Elena Delzer
An illustrative collage of playbills and tickets.
It’s hard not to notice the prevalence of musicals in this fall’s theater schedule. From University Theatre’s production of the Broadway musical Little Women, with songs including “Off to Massachusetts” and “Take a Chance On Me” (not the ABBA hit) to Mama Magi, a (yes) ABBA-inspired musical parody from Mercury Players, Madison actors are hitting the high notes and hoofing it happily across the boards. But really, the season is a delicious smorgasbord, with several revenge plots, a madcap thriller, Lambda-award winning drama…and pigeons.
Primary Trust, Forward Theater
September 4-21, Overture-Playhouse
Eboni Booth’s 2024 Pulitzer Prize-winning play is both straightforward and heartfelt, about a bookstore employee who’s laid off and finds not just a new job but, more or less, a new life. It’s also a comedy. But in a national era where kindness has come to seem like a forgotten virtue, this play does indeed “change the narrative,” as Forward’s tagline for the season suggests. Directed by Chicago’s Mikael Burke.
Dance Nation, University Theatre
Sept. 11-21, UW Vilas Hall-Hemsley Theatre
Dance Nation, a play by Clare Barron, follows the members of a pre-teen competitive dance team as they create routines while creating themselves in the process of growing up. The play was a Pulitzer Prize for Drama finalist in 2019, and described by the Pulitzer jury as “refreshingly unorthodox” in depicting the joyful freedom of dance and the travails of finding oneself.
Hamlet, Mercury Players Theatre
Sept. 19-Oct. 4, Bartell Theatre
This adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet by Lennox Forrester, who also directs, foregrounds Horatio, friend of Hamlet, placing him at an AA meeting. There he retells the story of the famously tormented prince of Denmark, who’s suffering from withdrawal, while relating his own story of how he ended up at the meeting.
Matilda the Musical, Children’s Theater of Madison
Oct. 4-19, Overture Center-Playhouse
The beloved book by Roald Dahl is transformed into a musical — song, dance and a spunky young heroine who has telekinesis, the ability to move objects with her mind. The play, intended for ages 9 and up, is directed and choreographed by CTM artistic director Brian Cowing.
Head on a Silver Platter: In Defense of Salome
Oct. 10-26, Broom Street Theater
This modern retelling of the Salome story features a teenager who is drawn into the orbit of a right-wing podcaster — which never bodes well. Written and directed by Jan Levine Thal, longtime WORT-FM radio host and writer.
Winnie the Pooh (and His Pals, Too!), Children’s Theater of Madison
Oct. 11-19, MYArts-Sunrise
This “theater for the very young” production takes us to the 100-Acre Wood with action geared to kids ages 2-5. The play incorporates movement, music, and multi-sensory storytelling, and Pooh, Piglet and Tigger are great friends to introduce the very young to theater. In the immortal words of Pooh himself, “Any day spent with you is my favorite day.”
Dracula, A Feminist Revenge Fantasy. Really. Madison Public Theatre
Oct. 16-Nov. 1, Bartell Theatre
Kate Hamill’s 2020 feminist recasting of Bram Stoker’s 19th century vampire classic is here just in time for Halloween. Hamill doesn’t parody Stoker’s convoluted tale of Victorian repression so much as she wrests it out of the hands of the men and gifts it to the women. Still, there’s humor and thrills amid the payback.
From the Top: Encore at 25, Encore Studio
Oct. 17-Nov. 2, Martin Street Theatre
It’s the 25th year for Encore, a professional company for people with disabilities, one of the few in the U.S. This is a retrospective revue of that quarter-century of work, many of which were created for Encore. Included are excerpts from To Love or Not to Love, a 2001 play by troupe executive director KelsyAnne Schoenhaar that deals with sexual assault and power dynamics in relationships; Lost Track, a 2009 work by Wendy Prosise and Schoenhaar about a young woman living with bipolar disorder; and The Last Weekend of December, another Schoenhaar original from 2016 dealing with the depression that sets in around the holidays.
The 39 Steps, American Players Theatre
Oct. 22-Nov. 30, APT-Touchstone, Spring Green
This adaptation from both the novel by John Buchan and the film thriller by Alfred Hitchcock goes for comedy as it asks just four actors to play all the characters, sometimes multiple characters at the same time. Audiences should be in good hands with Marcus Truschinski, Laura Rook, Nate Burger and Casey Hoekstra.
ScARE WE DELICIOUS?, Madison College Performing Arts and Are We Delicious?
Oct. 23-Nov. 1, Madison College-Truax Studio Theater
Halloween-themed vignettes will be written and performed by Madison College students. In collaboration with Are We Delicious?, the Madison troupe that abides by the stricture of creating a show from the ground up in just two weeks.
Rodgers & Hammerstein: From Book to Broadway, Four Seasons Theatre
Oct. 24-26, Overture Center-Playhouse
Carousel, Oklahoma!, South Pacific, The King and I, The Sound of Music — Rodgers and Hammerstein claim authorship of some of the most famous Broadway musicals of all time. When they became partners, adapting stories from books or creating a musical driven by a single narrative was not even a thing. Rodgers and Hammerstein: From Book to Broadway looks back on their legacy with songs from the above classics and more.
Women Beware Women, Madison Shakespeare Company
Oct. 31-Nov. 8, Bartell Theatre-Drury Stage
One of the bloodiest and most violent of the Jacobean tragedies, Women Beware Women was penned by Thomas Middleton, a contemporary of Shakespeare’s. Bianca elopes with the insecure Leantio, which is only the beginning of an exploration of sexual jealousy, women’s agency, and male lust for power. It’s somewhat reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, but a whole lot darker.
Gutenberg! The Musical!, Forward Theater
Nov. 6-23, Overture-Playhouse
If a couple of newbies staging an implausible Broadway musical sounds like a plot you’ve heard before (The Producers), you’re not entirely wrong. But unlike the storied Mel Brooks comedy, the two behind this unlikely show, Bud and Doug, truly believe in its worth. The show, about the inventor of the printing press and his love for his assistant, Helvetica, is a charmer. Directed by Jen Uphoff Gray.
The Gulf, StageQ
Nov. 7-22, Bartell Theatre
This Lambda Literary Award-winner by Audrey Cefaly examines a committed lesbian relationship from the confines of a small rowboat. Out looking for fish, the two women converse, at first desultorily, then with deeper undercurrents encompassing love, class, ambition and infidelity.
Inertia Follies
Nov. 7-23, Broom Street Theater
Directed by performance artist Chelsea Gaspard, this show focuses on experimental performance art, “across multiple disciplines,” according to Gaspard. Gaspard will perform Molting in a Saturn Shell, about “the vulnerability of shedding layers of Self within a hostile environment.” The show will include the work of other performance artists, and Gaspard calls it a “living, breathing experiment, [that] will develop according to the selected artists.”
Little Women, the Broadway Musical, University Theatre
Nov. 13-23, UW Vilas Hall-Mitchell Theatre
If there is a limit to what material can be turned into a musical, Broadway has not located it yet. This adaptation, based on the iconic novel by Louisa May Alcott, puts fledgling writer Jo March’s aspirations and heartaches to song. As literary sisters to generations of American girls, Jo, Meg, Amy, and Beth are relatable models as they cope with the Civil War, poverty, jealousy and loss.
The Pigeon Gets a Big Time Holiday Extravaganza, Children’s Theater of Madison
Nov. 29-Dec. 21, MYArts-Starlight
If you don’t love pigeons, you’ve never encountered children's book author Mo Willems’ pigeon (Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! and The Pigeon Has Feelings Too!). Here the pigeon’s adventures include song, dance and a possible run to the North Pole. The play, intended for ages 3 and up, runs 60 minutes.
The Hello Girls: A New American Musical, Four Seasons Theatre
Dec. 11-21, Overture Center-Playhouse
This musical based on the novel Switchboard Soldiers by Madison’s own Jennifer Chiaverini is back after a popular run last February. Its heroes are women who entered the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War I to work as telephone operators, putting through calls, translating and speaking French and English, and keeping highly classified information secret — during a bloody war and a pandemic. The story follows them home, where they needed to battle for the right to vote. It debuted Off Broadway in 2018; the score is reminiscent of the stirring notes of Les Miz, upbeat World War I morale tunes like “Over There,” and even a bit anachronistically of the harmonies of the Andrews Sisters during World War II.
MAMA MAGI!!!, Mercury Players
Dec. 12–28, Bartell Theatre
Move over, Guys On Ice. Madison playwright Doug Reed has scripted a nativity parody with ABBA energy and Packers magic — or at least Packers namedropping, with Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers and Jordan Love as possible parents to a Green Bay kid who just wants to know who his dad is.
