After spending the better part of two years watching choppy livestreams of plays and concerts at home, we dusted off our best clothes and congregated in person. Not that it was all smooth sailing: As in 2021, performances were scrapped at the last minute as artists and venue staff called in sick. But whereas the preceding years may have seen things grind to a halt altogether, in 2022 we pushed ahead — often without consensus, and often seemingly making the rules up as we went.
Consider the two nights in March when I attended Forward Theater Co.’s “The Mytilenean Debate” at Overture Center for the Arts and a performance by the band Mipso at High Noon Saloon. At “The Mytilenean Debate,” an Amy Quan Barry play about a family confronted by questions of legacy, regret and reproductive choice, guests were required to show proof of vaccination and wore masks throughout the performance. The very next night, at Mipso, people clustered near the stage maskless. Both policies felt somehow appropriate to the circumstances. Both shows, I should add, were excellent. Such was the nature of in-person art patronage in 2022.
This was also the year a number of Madison institutions made their long-awaited returns. Live on King Street resumed after a two-year hiatus, as did a full slate of in-person readings at the Wisconsin Book Festival. Several Broadway shows that were supposed to take the Overture Center stage during the 2020-21 season, including “Mean Girls,” “The Prom” and “Dear Evan Hansen,” finally made their Madison premieres. Even the most circumspect of venues eventually loosened up: The Crystal Corner Bar, a Willy Street tavern that once hosted Susan Tedeschi and Buddy Guy, was one of the pandemic’s last holdouts. It finally resumed concerts in late September.
Mostly, though, I’ll remember this year for the moments of connection that live performance facilitated. In early July, I went to see veteran rockers My Morning Jacket, known for transcendent live shows, at Breese Stevens Field. Fittingly, the band’s lead singer recovered from COVID-19 just in time for the show. It was a balmy Midwestern evening; a breeze whispered across the artificial turf. I ran into my friend Nick, who’d made it his goal at the pandemic’s outset to see his favorite band. We hugged and, in the excitement of the moment, I stuck my hand in his beer. (What can I say? We’d both had a few drinks.) Who cared? The night was perfect and the music was loud. All around us, people danced and sang along. After the uncertainty of the past two years, we were all just happy to be there.
Jeff Oloizia is a contributing writer at Madison Magazine.
A Look Ahead to 2023
We’re excited about these openings and performances in the coming year.
World Premiere Wisconsin, next year’s statewide festival of new musicals and plays, is producing some “say what?” stuff, including Capital City Theatre’s “Shining in Misery,” an original musical parodying the works of horror novelist Stephen King. The characters from “Misery” are holed up in the Overlook Hotel with the Torrances, and CCT’s artistic director and composer Andrew Abrams plans to pack in as many screwball King references as possible. –Aaron R. Conklin
From the owners of The Bur Oak, the Atwood Music Hall will offer performances in a space built in 1931 for the Madison Gospel Tabernacle. While the vaulted lamella roof is a showstopper, the real draw here is the size: With a standing capacity of up to 750, the hall promises to be the versatile, mid-sized venue the city has been clamoring for. –Jeff Oloizia
When it comes to the classics, a personal favorite (and guilty pleasure) is Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, the highly rhythmic and musically primitive orchestral and choral bombast that literally rings the rafters. The Madison Symphony Chorus will masterfully close the 2022-23 season next May in Overture Hall with this aural delight of thunderous music. I feel a standing ovation coming on. –Michael Muckian
Photographer Hedi LaMarr’s shots of this year’s Mad Lit made me pledge to put this free outdoor concert series on my 2023 calendar. I’m also stoked to see “SIX: The Musical” when it comes to Overture. It was my favorite performance of 2022 when I saw it in Chicago. Don’t miss the euphoric hip-hop and pop retelling of Henry VIII’s six wives from their “divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived” perspectives. –Maggie Ginsberg
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