What to do in Madison this week: Middleton Community Orchestra, Yasmin Williams and more Isthmus Picks

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Real Friends, Monday, Oct. 21, High Noon Saloon, 7 p.m.: It’s Monday and what better way to shake up the beginning of the week than by taking in this quadruple bill at the High Noon? Headliners Real Friends continue to infuse elements of pop into hard grunge with their latest, this year’s Blue Hour. New Jersey’s Can’t Swim, Philadelphia’s Carly Cosgrove and Dallas’s Slow Joy (the solo project of Esteban Flores) are all much in the same vein — loud pop rock mixed with generous helpings of emo and shoegaze. Tickets at ticketmaster.com.

Mike Birbiglia, Tuesday, Oct. 22, Overture Hall, 7 p.m.: Comedian, author, director, actor and podcast host Mike Birbiglia delivers a dry and deeply personal brand of stand-up humor that has charmed live audiences and Netflix viewers alike. Past storytelling shows include Sleepwalk With Me, My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend, Thank God For Jokes, The New One and The Old Man and The Pool. His latest, Please Stop the Ride, reportedly revolves around Birbiglia observing his 8-year-old daughter gain new experiences — which he, in turn, connects to his own childhood memories. The man is funny; otherwise, he wouldn’t have received the Kurt Vonnegut Award for humor in 2017. Tickets at overture.org.

Lindsay Lou, Tuesday, Oct. 22, High Noon Saloon, 7 p.m.: The latest album from Lindsay Lou, Queen of Time, is a master class in modern roots music songwriting. Lindsay Lou’s soulful singing is accompanied by carefully arranged musical backing which starts with a folk base but branches out into many other genres along the way, aided by guest players such as Jerry Douglas and Billy Strings. With an opening set by Madison expat Anna Vogelzang. Tickets at ticketmaster.com.

Middleton Community Orchestra, Tuesday, Oct. 22, Middleton High School PAC, 7:30 p.m.: Middleton Community Orchestra opens its 15th season with a program featuring former UW School of Music students as special guests. Eleanor Bartsch (violin, now a Lyric Opera performer) and Danny Kim (viola, of the Boston Symphony Orchestra) will join the orchestra for a performance of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante. Another guest, attorney Lester Pines, provides the narration for Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait. Also on the program is Dvorak’s 9th symphony, From the New World.

Nat Turner in Jerusalem, through Nov. 10, American Players Theatre-Touchstone, Spring Green: Nat Turner famously led an uprising of the enslaved that was one of the sparks for the Civil War. In Nat Turner in Jerusalem, playwright Nathan Alan Davis draws from a document written by lawyer Thomas R. Gray from a conversation with Turner in his jail cell the night before he is to be executed in Jerusalem, Virginia. This serious, tense, still work should be in good hands with James DeVita and Gavin Lawrence. Through Nov. 10; find the full schedule and tickets at americanplayers.org.

Mickey Guyton, Tuesday, Oct. 22, Majestic, 7:30 p.m.: After more than a decade based in the Nashville country music world, Mickey Guyton has long since caught the ears of fellow artists and music listeners, with multiple Grammy nominations, guest spots on singles, and even tour dates with Shania Twain. Will country radio finally follow suit and support her new album, House on Fire? If they don’t, Guyton’s songs bring enough pop and R&B to the mix to cross over to pop radio. She’s currently on her first headlining tour, accompanied by Denitia. Tickets at ticketmaster.com.

Read the World: Uruguayan Women Poets, Wednesday, Oct. 23, Arts + Literature Laboratory, 7 p.m.: It is high time Americans start listening to and understanding “voices beyond the borders of the United States” — that’s the driving sentiment behind this bilingual poetry reading. UW creative writing professor emerita Jesse Lee Kercheval hosts this event with a focus on Uruguayan women poets. Uruguayan poets Silvia Guerra and Silvia Goldman will be joined by translators and poets including Erika Meitner, Mary Hawley, Catherine Jagoe, Jeannine Pitas, Sarli Mercado, Lori DiPrete Brown and others, who will read work in translation from the new anthology of 55 Uruguayan women poets, Flores raras [Escondido país]. Uruguayan wine and food follows.

Yasmin Williams, Wednesday, Oct. 23, Stoughton Opera House, 7:30 p.m.: On the new album Acadia, guitarist and composer Yasmin Williams offers nine contemplative new songs that inspire uplifting feelings…a very welcome gleam of hope in today’s fractured American culture. Her hypnotic fingerpicking on guitar (along with kora, banjo, bass and harp guitar on the album) should be a shimmery delight in the acoustic space of the Stoughton Opera House. Tickets at stoughtonoperahouse.com.

Homes for Families Breakfast, Thursday, Oct. 24, Sheraton Madison, 8 a.m.: The Road Home Dane County does important work getting families into stable housing situations. And as the housing supply is increasingly pressed, this is even more crucial. This is their 20th annual fundraising breakfast; doors open at 7:30 a.m. and organizers recommend that guests arrive no later than 7:45 a.m. Find more info and livestream links at trhome.org/breakfast.

Kim Suhr + Heidi Bell, Thursday, Oct. 24, Lake City Books, 6 p.m.: Kim Suhr and Heidi Bell, two authors with Madison ties, are celebrating the publication of their short story collections by the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point’s Cornerstone Press (which is one of five undergraduate, student-staffed presses in the country). Both titles feature tales set in the Midwest, and they experiment with form and highlight unconventional subject matter and point of view. Suhr’s Close Call: Stories features storytelling by text messages and emails, play scripts, social media posts and even an obituary. Meanwhile, the characters in Bell’s Signs of the Imminent Apocalypse and Other Stories are yearning for answers or, in some cases, simply relief.

Mills Folly Microcinema, Thursday, Oct. 24, Arts + Literature Laboratory, 7 p.m.: Experimental film and video gets in the Halloween spirit with an evening of “Spectral Speculations,” short spooky experimental films curated by Emily Eddy, a writer, producer, and cinephile based in Chicago. Films are The Scary Movie by Peggy Awhesh, Possibly in Michigan by Cecelia Condit, Creeping Crimson by George Kuchar and Psykho III The Musical by Mark Oates and Tom Rubnitz. The last three are from the mid-1980s while Awesh’s film is from 1993; their subjects range from Lacanian feminism to “an operatic fairytale about cannibalism in Middle America.”

The Untold Story of the Collyer Brothers, through Oct. 26, Bartell Theatre: This is the first show for the new Madison Public Theatre (formerly Strollers Theatre), co-produced by Oracular Studios. The told part of the untold story is that the Collyer brothers, Homer and Langley, are hoarders living in a junk-laden, booby-trapped brownstone in 1930s Harlem. The Untold Story of the Collyer Brothers, written and directed by Madison’s Finn Gallagher, takes off from this intriguing true story. Shows are at 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday (except for 2 p.m. on Oct. 26) and 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets at bartelltheatre.org.

The God Cluster: A Queer Pandemic Revenge Tragedy, through Oct. 26, Broom Street Theater: An intimate play set in a vaccine lab during “the next” pandemic. Mortality, medicine and love are front and center in this timely and thought provoking play by Ernie Lijoi. The God Cluster: A Queer Pandemic Revenge Tragedy was inspired by Lijoi’s two years' working in a COVID ICU. Shows are Thursday-Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

Willy Porter, Thursday, Oct. 24, Bur Oak, 7:30 p.m.: Released 25 years ago, Falling Forward was Willy Porter’s breakout release. The catchy pop-rock tunes therein stand the test of time but it’s Porter’s insane mastery of the guitar that keeps him relevant. One part Leo Kottke, one part Michael Hedges, his on-stage soloing makes the audience nearly forget about what else is happening on any given song. The Milwaukeean will be joined by a full band and play the entire album as well as cuts from his newest, The Ravine. Tickets at theburoakmadison.com.

For the Love Of (Or the Roller Derby Play), through Oct. 27, Madison College-Truax Studio Theater: Playwright Gina Femia has written 10 plays and a young adult novel, reflecting themes of friendship, family, queer lives, pride and love. Here the scene is an unexpected roller derby romance; For the Love Of features an all-female cast. Madison College Performing Arts puts on the show with performances at 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets here.

The Moth Project, Thursday, Oct. 24, Overture-Playhouse, 8 p.m.: The Moth Project is not the storytelling organization, but it does tell a story: an exploration of the parallel lives of insects and humans. In this multimedia presentation, musicians Peter Kiesewalter and Whitney La Grange play original music and covers accompanied by macro photography and slow-motion video, and spoken word. Tickets at overture.org.

Find the individual Picks collected here, and as part of the full calendar of events.