Point Made

 Let's qualify the title by adding the word, Lately. My friend Micelle and I attended the opening night performance of New Age.  The Rep is presenting the world premiere written by Dael Orlandersmith and directed by Jade King Carrol. It features four actors on stage representing women of various ages speaking about their experiences, conclusions about the effect of these experiences, and what matters. We meet the older black woman, who is a writer. Then the middle high society woman (her definition, not mine) who was rejected by her husband because she looked too old. Onward to the forty-something vamp who needs affirmation for her many attempts at being something other than what she is. Finally, we meet the gritty, emerging, the newly adult musician who has a message in song for the world. The characters perform monologues that flit between them with the speed of a team playing catch with a ball. Sometimes one woman ramps up on the previous story, or they put a new thread int...

  Two Dogs Resting Oil by Jeff Jordan 9 x 12 on canvas board For my Granddaughter Violet Referenced a Pastel by Carol Rhode-Curley. The dog on the left could be my Lucy. During my rehab from my four knee surgery. Lucy and I became closer. I always had to watch when I moved because she was near. I don’t fault Maria for putting her down. Lucy was a sick puppy, and it was the right thing to do. I’ve maintained that if we could have cloned her, we could have made hundreds of people happy. The Theater Bad News I will forward the following notice to the marketing and public relations people with the various theater companies in Milwaukee. You, my friends, read it here first. This is to advise you that I am no longer be writing previews for Urban Milwaukee.Com. Urban Milwaukee will continue to publish reviews by Dominique Paul Noth.  I appreciate the help and support that all of you have provided me. I hope you will continue to include me on your mailing lists; however, I can no long...

 I received an email this week from a friend who was putting his frustration and despair on display. There is little doubt that we older folks are leaving behind some problems we might have thought were in the rearview mirror. But unfortunately, recent events have proven that we haven't moved the needle far enough on issues like racism, social justice, gender equality, income disparity, infrastructure neglect, healthcare availability and cost, and voter protection. After forty years of slurping the 'trickle-down economy theory' a teaspoon at a time, we recognize its toxicity too late. We literally drove ourselves over the cliff with the climate crisis. Electing a black man as our president did not make things better for all blacks in our society. In fact, it flipped over the rocks and what crawled out was a layer of animosity and fear that was always there but not exhibited. As a result, our roads, sewage systems, electricity grid and freshwater systems are so far in debt i...

  A musician telling a story about two golfers, a lost ball in the woods, and a magic frog. You have the right ingredients for a country song if you add some whiskey, a friendly dog, and an old truck. Call it football or soccer; Wisconsin has some skin in the game. I'm sure that all the Premier League football fans know that an American manager has taken over at Leeds United. What the rest of Wisconsin should know is Jesse Marsch is from Milwaukee.  Read on. It's All About The Drama. I skew my TV watching toward drama. The genre includes police procedurals, hospital settings, period pieces, fantasy tales, and family crises scenarios. But it's essentially an explanation I heard about opera. The storyline in an opera is that a soprano and a tenor fall in love but are threatened by a baritone.  When watching these shows, the quality comes out when we can freely identify with the couple and hate the baritone. Some of the best acting comes from the 'bad guy." Be that pe...