It’s great when a pop culture show can stay relevant long enough to be enjoyed as a kid, then enjoyed again through your kid’s eyes decades later. Because Scooby Doo was around before I was born, and my daughter’s finally at the age to watch the campy mystery cartoon, too, I not only didn’t mind sitting through Sunday’s performance of Scooby-Doo Live! Musical Mysteries at the Milwaukee Theatre – I enjoyed it almost as much as she did.
I mean, what wasn’t to like? Perfectly cast, this show felt like a true representation of the cartoon, perhaps better than the live action movies released over the last several years. Michele Dumoulin, playing Velma, nailed her character, as did Garrett Lewis Dill as Shaggy. Everyone, including new characters, showed off their serious pipes and excellent moves, to boot.
With familiar and new show tunes, the kids in attendance ate it all up, even if the plot was a touch convoluted; something about the haunted Milwaukee Theatre. Clever set changes and ample ghost scenes – which meant the children could scream "ghost" every time its flashing eyes scurried across the stage – held the young attention spans over the course of two, 30-minute acts.
This touring show is moving across the continent over the course of 70 shows, and its polish shows. Even though the 5 p.m. showing in Milwaukee was somewhat lightly attended, the stage came alive with peppy performances and plenty of audience participation.
It was a great way to get young children exposed to theater. And, hearing that familiar theme song brought back plenty of after-school Scooby memories, too. I expect this show will be one my daughter – and I – won’t soon forget.
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
