According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, there may be no business like show business, but even theatre takes a back seat to quarterbacks. Since Jan. 26 is Super Bowl Sunday, and since the Green Bay Packers will be playing in said event, life in Milwaukee is expected to grind to a halt.

Several theatres have announced that they've cancelled performances for Bowl day, including Next Act Theatre's 2 PM mounting of Stoppard's The Real Thing, Milwaukee Rep - Stackner Cabaret's Goodnight Irene (see Playbill On-Line story on that production) at 7:30 PM, and Milwaukee Repertory Theatre's 7:30 PM performance of The Tavern..

Kick-off for the Super Bowl is at 5:18 PM Milwaukee time.

Allison Dall-Knox, production spokesperson for Milwaukee Rep, told Playbill On-Line that the decision was made to cancel because, "Two tickets were sold to Irene, and we had all these subscribers calling to change their tickets on Tavern. Literally, no one was coming to these shows on Sunday."

Theatres aren't the only businesses scheduled to close -- restaurants, malls and other stores will close early that day, too. Winterfest, Milwaukee's outdoor winter festival, will end a day early -- on Saturday - so as not to compete with the Super Bowl hoopla. The newspaper article even quoted a couple of local undertakers warning that nobody had better schedule a funeral for Sunday afternoon. "Nobody would show up." Playbill thanks Wisconsin theatre critic Anne Siegel (This Month ON STAGE) for bringing this story to our attention.

--By David Lefkowitz