2017 Calendar
Blockbuster movies, concerts, entertainment arts and pop culture to-do list
Are you ready for 2017? Well, 2017 is ready for you. Here’s a guide to some of what’s up, fun-wise, in Milwaukee the rest of this year. Arts writer Sarah Hauer, music writer Piet Levy and beer writer Kathy Flanigan made vital contributions to this to-do list.
Jan. 17: “Disgraced,” Ayad Akhtar’s Pulitzer-winning drama, begins a run with the Milwaukee Repertory Theater at the Quadracci Powerhouse Theater (through Feb. 12).
Jan. 20: “McGuire,” portrait of the Marquette basketball legend, at Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s Stackner Cabaret (through March 19). Jan. 20-21: Monster Jam 2017 revs into the BMO Harris Bradley Center.
Jan. 27: The Milwaukee Art Museum gets citified with two new exhibits: the photography show, “Helen Levitt: In the Street,” and the film and video production, “James Nares: In the City” (open through April 16).
Jan. 29: Think spring — the 2017 Brewers on Deck event returns to the Wisconsin Center.
Feb. 1: Drive-By Truckers play Turner Hall Ballroom, touring behind “American Band,” the seventh most acclaimed album of 2016 according to review aggregator Metacritic.
Feb. 4: Lauryn Hill performs her first Milwaukee concert in 15 years at the Riverside Theater.
Feb. 5: It’s Super Bowl 51 — with, maybe, some green and gold added.
Feb. 11: “Eastman Johnson and a Nation Divided,” the annual (and timely) Layton Art Collection Focus Exhibition, opens at the Milwaukee Art Museum (through May 21).
Feb. 12: The 59th Annual Grammy Awards air locally on WDJT-TV (Ch. 58). Bon Iver and the Record Company are among the nominees with Wisconsin ties.
Feb. 16-19: The 55th annual Milwaukee NARI Spring Home Improvement Show measures twice and cuts once at the Wisconsin Expo Center at State Fair Park in West Allis.
Feb. 17: New movies opening — the comedy “Fist Fight” and “The Great Wall,” the latter with Matt Damon battling monsters in China.
Feb. 17-19: The Anime Milwaukee 2017 dresses up the Wisconsin Center.
Feb. 18: Sip on the Streets of Old Milwaukee: The Milwaukee Public Museum hosts Food & Froth Party in the museum.
Feb. 19: The Milwaukee Ale House, 233 N. Water St., is the site of the 20th annual Midwinter Brewfest from 1 to 5 p.m. (The festival benefits the Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer fund; see the event page on Facebook.)
Feb. 20: Maroon 5 makes up for its postponed BMO Harris Bradley Center concert originally scheduled for last October.
Feb. 23-26: The 2017 Tripoli Shrine Circus sets up shop at the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.
Feb. 25-March 5: The 2017 Greater Milwaukee Auto Show parks in the Wisconsin Center.
Feb. 25: The 89th annual Academy Awards air live on ABC, locally on WISN-TV (Channel 12).
March 8-12: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Sports Show makes camp in the Wisconsin Expo Center at State Fair Park.
March 9: Patti Smith performs “Horses” in its entirety at her first Milwaukee concert in 38 years at the Milwaukee Theatre.
March 10: “Kong: Skull Island” brings the big ape back for more.
March 13: Chris Rock’s “Total Blackout” tour, his first in nine years, stops at the Milwaukee Theatre.
March 16 and 18: Rounds 1 and 2 of the NCAA men’s basketball championship tip off for the last time at the BMO Harris Bradley Center.
March 17: Live-action “Beauty and the Beast,” with Emma Watson as Belle, opens in theaters.
March 23-25: The US FIRST 2017 Wisconsin Regional Robotics Competition takes place at the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.
March 25: After its sold-out BMO Harris Pavilion show last June, the Lumineers return to Milwaukee to play the BMO Harris Bradley Center.
March 31: New exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum — “How Posters Work” (through June 25).
April 3: Opening day — the Milwaukee Brewers start their second season of rebuilding, in a game vs. the Colorado Rockies.
April 14: Country star Eric Church performs two sets at the Bradley Center.
April 14: “The Fate of the Furious,” the latest movie in the highspeed-car-smash series, opens, starring Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson and ... Helen Mirren?
April 19: Brian Wilson performs the seminal Beach Boys album “Pet Sounds” in its entirety at the Riverside.
May 5: Get your boomboxes out: “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2” opens in theaters.
May 26: Summer officially starts at the movies, with the remake/spoof “Baywatch,” the smart sci-fi action movie “Life,” and, yes, another sequel, “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.”
May 28: 90-year-old Tony Bennett returns to the Riverside.
June 2: Finally, “Wonder Woman” makes it to movie theaters.
June 9-11: PrideFest, the first of the summer lakefront festivals, arrives at Maier Festival Park.
June 9: Tom Cruise stars in but is not “The Mummy.”
June 11: One of the summer’s biggest street festivals, Locust Street Festival of Music & Art, is today.
June 16-18: Polish Fest polkas into Maier Festival Park.
June 16-18: Lakefront Festival of Art spreads its wings outside the Milwaukee Art Museum.
June 16: Husband-and-wife country stars Tim McGraw and Faith Hill co-headline the Bradley Center for the Soul2Soul tour.
June 16-17: Eaux Claires, the Eau Claire festival co-founded and cocurated by Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, has its third annual installment.
June 19: Juneteenth Day, along N. King Drive between Center and Burleigh streets
June 28: The 50th edition of Summerfest
begins with the Red Hot Chili Peppers playing the Marcus Amphitheater.
June 30: Can’t have a summer without Minions — “Despicable Me 3” opens.
July 2: P!nk plays her first North American concert in three years at the Marcus Amphitheater for Summerfest.
July 5-6: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers play its 14th and 15th gigs at the Big Gig’s Marcus Amphitheater for the band’s 40th anniversary tour. Chris Stapleton opens.
July 7: The web-slinger’s back and younger than ever in “Spider-Man: Homecoming.”
July 9: The last day for Summerfest’s 50th. Summerfest runs this year from June 28 to July 2 and July 4 to 9.
July 21-23: Festa Italiana returns to Maier Festival Park.
July 21: Two of summer’s mostlikely-to-bedazzling movies — Christopher Nolan’s World War II epic “Dunkirk” and Luc Besson’s starburst-y “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.” July 28-30:
Maier Festival Park hosts German Fest.
July 28: The exhibit “Frank Lloyd Wright: Buildings for the Prairie” opens at the Milwaukee Art Museum (through Oct. 15). Aug. 3-13:
Cream puff time — the Wisconsin State Fair is in session. Aug. 17-20: Irish Fest packs ’em in at Maier Festival Park. Aug. 21: Darkness in summer — there’s a rare total solar eclipse expected this day.
Aug. 25-27: Mexican Fiesta returns to Maier Festival Park.
Sept. 8-10: Indian Summer Festival closes out the lakefront gatherings at Maier Festival Park.
Oct. 6: One of the year’s most anticipated, “Blade Runner 2049,” opens in theaters, with Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling. Oct. 13-15:
The 13th annual Hunting Moon Pow Wow is held at UWMilwaukee Panther Arena.
Nov. 3: One of these things is not like the others, but they could all be big movies this fall: “A Bad Moms Christmas,” “My Little Pony: The Movie,” “Thor: Ragnarok”
Nov. 11-12: Trainfest 2017 chugs into the Wisconsin Expo Center at State Fair Park.
Nov. 17: Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, the Flash, Cyborg and the Man of Steel (wait — isn’t he dead?) form a club called “Justice League.”
Nov. 22: Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express” returns to the screen with a can-you-top-this cast of stars including, for starters, Johnny Depp, Daisy Ridley, Penélope Cruz, Judi Dench, Leslie Odom Jr. and, as Hercule Poirot, Kenneth Branagh.
Dec. 15: “Star Wars: Episode VIII,” including the late Carrie Fisher back as the former Princess Leia, blows out everything else at the movies.