Much ado

"There is something missing in the American Players Theatre production of Twelfth Night," writes critic Bruce Murphy. "The production presents audiences with a stage full of colorful characters, but it lacks even a glimmer of an attitude toward them.... It's not enough to research the meaning of archaic words in the text, or prepare the proper period music. It is not enough to carefully flesh out each character in the play. Somewhere down the line, a director must decide what Shakespeare means in a given script, and tailor the blocking and costumes and character interpretations to that central vision." APT survives Murphy's broadside. This season, it is mounting six productions, including Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing and Timon of Athens. Now the editor of Milwaukee Magazine, Murphy is a playwright himself: His script for Normal Human Beings recently won first place in the Wisconsin Wrights New Play Project and was given a public reading at the Hemsley Theatre on campus.