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Two adventurous Milwaukee music ensembles, Present Music and the Milwaukee Opera Theater, recently played and recorded a new show outdoors. Videos of these performances will be available through the end of the year for modest ticket prices.
Present Music recorded a “reality check” concert on the roof of the brewery parking lot on N. Ninth Street. An ensemble of Mingus sizes supported her panel of local theater artists Sheri Williams, soprano Sarah Brayley, and her three guest vocalists on Milwaukee hip-hop her star classics. .
Artistic directors Eric Segnitz and David Bloom have chosen music that reflects both months of pandemic lockdown and Black Lives Matter protests in the streets. These choices also reflected the PM ensemble’s flexibility to play everything from R&B to minimalism.
The Williams Panel brought enthusiasm to the late Gil Scott-Heron’s protest anthem, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” What does Scott-Heron think of today’s demonstrations recorded and sometimes organized by mobile phones?
An aggressive blend of R&B and hip-hop, Kinetic Classic fits seamlessly into an ensemble of musicians including William Helmers on lead, Jennifer Clippert on flute, and Don Sipe on trumpet. His song “Reality Check” suggests that overcoming obstacles begins as an inner job. A “spirit” is several pleas for the same thing.
TankThink produced multi-camera videos of the performance, sometimes incorporating filters and effects such as the grainy black and white of Klassik’s “Reality Check.” I especially enjoyed the rooftop performance and the drone footage of the neighboring streets.
Klassik rejoined the ensemble to perform “Coming Together” by composer Frederic Rzewski. This is the nagging setting of his seven sentences from a letter Sam Melville wrote from his Attica prison in 1971. Melville was one of the inmates shot by the New York State Police after the Attica riots that year. A letter written before the riot described how he dealt with “apathetic brutality, constant noise, … lost hysterical male rage” in prison, and described it as “clear and meaningful.” Driven by Andrew Lasity’s nagging bassline, the classic’s lucid narration models the determination of a man despite his confinement.
Bloom conducted the concert, which was recorded and mixed by Tanner/Monaglu. This is an excellent introduction to the features of Present Music. Ticket holders and his PM subscribers can view online indefinitely. For tickets and information, presentmusic.org/realitycheck.
Orsa Ibernata at the Milwaukee Opera Theater
The Milwaukee Opera Theater has joined a coalition of leading boutique opera companies across the country to create Tales from a Safe Distance, an anthology of short operas based on Boccaccio’s Decameron. plague.
“Orsa ibernata” was contributed by MOT and premiered on Friday night. It freely adapts a pair of similar stories about a grieving woman whose lover is killed in a sharp and grotesque manner.
Soprano Elizabeth Blood, who composes music and sings in English, has two characters: a sad woman walking through the woods and a leather figure with an intricately carved box she is destined to meet. play. Crystal Wagner videotaped blood in some natural places, but this doesn’t tell you what century it is. Green and close-up images of dangerous forest details heighten the mood, which is a blend of sadness and suspense.
Director Danny Brylow wrote the script. This isn’t a wordy show, so viewers have plenty of time to linger over the sounds of Brad’s voice and the dangers she faces.
“Orsa ibernata” ends in the cemetery. Afterwards, you might be tempted to listen to Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box.”
A $15 ticket entitles you to unlimited viewings of “Takes From a Safe Distance” (9 mini-operas and 1 frame story) until the end of the year.visit decamerooperacoalition.org.
Skylight’s “seriousness”
A new online production by Skylight Music Theater and First Stage takes a different approach to the COVID-19 pandemic. 1 hour and 48 minutes to help escape. Another incorporates the coronavirus into the texture of local stories.
Common to both productions is the determination to make the most of virtual media by combining videos of individual performers filmed separately in different locations.
Paul Gordon and Jay Gruska’s musical adaptation sweeps Oscar Wilde’s classic comedy into 1960s London, and includes nods to The Beatles, Spanky, Our Gang, and other period music, fittingly. Features a groovy score. It’s the right time and place for good friends Algernon (Max Pink) and Jack (Joey Sherius), and the “birds” they confuse, Gwendolyn (Stephanie Staszak) and Cecily (Ashley Oviedo).
Wilde’s “Seriousness Matters” is one of the most quoted comedies of all time, with the line:
In the program notes, director Michael Unger describes the painstaking process of individually recording each of the film’s seven actors: I was able to isolate their vocals using a Zoom call and his third device playing the music track through earphones. ”
The best thing about this production is Pink as the nonchalant Algernon and Unger’s epic video editing and assembly. Pink wears the role as perfectly as the black turtleneck he wears. His gestures and eye movements are delicate and supple for video media.
Unger and his collaborators weaved seven streams of footage of the actor into a constantly deforming Mondrian rectangle containing tiny boxes, sometimes filled with period images and video clips. They wink at the limits of isolation by way of “staging” handshakes and kisses.
Costume coordinator Shima Orans and the cast of Threads, especially Oviedo’s psychedelic floral dress, were a perfect fit for her frenzied character and even managed to power thousands of HVAC systems in her spare time.
Skylight Music Theater’s “Being Earnest” is available to stream until November 12th. For tickets, skylightmusictheater.org.
“Solomon’s Treasure Hunt” on the first stage
The family-friendly First Stage kicks off its fully virtual season with ‘Solomon’s Treasure Hunt’. This original weekly series was written by resident playwright John McRae and directed by First Stage alumnus Jeremy Tardy (best known for his appearance on the Netflix series Dear White People). ”).
New episodes will be released every Sunday at noon through November 15th. I’ve seen 3 episodes of him released so far. They star seven young actors, most of whom are familiar from previous First Stage shows.
Solomon in the title refers to Solomon Juneau, one of Milwaukee’s founders. Franny (Lina Singh) discovers a long and complex rhyming clue in some of her family materials that may refer to a hidden treasure. She recruits her five companions to help her find it, and sets the kids on adventures in Milwaukee’s history and neighborhood.
This quest delves deep into Milwaukee’s history and landmarks. The first few episodes mentioned the Eagles Club, Captain Frederick Pabst, Pfister Hotel, and civil rights leader Lloyd Barbie. As is customary for first stage shows, the cast is diverse and multi-ethnic.
“Solomon’s Quest” incorporates the pandemic situation into the story. Franny has a (so far) undisclosed medical condition. Her parents are strict on protocol and rarely let her out of her house. So her friends become her searchers.
Audiences ages 8 and up, “Solomon’s Treasure,” has an intermediate feel and extroverted acting like you’d find on Nickelodeon or Disney Channel. These segments are short (17 minutes, 9 minutes, 9 minutes), but the characters are starting to emerge. Olivia (Therin Arvey Walker) is shy about asserting herself. She’s a friendly gamer, Jordan (Colin Walt). Director Tardy adds playful visual effects.
New episodes of The Quest for Solomon’s Treasure will be available through November 15th. The series will be available to watch online until May 2021. For ticket and companion guide downloads, visit www.firststage.org.
Please contact Jim Higgins (jim.higgins@jrn.com). Follow him on Twitter. @Ziggy.
Related:Update: Milwaukee performers plan to combine online and in-person shows for 2020-2021 season
Entertainment Calendar:What’s Happening in Southeast Wisconsin This Fall
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