Civic Theatre's "Moon Over Buffalo" Continues Through September 27; Local Option For Evening Activity Remains Stable
The Waukesha Civic Theatre's comedy production offers residents a reasonably priced entertainment alternative through month's end.
WAUKESHA — The Waukesha Civic Theatre's Second Stage production of "Moon Over Buffalo," Ken Ludwig's three-act comedy about a fading married acting duo, is continuing as planned through September 27, theatre staff confirmed this week, with no changes to the schedule, cast, or general trajectory of the run.
The production, which opened September 11 in the theatre's 287-seat main house, is being staged separately from the venue's 70th-anniversary subscription series and is priced accordingly, with tickets running $18 to $24 rather than the $72-per-show mainstage rate. Box office manager Ruth Aldern said the lower price point reflects the show's status as "a good one to bring your neighbor to without a whole conversation about it."
Attendance has held between 68 and 76 percent of capacity across the first six performances, a range the theatre describes internally as "steady." The show runs approximately two hours including one intermission, and is performed three times weekly, Thursday through Saturday, through closing night.
A Known Quantity
The cast, drawn primarily from the theatre's pool of subscriber-adjacent veteran local actors, includes several performers who have appeared in prior Civic Theatre productions dating back, in one case, to a 2019 staging of "Noises Off," a fact the program notes describe as "not a coincidence, exactly." Artistic director James Morton said the casting approach was intentional.
"You want people in a farce who already trust each other on a ladder. We have that here."
— James Morton, Waukesha Civic Theatre artistic director
Audience members leaving Saturday's 7:30 p.m. performance offered measured assessments. Karen Dobbs, 54, of the town of Waukesha, described the play as delivering "adequate comedic moments" and said she laughed "at several points, not consecutively." Her husband, Rich Dobbs, 56, said he had not read a synopsis beforehand and spent the first act "getting my bearings," but confirmed he understood the plot by intermission.
Doug Hollenbeck, 61, attending his second performance of the run after bringing a different friend the first time, said he intended to return once more before closing "if the Brewers game doesn't run long," and noted that the theater's lobby concession stand has begun selling a $4 intermission cookie he described as "genuinely a good cookie, better than the play needed it to be."
The Numbers
Box office records show the production has sold 1,116 tickets across its first six performances against a maximum possible sale of 1,722, a figure staff arrived at by multiplying the 287-seat house by six shows and rounding down for what Aldern called "the two seats we never sell because of the pole." Nine performances remain before the show closes.
The theatre's marketing committee has not scheduled any additional promotional push for the remaining run, citing sufficient word-of-mouth and a review posted to the theatre's Facebook page by a subscriber that read, in full, "Went. It was fine. Would go again for a different show."
Asked whether the production had met internal expectations, Morton said the theatre does not set numeric attendance targets for Second Stage shows, preferring instead to track "whether people seem to be having a good enough time," a metric he said the house has been tracking favorably since the second weekend.
What Comes Next
"Moon Over Buffalo" closes September 27 with a 2 p.m. matinee, after which the Second Stage space will be dark for three weeks before the theatre's next non-subscription booking, a date Morton described as "not finalized but not a mystery either." Remaining performances are scheduled for September 18, 19, 20, 24, 25, 26, and 27, with tickets available through the box office or online.
Aldern said the theatre expects the final weekend to sell at or near the run's average, adding that closing-night attendance for Second Stage comedies "tends to include people who meant to come earlier and didn't." She said no further scheduling changes are anticipated.