunsetplayhouse.com.
■ Mummenschanz, a visually spectacular show sans scenery, music or sound but filled with weird and witty characters of the imagination, comes to the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts (19805 W. Capitol Drive, Brookfield) at 7 p.m. on Saturday, March 21. For tickets, call 262-781-9520 or visit wilson-center.com.
