Milwaukee's 2022-23 LGBTQ Theater Season–It's There if You Look for It

BY PAUL MASTERSON

Photo by MarioLisovski/Getty Images.

Suffice it to say, the heyday of Milwaukee’s LGBTQ theater has long since waned. With the closure of the Milwaukee Gay Arts Center in 2014 and Theatrical Tendencies on seemingly permanent hiatus, the local production of queer stage plays is at best sporadic. Obviously, in this city, unless underwritten by LGBTQ philanthropy or a reliable box office draw (usually involving drag queens), the mainstream theatres cannot rationalize the investment. Still, looking at the current 2022-23 season, there are both intended and unintended queerly relevant offerings on the marquee.

While the Milwaukee Chamber Theatre doesn’t have an LGBTQ specific play in its upcoming season, it is producing a spectrum of diverse pieces. Included is gay playwright Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf which, given its dynamics, may as well be gay (perhaps someday it will be produced with all same-gender cast, male or female, although I heard Albee closed-down a same-sex production somewhere years and years ago).

Skylight Music Theater presents classic popular musicals and a new one. Admittedly, like Albee plays, intentionally or not, Broadway shows are pretty gay unto themselves. The new piece is based on a play and movie of the same name, The Song of Bernadette. If ever there were a miracle in search of a musical, the story of Our Lady of Fatima appearing to a peasant girl and founding a church and subsequent pilgrimage destination for millions, is definitely it. The Skylight is also bringing gay faves Evita and the ABBA tribute show, Mama Mia!

ON THE OUTSKIRTS

LGBTQ dedicated theater is to be found in the city’s (and suburban) black box and smaller venues. Quite by coincidence, along with the Chamber’s Virginia Woolf, they constitute an inadvertent Edward Albee and Terrance McNally Fest.

Mark Bucher’s Boulevard Theatre launches its 37th season this fall. It has announced an enhanced reading of Edward Albee’s rather witty and clever social comedy, A Delicate Balance. To be sure, the playwright has a checkered gay affiliation seeing himself not as a gay writer but rather as a writer who happens to be gay. Nevertheless, in A Delicate Balance there’s a flirtation with the idea of a gay character. The plot concerns a well-to-do suburban couple visited by friends who ask to stay with them. The stay is longer than anticipated and questions of friendship ensue. In the latter half of the season, the Boulevard plans an enhanced reading of a more recent work, Joshua Harmon’s Significant Other, about the travails of a young urban gay male in New York City as his female friends find success in love and marriage. “Part of the Boulevard’s evolving mission is to speak to the LGBTQ community as well as, in the case of A Delicate Balance, to seniors while Significant Other addresses a younger generation. These are issues that resonate,” Bucher said.

RAINBOW EVENING

Speaking of Bucher’s mission, Sunset Playhouse brings a rainbow evening to Elm Grove with two Terrance McNally works, Andre’s Mother and Mothers and Sons. Bucher’s Boulevard produced a local premiere of Mothers and Sons as a staged reading some years ago, no doubt inspiring this reprise.

Also by McNally, Sunstone Studios MKE is producing The Lisbon Traviata. A relatively new theater in town, Sunstone occupies Dale Gutzman’s former Off the Wall Theatre space Downtown. An opera queen at heart, McNally sets his work around a bootlegged Maria Callas recording of Verdi’s La Traviata and within the world of gay opera aficionados explores the often tragic (or otherwise melodramatic) operatic lives they lead. A critic called it “funny and heart rending.” In fact, it’s a difficult piece, contemplating relationships, the younger versus older dynamic and, perhaps, our emotionally masochistic inclinations.

Elsewhere, Inspiration Studios, a black box theater and art gallery in West Allis, hosts Chris Holoyda’s Emerald Condor Production’s staging of Holoyda’s original new script, Ralph Kerwineo and the Refining Influence of Skirts, the true story of the title’s namesake, a trans man of color who lived in Milwaukee in the early 1900s. Performances run three weekends, October 7-23. Also at Inspiration Studios, Broadway Bound Wisconsin, a newly formed, diversity embracing youth theatre company, presents its “Premiere Cabaret” on September 24.

Inspiration Studio’s owner and director, Eric Ortiz, is also a member of the Waukesha Civic Theatre diversity committee and its play advisory committee making recommendations for the season’s schedule. He is currently focused on selecting minority writers and themes. “WCT is trying to be more inclusive and produce LGBTQ, BIPOC, and women’s relevant works. It’s hard to be inclusive of everyone with only five or six selections in a season. However, that conversation takes place for every play considered. We want to make sure that a good percentage of the productions are dedicated to this demographic,” Ortiz said.

Paul Masterson is an LGBTQ activist and writer and has served on the boards of the Milwaukee Gay Arts Center, Milwaukee Pride, GAMMA and other organizations.