'School of Rock,' 'Spring Awakening' top Skylight Music Theatre's 2023-'24 season

Jim Higgins, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
·2 min read
Deaf West Theatre performed "Spring Awakening" with a mixture of deaf and hearing actors. Skylight Music Theatre will take the same approach in its 2024 production.
Deaf West Theatre performed "Spring Awakening" with a mixture of deaf and hearing actors. Skylight Music Theatre will take the same approach in its 2024 production.

Get out your roller skates and electric guitars to prep for Skylight Music Theatre's 2023-'24 season, which also will include a bilingual show featuring American Sign Language.

All performances take place at the Broadway Theatre Center, 158 N. Broadway. Here is a list of Skylight's 2023-'24 productions, in chronological order:

'Candide,' Oct. 13-29

Triple threat James Ortiz will direct and design scenery and puppetry for this new adaptation of the Leonard Bernstein operetta, itself an adaptation of Voltaire's famous satire about the notion that we live in the best of all possible worlds.

'School of Rock,' Nov. 17-Dec. 30

Nothing says holiday musical like a rousing chorus of "Stick It to the Man" in the show adapted from the playful movie starring Jack Black. Artistic director Michael Unger will direct Skylight's production, which will include two good things: 1) young people 2) playing instruments onstage.

'Xanadu,' Jan. 26-Feb. 11, 2024

ELO's Jeff Lynne and John Farrar wrote the songs for this roller-skating-meets-Greek-mythology show, which isn't afraid to wink at the movie that spawned it.

Artistic director Michael Unger will direct Skylight Music Theatre's "School of Rock" next season.
Artistic director Michael Unger will direct Skylight Music Theatre's "School of Rock" next season.

'Spring Awakening,' March 1-17, 2024

Taking a cue from Deaf West Theatre's innovative Broadway revival, Skylight will stage the rock musical with a blend of hearing and deaf actors, incorporating ASL (American Sign Language) as well as song. Unger will co-direct the show with a deaf director. Skylight had planned to stage this production in 2021 before the pesky COVID-19 pandemic got in the way.

'From Here to Eternity,' April 12-May 5, 2024

Tim Rice and Stuart Brayson wrote the songs for this musical adaptation of James Jones' novel about American soldiers in Hawaii in the weeks before Pearl Harbor. It's based on the novel, not the famous movie, so it includes plot elements about homosexuality and prostitution that Jones' publisher initially left out of the book.

For subscription and other info, visit skylightmusictheatre.org/subscribe or call (414) 291-7800.

More: Next Act Theatre's new leader's first season includes 'Scarecrow,' set on a Wisconsin farm

More: 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' 'Moulin Rouge' top Marcus Center's Broadway series for 2023-'24

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Skylight Music Theatre's 2023-'24 season to include 'Spring Awakening'