A Cold War-era quiche breakfast turns into a nuclear apocalypse on Milwaukee's near South Side this month, as The Constructivists open their ninth season with the cult comedy “5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche” at Pink's Accessible Theater House. The production runs through October 24, with evening shows at 8 p.m. and Sunday matinees at 4 p.m., tickets priced at $20.
The show has traveled a long way to get to Mitchell Street. Playwrights Evan Linder and Andrew Hobgood originally created the dark comedy in 2011 for Chicago's The New Colony theater, and it went on to win Best Overall Production at the 2012 New York International Fringe Festival before transferring to Off-Broadway's Soho Playhouse, according to Concord Theatricals. As Urban Milwaukee notes, the play was a hit in both Chicago and Off-Broadway, a trajectory that helped turn a storefront production into an internationally licensed phenomenon. By this year, marking the 15th anniversary of its premiere, the comedy had been mounted in more than 300 productions across six continents, per a history maintained at 5leqmke.com, the show's official scheduling and ticketing site.
A Nuclear Farce With Real Stakes for the Audience
The Milwaukee staging is set in 1956, built around five widows who gather for their annual quiche breakfast just as a bomb drops and triggers a nuclear apocalypse, per the seed facts behind this production. Every audience member is sworn into the fictional Susan B. Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein upon arrival, and roughly 30 percent of each performance is improvised, according to Radio Milwaukee. That blend of scripted satire and live audience interaction is central to what has made the show a recurring favorite on stages well beyond its Chicago origins.
Chicago-based intimacy director Laura Sturm has previously worked with The Constructivists on earlier Milwaukee productions, according to her own site, laurasturm.com. The Milwaukee ensemble is directed by Joe Lino and features Kellie Wambold, Emily Harris, Anya Palmer, Aly Rader, Bree Kazinski, Grace Ritcher, and Annalyse Lapajenko, the production notes.
Opening Night for The Constructivists' Ninth Season
The run also marks the opening show of The Constructivists' ninth season; The Constructivists presents the production, while Cap and Glasses Studios produces it. The season will also include a holiday show and a world premiere dark comedy later in the year, per a company social media post. Founded in 2017 by Artistic Director Jaimelyn Gray, The Constructivists is a Milwaukee nonprofit built around visceral, dark comic, and socially provocative contemporary plays, with past credits including “The Nether” and “The Beauty Queen of Leenane,” according to the company's own site.
Tickets run $20, with discounts available for artists, students, seniors, and military personnel, and the company maintains a policy that no patron is turned away for lack of funds, per a May post detailing the season. Tickets and the full schedule are available through 5leqmke.com.
Staging a Nuclear Comedy Inside Milwaukee's Newest Accessible Venue
The venue itself is part of the story. Pink's Accessible Theater House opened in June after Pink Umbrella Theater Co. purchased the 3,600-square-foot building at 1104 W. Historic Mitchell St. for $385,000, as Hoodline previously reported. PATH is fully accessible, and Pink Umbrella Theater Co. focuses on hiring disabled actors, giving this raucous Cold War satire an unusually accessible home. The building had already hosted the climate drama “Red Days” shortly before this run, part of a broader pattern of independent companies finding a stage at the new facility.
PATH sits on Historic Mitchell Street, where public investment is supporting corridor revitalization.
