The Fall spooky season is always a great time to revisit the macabre stories of Edgar Allan Poe, and this October the Penny Seats Theatre Company brings to life a stage adaptation of one of the author's most haunting tales.

Based loosely on The Fall of the House of Usher, Michigan playwright John Sousanis's Usher finds the last two heirs of a once-great family reunited with an old friend within their crumbling mansion. Penny Seats' production is directed by company Artistic Director Julia Garlotte, and stars Brittany Batell as Madeline Usher, David Collins as Roderick Usher, and Jonathan Davidson as the unnamed Visitor.

This year marks Garlotte's first season as artistic director of Penny Seats, though she has previously worked with the company as an actor and sound designer. Staging Usher, as with the other Penny Seats performances for 2024, was selected by previous artistic director Joseph Zettelmaier, though Garlotte was in conversation with him throughout the decision-making process. "We both decided that it would be a cool addition to the season," Garlotte says. Zettelmaier had seen Usher during its original run in 2007, and Michigan playwright John Sousanis rewrote the script for Penny Seats. 

"We had some stuff we wanted fleshed out and questions answered," Garlotte says, "and he was willing to take another stab at it. So we have a really great script."

As to what appeals to her about Usher, Garlotte says she is "always a sucker for drama and tragedy, which is a strange thing to say when sometimes the state of the world calls for something a little more light-hearted."

Remember when voting was fun?

Frankly, I didn’t, either—until I settled into my Power Center seat on Wednesday night to see Belgian theater company Ontroerend Goed’s Fight Night, presented by the University Musical Society.

Before the show, in the lobby, ushers distributed tiny digital voting machines (attached to neckstraps) to each audience member, and the first two people we saw on stage were two tech guys who man laptops that report, on two raised screens, vote tallies throughout the evening.

And there were many.

But to warm us up, wry emcee (and Fight Night co-writer) Angelo Tijssens, dressed in a neutral plaid suit, cajoled us into participating in some basic surveys, both to get us comfortable working the devices and to provide crucial intel to the evening’s five “candidates.”

For what office, exactly? It’s never clear, and it doesn’t matter. Pretty immediately, we’re asked to choose a candidate with no information. By default, then, we must select our initial champion by way of our own racial, gender, and body/age biases, or by our mindful resistance to those biases.

See? Right from the get-go, things get tricky.

Like many versions of the American Dream, the “pack your bags and move to New York City to become a star” variety is profoundly hard to achieve—and Encore Theatre’s world premiere production of the musical New World Comin’ takes those challenges seriously.

Written by Dayle Ann Hunt, and set in the turbulent late '60s and early '70s, New World Comin’ focuses on a trio of young women who decide to leave Moosetown, Minnesota, to compete in a music contest in New York. Mickey (Charly Dannis), the leader of the Carlettes, helps out at her widowed dad’s (David Moan) gas station but feels extra motivated to try because her mom once left her own singing career behind to raise Mickey. Sharon (Kira Whitehead), tired of dealing with her small town’s racism, is the most anxious to leave and start a new chapter; and Bonnie Lou (Gabriella Palminteri) is torn, both because she genuinely likes Moosetown, and because Eddie (Shaun White), her mechanic boyfriend, is getting more serious about their relationship.

Drawing from the era’s catalog of pop songs (sung by Petula Clark, Cass Elliot, Lesley Gore, etc.), New World Comin’ chronicles the women’s complicated, hard journey not just from Moosetown to New York City, but from youth into self-directed adulthood.

Playwright David Lindsay-Abaire received two 2023 Tony Awards and won rave reviews for his musical adaptation of his play Kimberly Akimbo. In 2007 he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Rabbit Hole.

Director Gary Lehman is taking audiences back to a much earlier Lindsay-Abaire play, but one that combines humor with a dark undertone. PTD Productions in Ypsilanti is presenting Fuddy Meers through August 24 at the River Arts Center in Ypsilanti.

At the center of Fuddy Meers is Claire. Every morning Claire wakes she doesn’t know who she is, where she is, and how she got that way. A man who claims to be her husband explains the situation to Claire. The husband and her rebellious teenage son help fill in some of the gaps and tell that she will learn a lot during the day but lose all again at night. 

While the husband takes a shower, a masked man with a limp, a deformed ear, and part of a pair of handcuffs rushes to Claire’s bedroom and tells her that he’s her brother and is taking her to her mother’s house.

When you’ve created a new, twisty, sci-fi fictional podcast with a mystery at its center, how do you provide enough info to draw in listeners, but not so much that you spoil its surprises?

That was the question facing Michael Alan Herman and Josie Eli Herman, the Ann Arbor-based co-creators (and married couple) behind the just-launched podcast Silvertongues.

While emphasizing the adventure-blockbuster vibe of the show, Michael explained, “It’s about two people who discover a paranormal conspiracy on this tropical island, and that conspiracy blurs the lines between truth and lies.”

“A big theme in the show is this idea of emotional homelessness,” Josie said. “This idea that you don’t even feel at home in yourself. … That’s just something, post-pandemic, we’ve noticed is, a lot of people … having this feeling of, ‘I don’t know what to do with my life, or who I am.’ … That’s something that the characters feel in the show, and there’s a supernatural reason for that, but I think, at a human level, a lot of people can relate to that.”

It’s a bittersweet time in Brad Phillips’ life.

“My daughter Alyson is off to the University of North Carolina School of the Arts next month, and I’ve been weeping big dad tears on and off all summer,” said the Dexter singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist.

Alyson is a singer, and she’ll join her dad for a special show at The Ark on August 8 along with bandmates Chris DuPont, Drew De Four, Brennan Andes, Keith Billik, and Mike Shea.

Brad has also been busy as a lecturer at the University of Michigan, a resident artist at The Purple Rose Theatre Company, touring with actress and singer Patti LuPone, and featuring on her new album, A Life in Notes, playing violin, mandolin, guitar, octave mandolin, and U-bass.

“Patti is an icon and it’s no accident. She’s a legend for a reason and to be on stage with her in front of her adoring fans is electric,” Phillips said. “Summer has been both chaotic, emotional, and wonderful all at the same time! It’s been a big year around here.”

To learn more, I spoke with Phillips about his work and tour with Patti LuPone and his family’s artistic accomplishments.

When Ann Arbor audiences think about Carla Milarch—co-founder of Theatre Nova and former artistic/executive director of the Performance Network Theatre (PNT)—they may recall a performance she gave, a production she directed, a theater she ran, or more recently, a play she wrote.

Chances are, they will not imagine her changing a litter box—for rabbits.

Milarch and her husband, actor/director Phil Powers, share a home on Ann Arbor’s West side with their son, William Tyrone Powers, a senior at Skyline High, and four rabbits. The family had tried adopting kittens, but William broke out in hives, and they had to give them up. They tested him for dog allergies. No dice.

Now there are rabbits—four of them.

”Rabbits are misunderstood pets,” says Milarch, who at first kept them in cages. Now they are free to roam the house. She finds them similar to other pets: like cats, they sometimes want to be left alone (and can be litter-trained); like dogs, they sometimes demand attention. Sometimes high maintenance, one rabbit with poor balance required a ramp to get onto the bed and watch TV with her. Milarch built one. 

As it happens, Milarch was trying to create an environmentally friendly landscape for her home and was studying permaculture, a mix of urban planning, gardening, and homesteading, when the pet crisis occurred. Rabbits made a lot of sense. “We grow things in a regenerative way, using compost. I like being outside a lot. It must be in my blood,” she reflects. “I grew up on a farm.”

Not that she wanted to spend her life on the farm. 

In May of 2023, a group of researchers, engineers, and corporate executives at the Center for AI Safety warned of the existential danger of artificial intelligence (AI): “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” they wrote. 

Later that year, the Screen Actors Guild negotiated a new contract. In addition to wage issues, the actors were concerned that background roles would be created through AI and fewer actors would be employed. Most of the union’s demands were met, but the producers won the battle over keeping AI as an option.

Carla Milarch, whose play Doctor Moloch opens July 12 at Theatre Nova, absorbed all of this.  She also read articles by those who thought AI would enrich our lives and by people who believe there are pros and cons. [Read Pulp's profile of Milarch here.]

She couldn’t get the question out of her mind: Is AI a friend or foe? She thought about it while gardening. She thought about it while doing dishes. And a play began to take shape. “I have an idea bubbling, and characters, and then it takes on a life of its own,” she says of her writing process. 

That’s how her title character—a doctor created by artificial intelligence—was born.

Playwright Carey Crim has conjured up a rollicking, raunchy and, at times, revealing comedy about summer, friendship and the perils of Michigan outdoors.

The Purple Rose Theatre is presenting the world premiere of Crim’s What Springs Forth. 

Director Kate Thomsen and her four-women cast serve up a comedy that combines more than a bit of raunch, expertly executed physical comedy, some quiet reflection on unfulfilled dreams, and most importantly, the strength of female bonding.

As the play begins, two women are driving up to meet their other bestie who has invited them to enjoy Michigan outdoors. Sallie Ben and Robyn are imagining a posh spa, invigorating massages, and quiet walks on a summer evening. 

That would be a great weekend away from Robyn’s rambunctious boys and Sallie’s troubled daughter. 

Of course, it doesn’t work out that way.

The Encore Theatre’s artistic director and co-founder Daniel Cooney takes the helm of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s game-changing and beloved musical Oklahoma and has given it a youth infusion.

Just down the road from Dexter is the University of Michigan’s School of Music and Theatre with some of the most talented young performers anywhere, many of them bound for Broadway and Hollywood. The Encore has a group of excellent actors who perform at the highest level. Put them together and the result is magical.

From the moment a swaggering Curly greets Aunt Eller with the rousing declaration, "Oh, what beautiful morning, oh, what a beautiful day" we get the idea that we will be given a jolt of boundless energy. The electricity never flags.

Oklahoma opened on Broadway in 1943. It was the first of an unprecedented run of hit musicals. Rodgers' music and Hammerstein’s book and lyrics dominated Broadway for the next 20 years. Hammerstein stepped in to write the book and lyrics after Rodger’s long-time lyricist, the brilliant but troubled Lorenz Hart, declined to participate and suggested Hammerstein as a replacement.