This Month in Milwaukee

13 THINGS TO DO IN OCTOBER

BY HARRY CHERKINIAN, ALLEN HALAS, DAVID LUHRSSEN, TYLER NELSON, JAMIE LEE RAKE AND JOHN SCHNEIDER

Illustration by Aleksandr Durnov/Getty Images.

THROUGH OCTOBER 15 Hispanic Heritage Month

Milwaukee Film’s “Cine Sin Frontera” is the festival’s programming track exploring Latinx culture. This fall, Cine Sin Frontera expands into a month-long celebration including virtual as well as film screenings at the Oriental Theater and events focused on food and music. For more information, visit mkefilm.org.

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THROUGH OCTOBER 17

Three Viewings p

Next Act Theatre

Jeffrey Hatcher’s Three Viewings interweaves three stories taking place in a Pittsburgh funeral parlor: there’s Emil, the mild-mannered undertaker who will go to great lengths to win the love of a woman who attends all his funerals; Mac, a drifter who steals jewelry off corpses and returns home to reclaim a family heirloom; and Virginia, a recent widow, left to pick up the pieces of her late husband’s shady business dealings.

OCTOBER 2

t Michael Carbonaro

Riverside Theater

It might behoove Michael Carbonaro not to get too famous...at least in his current job. The self-described trickster—or what the rest of us might call a magician—leverages his relative anonymity on “The Carbonaro Effect.” The Tru TV/HBO Max reality series posits Carbonaro in social situations proffering prestidigitation to astonishing, hilarious effect. Imagine “Candid Camera's” conceit of catching everyday people unaware, but with stupefying illusions. He’s taking his talent on the “Carbonaro Lies On Stage tour.”

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OCTOBER 3

Brady Street Pet Parade 

Photo by Firn/Getty Images.

After going virtual last year, the Brady Street Pet Parade is back and in person this year on Sunday, October 3 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The family-friendly event is famous for creatively dressed pets competing for prizes from a celebrity panel, a group pet blessing in front of St. Rita’s and plenty of local vendors to visit. This year’s celebrity judges include Gothic Milwaukee’s Anna Lardinois and Fox 6’s Ted Perry. The contest starts at 12:15 p.m. with the parade at 1 p.m. and music from Trapper Schoepp will follow. Brady Street will be lined with vendors from Arlington Place to Humboldt Avenue.

OCTOBER 8-JANUARY 30

“Scrap Yard: Innovators of Recycling” p

Milwaukee Jewish Museum

Long before the word “recycling” was in circulation, many immigrants and first-generation Americans gleaned a livelihood by “scrapping,” gathering discarded rags, metal, paper and other waste. Most were Jewish. The new exhibit looks back at the lives of scrappers in the 19th and early 20th centuries and connects their work with today’s concerns with sustaining the human and natural environment.

OCTOBER 9 Beet Street 2021 Cactus Club

While the venue has made great use of their outdoor space in the past year, Cactus Club will be bringing the music outdoors as well on Saturday, October 9 with the annual Beet Street festival on Wentworth Ave. in Bay View. This year’s lineup is headlined by Los Angeles band Frankie & the Witch Fingers and Brooklyn-based Acid Dad with a flurry of local support. In addition, local vendors will line the street, encompassing the community atmosphere that Cactus Club has been known to curate.

OCTOBER 10 The Record Company Turner Hall Ballroom

October is a homecoming month not only for local high schools, but local music acts as well. The first will be frontman Chris Vos of The Record Company, who grew up in New Muenster, about 50 minutes outside of Milwaukee. While Vos is the lone Wisconsin ex-pat in the group, The Record Company have developed a big following locally in the span of their decade-long career, thanks to Vos’ former reputation as a regular at Linneman’s open mic nights before moving. They’ll electrify Turner Hall Ballroom with special guest JJ Wilde on October 10.

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OCTOBER 15-16 OCTOBER 15-16

Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, “Frank Almond Plays Bruch” p

Bradley Symphony Center

Frank Almond was the MSO’s concert master for many seasons. He returns to the stage to perform a melodic feast for virtuosos on the instrument, the Violin Concerto by Brahms’ younger contemporary, Max Bruch. Rachmaninoff’s final composition, Symphonic Dances, was written in exile and forms a link to Romanticism of pre-Soviet Russia. Rounding out the program is a work by contemporary composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Aeriality.

Photo by Gearstd/Getty Images.

OCTOBER 17-28

Milwaukee Jewish Film Festival p

Marcus North Shore Cinema/Jewish Community Center

This year’s festival will include four Jewish-themed films from around the world. Italian director Giulio Base’s Starry Sky Above the Roman Ghetto, Israeli director Nir Bergman’s Here We Are and American director Gabriel Bologna’s Tango Shalom will screen at the North Shore, while the Swiss mini-series “Labyrinth in Peace” will be shown at JCC’s DanielM. Soref Community Hall. All films can also be streamed at home on Eventive. For more information, visit jccmilwaukee.org.

OCTOBER 22 Violent Femmes and Flogging Molly with Me First and the Gimme Gimmes and Thick Miller High Life Theater

Milwaukee’s avant-garde pioneers will return home later in the month, on a peculiar bill that includes Irish punk hybrid Flogging Molly, punk cover act Me First and the Gimme Gimmes and contemporary riot grrrls Thick. The four acts look like puzzle pieces that sort of fit together but not quite on paper, but nonetheless will provide a thrilling night of punk variety at the Miller High Life Theater.

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OCTOBER 28-31

Milwaukee Ballet, Connect 

Marcus Center for the Performing Arts

“It’s called Connect because we’re reconnecting with everybody, we’re doing what we do best, and we’re reconnecting with our space at the Marcus PAC which has just been renovated. That’s a big thing,” says artistic director Michael Pink. Another big thing is the program: contrasting world premieres by two exciting choreographers, the American Darrell Grand Moultrie and the Australian Danielle Rowe, and the revival of Purple Fools, a wildly creative and hilarious work made for Milwaukee Ballet by the Italian Mauro de Candia in 2012, that Pink has wanted to bring back ever since.

OCTOBER 29-30 Sanctuary Festival Quarters & X-Ray Arcade

A two-night extravaganza of electronic alternative music will take over Riverwest and Cudahy on Friday, October 29 and Saturday October 30. Centered around coldwave headliners Horico from Mexico City, the festival will feature a number of synthwave and noise acts, each providing something uniquely different for fans of the electronic subgenres. Friday night’s bill will be hosted at Quarters in Riverwest, with Saturday taking place at X-Ray Arcade. Tickets and two-night festival passes are available now.

reconnecting with our space at the Marcus PAC which has just been renovated. That’s a big thing,” says artistic director Michael Pink. Another big thing is the program: contrasting world premieres by two exciting choreographers, the American Darrell Grand Moultrie

Photo by 33ft/Getty Images.

OCTOBER 29-JANUARY 2

Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Dad’s Season Tickets p

Stackner Cabaret

Fall in Wisconsin can only mean one thing: the Green Bay Packers! And there’s nothing more coveted than season tickets to Lambeau Field. Dad’s Season Tickets is a musical comedy that tells the story of the three Kosinski sisters as they each scheme to get ahold of their father’s treasured tix—up for inheritance. With book, music and lyrics by Matt Zembrowski, audiences who loved Guys On Ice and Lumberjacks in Love can revisit that wacky regional humor with songs like “When You Live in Green Bay” and “What Do You Do With Bye Week.”