Dinosaurs, cake, Grammys (maybe): Door Community Auditorium announces 2024 winter season

Christopher Clough, Green Bay Press-Gazette
·4 min read

FISH CREEK - Dinosaurs, cake and a local Grammy Award nominee are among the highlights of the recently announced 2024 winter season at Door Community Auditorium.

The programs include three Main Stage shows, all of which this year are part of DCA's Passport Program series that includes cultural and educational elements, three Coffeehouse Concerts, and two programs in the Door County Talks morning lecture series.

Dinosaur World Live brings lifelike puppets of prehistoric creatures to the Door Community Auditorium stage for a Jan. 30 show.
Dinosaur World Live brings lifelike puppets of prehistoric creatures to the Door Community Auditorium stage for a Jan. 30 show.

Passport Program/Main Stage

  • The Passport Program/Main Stage season opens Jan. 30 with a performance by interactive puppetry troupe Dinosaur World Live. The internationally touring troupe brings a host of lifelike prehistoric creatures roaring to life on the stage, including Tyrannosaurus rex, triceratops, giraffatitan, microraptor and segnosaurus. A meet-and-greet after the show offers those in attendance the chance to meet the dinos up close.

  • Next, vaudevillian chamber music ensemble The Fourth Wall presents “Fruit Flies Like a Banana” on Feb. 9. The fast-paced show has the audience choose the order of the more than 20 pieces the touring ensemble will perform, which can range from Chopin on hoverboards to Scott Joplin on plastic tubes in a three-person blend of music, theater, dance and acrobatics.

  • Closing the Main Stage season March 1 is "Makin' Cake," in which 2021 Wisconsin Poet Laureate Dasha Kelly Hamilton, joined onstage by two cake bakers at work, explores race, culture, class, American history and America's sweet tooth in a fun and refreshing way that includes poignant vignettes, digital media and a cake reception following the performance.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton is joined onstage by two cake bakers for "Makin' Cake," a show that explores race, culture, class, American history and America's sweet tooth in a fun and refreshing way, March 1 at Door Community Auditorium in Fish Creek.
Dasha Kelly Hamilton is joined onstage by two cake bakers for "Makin' Cake," a show that explores race, culture, class, American history and America's sweet tooth in a fun and refreshing way, March 1 at Door Community Auditorium in Fish Creek.

Dinosaur World Live starts at 6 p.m. while the other two Main Stage shows are at 7 p.m. Ticket prices vary and advance purchases are recommended.

Coffeehouse Concerts

The long-running Coffeehouse Concert series features intimate concerts by popular Door County artists in the auditorium’s cozy Fireside Lobby, with coffee and bakery available for purchase.

  • The series opens Jan. 27 with songwriter/playwright Katie Dahl, who spent the past year touring 14 states and three countries in support of her most fourth and recent album "Seven Stones," which hit the No. 2 spot last June on the Folk Alliance International charts. Along with her career as a performing and recording singer/songwriter, Dahl also wrote "The Fisherman's Daughters" and co-wrote "Victory Farm," musicals that premiered on the Northern Sky Theater stage.

  • Next in the series, Feb. 24, is iconoclastic songwriter pat mAcdonald. He became famous worldwide in the 1980s as the leader of Timbuk 3 with its MTV hit "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades," but mAcdonald went on to one-man electro-blues experiments around the turn of the century, the proto-rock of Purgatory Hill, and now, five years cancer-free, rediscovering his six-string and reanimating his acoustic roots and writing new songs that flirt with a twisted spirituality, hints of hope and optimism embraced and defaced by his trademark darkish humor.

  • Wrapping up the Coffeehouse March 2 is cellist Hans Christian, who's up for a 2024 Grammy in the New Age/Ambient/Chant category for his most recent album, "Ocean Dreaming Ocean." Christian strives to create music that induces introspection, soul meditation and passion, developing a unique voice for cello through a variety of compositions that include neo-classical, ethnic and ambient/electronic elements. He also is a recording engineer and producer in his Studio 330 in Sturgeon Bay.

Hans Christian of Sturgeon Bay, a cellist and 2024 Grammy Award nominee, plays the March 2 Coffeehouse Concert at Door Community Auditorium in Fish Creek.
Hans Christian of Sturgeon Bay, a cellist and 2024 Grammy Award nominee, plays the March 2 Coffeehouse Concert at Door Community Auditorium in Fish Creek.

All Coffeehouse Concerts take place at 7 p.m. Tickets are $17.50 for each concerts and advance reservations are strongly suggested.

Door County Talks

The annual Saturday morning lecture series opens Feb. 3 with a talk, in this presidential election year, about Wisconsin elections and the Supreme Court by Charles Jacobs, a professor at St. Norbert College in De Pere.

The series resumes Feb. 24 with University of Wisconsin-Green Bay professor Kristopher Purzycki discussing the intersection of creativity and artificial intelligence, exploring how AI tools work in a simple way and what this means for the future of creativity.

All Door County Talks begin at 10 a.m. The lectures are free to the public although donations are encouraged. Coffee and bakery will be available for purchase. Each talk will include a short break and a question-and-answer session afterward.

Door Community Auditorium is at 3926 State 42, Fish Creek. For advance tickets or more information, call 920-868-2728 or visit dcauditorium.org.

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Dinosaurs, cake and a Grammy nominee are part of DCA 2024 winter season