When touring plays come to Milwaukee, theater fans normally rush to the box office to see "The Phantom of the Opera" or "Jersey Boys" or "Cats."

These plays are usually part of the outstanding programming at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts. And they all have one thing in common, most of the time.

They are always musicals. Big, long-running Broadway musicals.

We almost never get what might be called "serious, non-musical" plays stopping in our area.

That is about to change with the arrival next month of "A Steady Rain," the award-winning police drama which was born and developed in Chicago, had a nice run on Broadway, won a bunch of awards and will sound very familiar to a Milwaukee audience.

The play concerns two policemen who find a young Vietnamese boy running the street. They return the boy to a man who says he's the uncle, but turns out to be a cannibalistic serial killer. Sounds familiar doesn't it?

The play is being brought to Milwaukee's Next Act Theatre space and will run Oct. 25-28. Tickets can be purchased at acorntheater.com.

In an interesting sideline, Randy Steinmeyer, one of the two actors in the play, was an actor in Milwaukee in the early '90s. He's come a long way since then and has earned critical raves for his performance in "A Steady Rain."