Russ Bickerstaff

There are a couple of hotel rooms out in the middle of the park. There’s no ceiling. Only a few walls. It’s a set-up for a sting operation. And it’s a comedy. And since this is a very specific kind of comedy, the staged set for Unnecessary Farce

Listen closely around the edges of the stages in town and you might hear the Milwaukee theater fringe slowly evolving. The Milwaukee Fringe Festival is taking time off from a full program in the interest of expanding to larger things next year, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t going to be fringe work this coming month.

David Lancelle and Patrick Thompson debut a new musical with Pink Umbrella Theater this month. Portraits is a pleasantly sentimental, little 75-minute musical set entirely in a portrait studio. Pip Buffington plays Tony, a photographer in the unenviable position of working the studio all alone as his business partner has called-in sick. Tony is forced to deal with a strange array of different appointments and walk-ins as he manages a difficult workday.

Bombshell Theater boldly shuffles a big, splashy musical into a harrowingly intimate space this month as it stylishly presents The Prom. Director Eric Welch cleverly weaves the feel of a massive, well-funded production into the cozy space built by Next Act Theatre. Charming Gen Z actress Madison Nowak plays Emma—a small-town high school girl who finds her high school prom endangered when she mentions interest in bringing her girlfriend to the dance. The town’s interest in cancelling the prom becomes major news, which catches the attention of a group of fading Broadway stars who march into the fray to inadvertently complicate things while trying to prove to the world that they aren’t self-absorbed ego fiends.

Playwright Idris Goodwin dives into a coming-of-age romance entrenched in the hip-hop scene of the mid-1990s with The Realness

It’s about reproductive justice. And it’s funny. (Really.) ECCHO (Engaging Communities to Change Health Outcomes) is presenting an evening of monologues called Purple Shampoo. The big challenge for any journey towards freedom is the abstraction of it all. The weighty seriousness of it all can be absolutely devastating. ECCHO looks to find freedom in humor as it presents the stories of a group of women. Everyone deserves to be able to make choices about their own bodies. A series of storytellers look to break-down barriers, shatter stigmas and advocate for a more rational world where everyone has basic rights to their own health.

Cabaret Milwaukee presents a clever compression of Milwaukee history with the aid of puppetry in Frisch, Frei, Stark, Treu: A Puppet History of The Milwaukee Turners at Turner Hall.

Theatrical Tendencies opens its season with The Vultures: a dark murder mystery comedy with a charming ensemble inhabiting a cozy space.

The Constructivists presents a tightly-crafted descent into a darkly comic dystopian hell with In the Canyon at the Broadway Theatre Center.

Theatre Gigante examines money, work, stress and the value at the heart of it all in a two-person drama by Hungarian playwright György Spiró.