As the curtain rises...

Linda Falkenstein, Isthmus

Madison stages are drawing dramatic inspiration from real people and events this season. LeBron James, Nat Turner, the Collyer brothers, and Wisconsin native and accordion player Ruth Marty all take center stage this fall in works from Forward Theater, American Players Theatre, Madison Public Theatre and Four Seasons Theatre. Real threats are also front and center: The AIDS crisis, homophobic violence, and the destruction of earth by a comet drive the plots in works from University Theatre, StageQ and Madison Shakespeare Company. But don’t worry, there are also comedies. We promise.

Nat Turner in Jerusalem

American Players Theatre

Oct. 17-Nov. 10, APT-Touchstone, Spring Green

Nat Turner famously led an uprising of the enslaved that was one of the sparks for the Civil War. Here playwright Nathan Alan Davis draws from a document written by lawyer Thomas R. Gray from a conversation with Turner in his jail cell the night before he is to be executed in Jerusalem, Virginia. This serious, tense, still work should be in good hands with James DeVita and Gavin Lawrence.

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