Fall theater season in Door County: Here's what's playing at Peninsula Players, Northern Sky

DOOR COUNTY - Labor Day has passed, but the final curtain hasn't fallen on the Door County theater scene.

Not with Peninsula Players Theatre closing its 2023 season with actors making their debuts with the company in a mystery-comedy with a kind of "six degrees of separation" tie to Players. And it's by a Tony Award-winning playwright whose works have proven popular at Players.

Nor with Northern Sky Theater closing its season with the premiere another of its trademark Wisconsin-based musical comedies, this one co-written by someone celebrating his 50th year with the company.

And that's along with year-round company Third Avenue Playworks in downtown Sturgeon Bay producing "The Mystery of Irma Vep: A Penny Dreadful" from Oct. 4 to 22 and community theater troupe Rogue Theater holding runs of "The Savannah Sipping Society" from Sept. 8 to 10, "Bedtime Stories (As Told By Our Dad) (Who Messed Them Up)" Sept. 15 to 17 and "On Golden Pond" Oct. 12 to 22, all in its new home in the DC Arts Center in Sturgeon Bay.

Here's a quick look at what's playing Players and Northern Sky this fall.

Peninsula Players: 'Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery'

The work of playwright Ken Ludwig is well-known to Pen Players, which previously has produced several of his madcap comedies including “Lend Me a Tenor,” “The Fox on the Fairway” and “Be My Baby.” It's also known across the country and around the world, with six of the 32 plays and musicals he's penned making it to Broadway and seven to London's West End. "Lend Me a Tenor" won two Tony Awards, and "Crazy For You" (with the music of George and Ira Gershwin) won the Tony and Olivier Awards for Best Musical and played on Broadway for five years.

This fall, Ludwig brings the madcap back to Players for six weeks with his take on the classic Sherlock Holmes mystery "The Hound of the Baskervilles," in which author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has the famed fictional detective and his sidekick Dr. Watson trying to figure out if a curse and a legendary demonic canine really are behind the killings of the men of the Baskerville family. It's the second Holmes-based comedy by Ludwig to appear at Players, the other being "The Game's Afoot" in 2013.

Besides being one of Doyle's most popular and well-known Holmes stories, "The Hound of the Baskervilles" also was the first of 14 movies in which famed classical actor Basil Rathbone played Holmes, which brings an additional tie between Players and this show.

Pen Players was founded in 1935 by the brother-and-sister team of Caroline and Richard Fisher, and Caroline married Rodion Rathbone − yes, Basil's son − in 1938. Caroline and Rodion became co-producers of Players in 1953 and ran the theater until 1959.

For "Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville," five actors are portraying more than 40 characters in a fast-paced romp filled with disguises, deceit and mystery. Playing Holmes and Watson are Allen Gilmore and Steve Pickering, both making their Players debuts. Both also earned Lunt-Fontanne Fellowships, an annual program that offers eight to 10 of the country's most accomplished regional theater actors a chance to participate in a weeklong master class and retreat with a master teacher, in their cases Jason Alexander and Phylicia Rashad, respectively.

Gilmore, the recipient of the 2015 3Arts Prize and the 2019 Nicholas Rudall Prize, has played roles ranging from Othello and Cyrano de Bergerac to Ichabod Crane and Ebenezer Scrooge. This summer, he created the title role of "Malvolio" in the world premiere of that play at the Classical Theatre of Harlem in New York.

Pickering is an actor, director and playwright who has performed on Broadway, off-Broadway, at the New York Shakespeare Festival in Central Park, in London's West End, and with major regional theaters nationwide. His play "Tales of Men and Ghosts" was featured in Players' 2019 winter play reading series "The Play's the Thing." Pickering has appeared in more than 35 production at Chicago's Goodman Theatre and is a creative partner there.

Also making their Players debuts are Kevin Tre'von Patterson and Eric Damon Smith, joined by Christie Coran, who returns for her second season with the company. They will play the many characters Holmes and Watson come across as they try to solve the mystery.

Another debut comes behind the scenes, as Players actor Maggie Kettering makes her directorial debut for the company. She played Watson in the theater’s 2018 production of "Miss Holmes" and appeared in shows such as "Outside Mullingar" and "Lend Me a Tenor."

"Ken Ludwig's Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery" is on stage from Sept. 6 to Oct. 15 at Peninsula Players Theatre, 4351 Peninsula Players Road, Fish Creek. Curtain times are at 7 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays, except for a 2 p.m. Sunday matinees Oct. 1 and 15. With its all-weather stagehouse and location along the shore of Green Bay, where patrons can relax and picnic or enjoy the beer garden and other gardens before performances, audience members should dress for the weather.

Tickets are $42 to $48, with a 50% discount for ages 18 and younger. Group tickets are available. For tickets or more information, call 920-868-3287 or visit peninsulaplayers.com.

Northern Sky Theater: 'When Pigs Fly'

Making its premiere for the Northern Sky indoor fall season is a musical comedy following the theme of many of the company's original musicals − local people dealing with local issues, some serious ("The Cherry Orchard"), some fantastic ("Packers Fans from Outer Space"), some philosophical yet funny ("Guys on Ice"). And they feature characters to who Wisconsinites, and people across the country, can relate.

So it appears with "When Pigs Fly," which the company said in a press release has "colorful Door County characters tell hilarious stories and sing uplifting songs, all while seeking the help of a local saint to win a pie contest, pursue romance, and lift a curse on the family farm."

The playwrights are Frederick "Doc" Heide and Lee Becker, and both will perform in the show during its five-week run. This marks the seventh musical Heide and Becker have written for the company, themselves or in collaboration with others, a list that includes the aforementioned "Packers Fans …," "Guys & Does" and "Belgians in Heaven." And there's another planned for next summer's season, "Hell's Belgians."

But, it's also the 23rd show Heide has written or co-written for the company since he joined in 1973, 50 years ago.

In that time, Heide has seen the company evolve from the Heritage Ensemble, which presented history on stage through folk songs and stories for Peninsula State Park campers, to American Folklore Theatre and then Northern Sky. It's become one of the only troupes in the country that creates and produces only original musicals, 65 in all, almost all set in Wisconsin.

Yet despite, or more likely because of, the localized flavor, the shows have proven very popular, drawing more than 30,000 theatergoers a year. Some have traveled beyond the Northern Sky stage, with "Guys on Ice" playing to sold-out houses coast to coast and on PBS-TV, for example.

Joining Heide and Becker in the cast of "When Pigs Fly" are Amy Chaffee and Eric Lewis. Chaffee has appeared in a number of TV series including "Desperate Housewives," "Judging Amy," "The Young and the Restless," "Days of Our Lives" and "Interview with the Vampire" and has served as a voice and dialect coach for TV and movies.

Lewis is an award-winning, Memphis-based string instrument wizard who has toured with Robin and Linda Williams and opened for headline acts like Travis Tritt and Chuck Berry. He's also performed with Northern Sky, on stage and in the orchestra, and is well-known in Door County for frequent concert appearances.

"When Pigs Fly!" runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 21 in the 3-year-old Gould Theater on Northern Sky's Creative Center, 9058 County A, Fish Creek. Showtimes are at 7 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and 2 and 7 p.m. Saturdays. Tickets are $37 for adults, $23 for students, $18 ages 12 and younger, and reservations are highly recommended. The company also continues its outdoor fall season with "Lipstick Optional," a four-woman concert celebrating the women of Northern Sky, through Sept. 16 in the amphitheater at Peninsula State Park in Fish Creek.

For tickets or more information, call 920-854-6117 or visit northernskytheater.com.

Contact Christopher Clough at 920-562-8900 or cclough@doorcountyadvocate.com.

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This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Here's a look at the comedies playing Door County's fall theater season