Music, Dance, Theater; got ’em all.

Theater

That Milwaukee Repertory Theatre is busy busy busy.

The Rep has a hit on it hands in the blockbuster Cabaret in the Powerhouse. Laurel and Hardy, with Gerard Nugent, Bill Theisen, and Paul Helm at the piano, opened Sunday in the Stackner Cabaret. (I’m going to L&H Tuesday, Sept. 28. I expect to post the review around midnight, so stay up late.)

My Name Is Asher Lev, Aaron Posner’s 2009 setting of Chaim Potok’s novel, previews Wednesday and Thursday and opens Friday (Oct. 1) at the Rep’s Stiemke Theater. The play is about Hasidic boy in New York in the 1950s. He becomes fascinated with art, particularly with crucifixion scenes and nudes. Father, family and community do not approve. The play focuses on pivotal events as Asher comes of age as an artist — with unexpected help from the Rebbe. Details here.

Renaissance Theaterworks turns to Neil LaBute, famous for the sort of comedy that draws blood, for its next production. LaBute’s Reasons to Be Pretty opens Friday (Oct. 1) and runs through Oct. 24 at the Studio Theatre at the Broadway Theatre Center. Susan Fete directs a cast that includes Lenny Banovez, Carrie Coon, Georgina McKee and Steve Wojtas. Tickets are $34 at the BTC box office, 414-291-7800. What’s it about? Oh deceit, treachery, cruel remarks. Pretty is part of LaBute’s trilogy about beauty. You might recall the Renaissance production of Fat Pig. Details here.

Dance

How do you dance about lying? I’d be lying if I told you I had a clue. Anyway, Dani Kuepper, Danceworks Performance Company’s artistic director, charged her resident choreographers and guest Amii LeGendre (if that really is her name) to devise dances of deceit. (Who does she think she is, Neil LaBute?) This body of lies runs at the Danceworks Studio, 1661 N. Water St., Oct. 1, 3 and 3 and 7, 8 and 9. Details here.

Get your tickets now, this show will sell out. And really, I’m not just saying that.

Music

Frankly Music gave a gripping account of the septet version of R. Strauss’ Metamorphosen Monday night at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. They’re back at it tonight (Tuesday, Sept. 28). Details here.

Chamber Music Milwaukee, an East Side staple at UWM’s Zelazo Center, will open its season at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center, Brookfield. Such good players: Margaret Padilla Butler (oboe), Elena Abend and Jeannie Yu (piano), Gregory Flint (horn), Rene Izquierdo (guitar), Todd Levy (clarinet), Ilana Setapen (vilolin), Caen Thomason-Redus (flute). Details here.

The life of St. Francis of Assisi (c. 1181-1226), the music of his time and later music that celebrated the saint will ring through St. Joseph’s Center Chapel starting at 5 p.m. Saturday (Oct. 2). The Rose Ensemble will perform this music, presented by Early Music Now. The dozen singers in the ensemble — who also accompany themselves on an array of period instruments — specialize in Medieval and Renaissance fare. On this program, guest Isacco Colombo will add bagpipes, shawm, recorder and pipe and tabor to the mix.

By the way, if you haven’t been to St. Joseph’s Center Chapel, prepare to be amazed.

Tickets are $25 and $40 ($10/$20 for students). Call 414-224-3113 for tickets. More details here.

Last Chance

It’s interesting that the Skylight Opera Theatre opened Dames at Sea Sept. 17, the same night that the Rep opened Cabaret. They’re both the 1960s looking back at the 1930s, and specifically at the kinds of entertainment of the previous era. But Cabaret is set in Berlin; the toxic cloud of Nazism finally seeps into the Kit-Kat Klub and poisons everything.

Dames, in a way, is the anti-Cabaret. The conflict is artificial, the resolution sweetness and light, and it’s all good, silly fun, in the way of most American musicals of the era. So drop in and have a little fun at the Skylight, if only to regain equilibrium after Cabaret. But do hurry; Dames closes Sunday, Oct. 3.

For more information, click right here.

Ongoing

Next Act Theatre, Joel Drake Johnson’s Four Places, through Oct. 10. Details and links here.