Cheese and Packers Stories Help a Wisconsin Theater Thrive
Verona, Wisconsin, that is.
For this is not the latest revival of 'Romeo and Juliet' but the musical 'No Bones About It,' whose lovers, Ronny and Julie, hail from 'two smokehouses / Both alike in enmity' that are competing at a barbecue contest. The audience laughed its way through the performance I attended last month, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one who left humming the song 'Better Keep Away.'
The plot's transposing was par for the course for Northern Sky Theater, in Fish Creek, Wis. At a time when many companies are undergoing identity crises or struggling to connect with audiences, this one endures by programming original musicals anchored in local history, institutions, archetypes and customs.
For regional audience members, the company's artistic director Molly Rhode said, a Northern Sky show 'is not just sort of about me — it's really about me.'
Despite being decidedly not from the area, I very much enjoyed this summer's three offerings, which are running in repertory through Aug. 23. Along with 'No Bones About It,' the company is presenting 'Something in the Water,' set in early-20th-century Waukesha, when that city was ending an unlikely run as a tourist hot spot popularized by mineral springs, and 'Dairy Heirs,' which has a subplot involving a soothing hybrid of provolone and pepper jack called projack.
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