This Week in Milwaukee: April 21-27, 2022

Here are the Milwaukee events we are looking forward to coming up this week.

by

The Music Man, a Spring Gallery Night, Earth Day events, an Exotics matinee and a long-awaited show by Big Thief and more—This Week in Milwaukee!

Thursday, April 21

Arts A La Carte Lecture Series: Optimist Theatre @ Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts (3270 Mitchell Park Dr. Brookfield), 10:30 p.m.

Every Shakespeare production and performance is a "cover," so every potential producer benefits from strong script analysis and performance traditions, as well as the right and room to make original choices.

Come hear Tom Reed, Associate Artistic Director of Milwaukee Free Shakespeare in the Park, and ML Cogar, company dramaturg, talk about how Optimist Theatre adapts Shakespeare for both audience and context. Along the way, try your hand at making and critiquing production choices for this summer's adaptation of Twelfth Night, Shakespeare's comedy of danger, disguise, and desire.

Friday, April 22

The Music Man @ Falls Patio Players (North Middle School Auditorium, N88 W16750 Garfield Drive, Menomonee Falls), 7:30 p.m.

Two years after canceling their nearly staged spring musical, Falls Patio Players is bringing song, dance, and 26 trombones to the stage with Meredith Willson’s The Music Man.

The Music Man tells the story of con artist Harold Hill who tries to sell the pragmatic citizens of River City, Iowa on the idea of a boys’ marching band. With a little flattery, a lot of patter, and some big promises, Harold soon convinces these Iowan skeptics to buy into his plan. If Harold can sway the blustering Mayor Shinn and the shrewd Marian the librarian, he’ll have pulled off the ultimate con.

Through May 1. More info here: fallspatioplayers.com/1565-2.

Gallery Night @ Various Locations, 5-9 p.m.

Gallery Night MKE—Milwaukee’s original gallery hop event—unites the city through art. Experience the vast creative culture in Milwaukee while you discover local galleries, art, and artists. This free, two-day quarterly event offers you the opportunity to buy original art, dine in outstanding restaurants, and shop in unique boutiques.

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Also Saturday. More info here: gallerynightmke.com.

Poetry Program Dedicated to Katy Phillips Livestream, 7 p.m.

The Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books will dedicate its April 22 event, Two Poets Celebrate Earth Day, to the late Katy Phillips. The program will feature Meg Muthupandiyan and Angela Trudell Vasquez in conversation about poetry, writing and the importance of the natural world to their creative lives. Each will read a selection of poems from their respective books.

The program will be streamed over Zoom at 7 p.m. by Books and Company of Oconomowoc. Register for the program at Booksco.com

Saturday, April 23

Earth Day @ Discovery World, 10:30 a.m.

The Artists of Organic Arts, David HB Drake, Paul Akert and Wildflower will present songs and stories for Earth Day at Milwaukee’s Discovery World from 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. on Saturday. David will sing songs for a better world, Paul will appear as John Muir, and Wildflower will come as Mother Nature with performances for all ages.

Wisconsin folksinger David HB Drake performed at the very first Earth Day in Madison in 1970 and has been spreading the message of living lightly on the Earth for 50 years. The Earth Day performances are free with a general admission to Discovery World.

Milwaukee Riverkeeper Spring Cleanup @ Various Locations, 9 a.m.-noon

Every Spring, Milwaukee Riverkeeper hosts a massive, one-day, community-wide effort to clean up the waterways and care for the community. Last year alone, over 3,000 volunteers removed more than 110,000 pounds of trash from 95 different locations across the watershed in just one day.

This Earth Day event is a fun and meaningful way to bring the community together and it is significant for more than other reasons, too since this year marks the 50th Anniversary of the Clean Water Act.

More info here: wakelet.com/wake/nWooqkuGstqIOptWPiBDD.

Jeff Stehr @ Carpe Carpe (18 South Water Street West, Fort Atkinson), 8 p.m.

After a prosperous decade, songwriter/music educator/band leader Jeff Stehr‘s Jamaican roots-inspired sextet, The Tritonics, left the scene during the great COVID quarantine of 2020-2021. Currently, playing piano with popular, potent purveyors of western swing, The Best Westerns, Stehr shepherds a pair of young songwriters for a night at the intimate listening room.

Eliza Hanson blends soulful vocals with carefully crafted lyrics on her 2016 EP. She’s performed at Turner Hall, Milwaukee PrideFest, Evanston SPACE, The Frequency, among other venues. Mark Soriano has played for many of Milwaukee’s favorite bands like Dropbear Collective, The Oxleys, Fellow Kinsman and The Hatchets. When the world shut down in 2020, Mark stepped out of the drummer’s role and began recording as a solo artist, releasing a handful singles and recently, his debut EP, So Strange. As a Milwaukee native, Mark not only pulls inspiration from folk, country and alternative rock, but from the unique experiences of the city itself.

Rick Donner, Jay Matthes, Elephonic @ Anodyne Coffee Roasting Co., 8 p.m.

Billed as “A night of symphonic pop meets alt-country,” Rick Donner’s name reaches from mid-‘90s group Punchdrunk to last year’s Bicentennial Drug Lord shepherdexpress.com/music/local-music/bicentennial-drug-lord-reconvenes-with-new-ep 

Milwaukee sextet Elephonic combines over one hundred years of musical experience. Historically, Mike Jarvis’ songs with The Blow Pops and The Lackloves leaned toward Anglo-pop and jangle. With Elephonic, Thea Morton Vorass’ cello and Jason Klagstad’s versatile guitar add more colors to the palette. The band’s debut recordings were recorded on Klagstad’s vintage analog machine with mastering at Abbey Road. Jay Matthes comes highly regard with his album Dancing After Dark.

Sunday, April 24

The Exotics @Kochanskis Concertina Bar, 2:30 p.m.

This matinee will be a master class in how things work. Since 1994, The Exotics have played instrumental/surf/hot rod music with no agenda other than making folks smile and getting them to dance. Drawing on forefathers like The Ventures, Johnny & the Hurricanes and The T-Bones, the band’s shows are invigorating. If you are not moving, you might want to check your pulse.

Tuesday, April 26

Big Thief @ Pabst Theater, 8 p.m.

“I already died. I’m singing from the other side, underneath love,” Adrianne Lenker sings on “Love, Love, Love” from Big Thief’s recent double album Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You. The song, which hints at Yoko Ono fronting Neil Young’s Harvest band, is but one drop in an ocean—from a sprawling collection of songs that, in time, just might come to be regarded as a masterpiece.

The band moves from personal to oblique; pastoral to mildly psychedelic, with music and lyrics that sound like an interior road trip, with a closing track, “Blue Lightning” that wobbles as it crackles.