Cavalier Theater
118 5th Ave • La Crosse, WI
608-782-2111
Upcoming Events
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Bookings via booking@cavaliertheater.com
Follow us on Facebook • Twitter
Bookings via booking@cavaliertheater.com
Stand-up Comedians + Scientists + You = Stand Up Science Award-winning stand-up comedian and science podcast host Shane Mauss presents Stand Up Science! Learn and laugh as local scientists, comedians and other special guests join Shane to bring you a one-of-a-kind show that is equal parts ahas and hahas Stand-up comedy and science have a lot in common. They both reveal truth, change our perceptions, and challenge the status quo. So why are they so underappreciated? Admittedly, comedy sometimes underestimates the intelligence of audiences, catering to the lowest common denominator. And science has the stigma of sometimes being overly complicated, unrelatable or boring. Until now. Funnier and more provocative than TED Talks, while smarter than traditional stand-up comedy, Stand Up Science combines the best of both worlds. This thought-provoking night of laughs will leave you a little smarter, a little happier and send you home with plenty of fuel for your own conversations. What to Expect: As your host, Shane kicks the evening off with some of his best material on brainy topics, before introducing special guest speakers and performers. Guests range from Ivy League professors presenting groundbreaking academic research to local stand-up comedians delivering their most cerebral material. At the end of the night, Shane brings all the guests back onstage and opens the floor for a Q&A and interactive discussion with the audience. About the host and origins of Stand-Up Science: Shane Mauss leads two lives. In one, he tours full-time as a stand-up comedian. Shane has brought his unique blend of absurdist humor, thoughtful insights and storytelling to cities all over the world, as well as TV spots on Conan, Kimmel, Comedy Central, Showtime, BBC, Epix and more. In his other life as the host of the podcast Here We Are, he’s interviewed over 200 of the world’s leading academic experts about our most fascinating traits and behaviors while finding the funny in the innermost workings of life. Each week Shane illuminates a new area of research for the show’s 50,000 loyal listeners, earning a 5-star rating on iTunes. Shane’s unique background, comedy, and personal philosophies have also made him a popular guest on other top podcasts like Pete Holmes’ You Made It Weird, Marc Maron’s WTF, The Joe Rogan Experience, Duncan Trussell’s Family Hour, Bertcast and more. GuestsKeely ReesKeely Rees is Professor & Director in the Department of Health Education and Health Promotion at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Keely’s research and teaching has focused on numerous issues in the health field for over 20 years. Her research has focused on prenatal care, exercise prescription and behaviors during and after pregnancy, social support for pre-conception and prenatal nutrition, tobacco use during pregnancy, and sexuality education and advocacy for young children, teens, and parents, and exercise adherence, nutrition and wellness consultation for adults. Keely teaches health policy & advocacy, motivational interviewing, grant-seeking, and women’s health courses, trainings, and workshops in universities, hospital, schools. Dr. Rees has taught internationally in Ireland, Spain and Costa Rica with other universities, researchers, and organizations identifying ways to better prepare health educators in the field.Ryan A. McKelleyRyan A. McKelley, Ph.D. is a Licensed Psychologist and associate chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. He teaches courses on health psychology, behavior modification, abnormal psychology, group counseling, and men and masculinities. He has co-authored over 20 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, mostly in the area of men and masculinities. Specific research and presentation topics include men’s help-seeking, alternative treatment models, non-traditional work and family roles, fatherhood, men and depression, marketing mental health, and health psychology. Dr. McKelley has provided clinical services in several different clinical settings, and currently maintains a small private practice providing individual therapy and clinical supervision. He is the President of the Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinities, a division of the American Psychological Association. His wife and two daughters are a daily reminder of the important role men have in co-creating a more compassionate and connected world.Joseph JamesBorn and raised in La Crosse, the magic of Joseph James has been doing magic and wowing his friends and fans for 13 years. Whether it's by making a card change right before your eyes, making a ring float in thin air, or by making a coin vanish, his magic is sure to impress and entertain. Doors at 6:30/Show 7:30 $15 adv/$22 DOS ($12 early bird tickets through Dec 8) 21+
Beyond the fog of burning blunts, the sea of whiskey, and forest of empties, you’ll find two sweethearts in a Nashville garage. Just as they were yesterday, the day before that, and years prior. Searching for the perfect combination of string plucking, button pushing, and knob turning to craft the ideal sound to make you forget your world and step into theirs. The aforementioned sweethearts are Jordan Kelley and Jason Huber; known to most as "Cherub". It all began in 2010 at Middle Tennessee State University. The two met as Jason was playing around town with local bands and Jordan was crafting what would become known as their first album, "Man of the Hour". A few years later, it was the song "Doses & Mimosas" that caught the attention of the public and gained the interest of Columbia Records, who signed the duo in 2013. Their 4 year major label run brought their fans two LP’s, "Year of the Caprese" and "Bleed Gold Piss Excellence", while also sending them around the world playing festivals such as Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Glastonbury, Outside Lands, Osheaga, Summer Camp, Summer Sonic, and headlining 4 US tours. Now, a gold record and 130 million Spotify streams later, the bond between them remains "unfuckwithable", as they construct their newest batch of genre-defying anthems. From the streets of Bangkok, to the dive bars of Nashville, Cherub has been drawing inspiration from everything around them. "Each one of these songs was written and recorded at different times, in different places across the world", says Jason. "It seems to make sense, releasing each new song individually, giving us a chance to take you to where we were in our heads when it was created and pair each track with a something visual to tie it together." Straying from the common record label strategy of releasing a single or two followed by an album, Cherub has decided to give each new song it’s own time in the sun. "We don’t want anything to get lost", says Jordan. The new collection of work spans multiple genres while still keeping with the same style of addictively playful melodies Cherub fans have grown to love. It’s a "song first, production later" approach at creating music that may bring some ears back to an earlier time in the duo’s existence. "There’s a certain simplicity in these new songs that remind me of the first few Cherub records", says Jason. There’s no doubt that the latest Cherub efforts will win over their existing audience and draw new listeners to their established brand of debauchery. From your ears to your heart, like searching for room on their bodies for a new tattoo, they’ll find a way. $25 adv/$30 DOS Doors 7:00/Music 8:00 All ages
Leo Kottke is an iconic acoustic guitarist widely revered as a master of his instrument. He is known for a fingerpicking style that draws on blues, jazz, and folk music, and for syncopated, polyphonic melodies. Focusing primarily on instrumental composition and playing, Kottke also sings sporadically, in an unconventional yet expressive baritone described by himself as sounding like "geese farts on a muggy day". In concert, Kottke intersperses humorous and often bizarre monologues with vocal and instrumental selections from throughout his career, played solo on his 6- and 12-string guitars. Doors 7:00/Music 8:00 GA Seating: $35 Adv/$40 DOS Premium Seating: $50 Adv/$55 DOS All ages
Cash Cabin Sessions, Vol. 3 Todd Snider One morning near the end of August, Todd Snider was relaxing with a visitor on the back porch of his house just outside Nashville, drinking coffee and shooting the breeze while his dog, Cowboy Jim, took a nap nearby. After awhile, Snider said to his guest, “I’ve got an album’s worth of songs, and I think the songs are telling me to make a folk record.” This was a surprising bit of news considering he had spent the last six years making rock albums of one kind or another. But Snider was feeling as if he had “maybe drifted too far from the shore.” He was feeling the pull to startover, to go back to what he was doing when he first began, to return to his roots as a folksinger. If Snider needed any further evidence that was the direction he should pursue, he got it a half hour later. Back inside his home office, he checked his email and had one from his manager informing him he had just received an offer to play the 2019 Newport Folk Festival, an event he had never done. Snider mentioned he had been listening to Woody Guthrie’s Library of Congress Recordings, then crossed the room to the turntable and put the needle down on side one of the record. “Woody Guthrie sometimes gets me reset on why you do a song, instead of how, ”Snider explains of the man who has long been a touchstone for him. “When I was young, there was something about him that made me want to do it. So once or twice a year, I’ll go back to him, I’ll go back to the source.” Guthrie famously had the words “This machine kills fascists” printed on his guitar, and on several of the songs on Snider’s new album, Cash Cabin Sessions, Vol. 3, he squarely aims his guitar at the creeping fascism he sees in America. He had been wanting to make a political record since 2016, and although only half the songs lean in that direction, there is one constant throughout the album: a man, his guitar, and the truth. Snider has long been recognized as one of his generation’s most gifted and engaging songwriters, so it’s no surprise he has returned with a brilliant set of songs — and make no mistake, Cash Cabin Sessions, Vol. 3 contains some of his best work as a writer. But what really jumps out on the album is Snider’s growth as a musician and vocalist. He plays all the instruments on the record, and his guitar work and harmonica playing are nothing short of exceptional; not only full of feeling, but highly skilled. In regards to his guitar playing on the record, Snider says he wanted to take everything he’s learned over the past 30 years and play the way he used to play really well. As far as his vocals on the album are concerned, Snider is singing with more confidence than ever, a confidence born in part from his time with Hard Working Americans doing nothing but sing. His stirring vocal performances range from slurring blues mumble to Dylanesque talking blues to gravely, honest ache. Of the five songs on which Snider serves up his humorous brand of socio-political commentary, three are performed in the talking blues style: “Talking Reality Television Blues,” a hilariously accurate short history of television; “The Blues on Banjo,” a bad case of the blues caused by the sorry state of everything from the crooked international monetary-military-industrial complex to the spineless politicians who serve it and which references “Blue Suede Shoes,” Richard Lewis, and Townes Van Zandt; and “A Timeless Response to Current Events,” a brilliant bit of wordplay on which he calls bullshit on faux patriotism, crooked capitalism, and lying politicians. Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires contributed backing vocals on the latter two songs. There are two other songs on the album featuring Snider’s socio-political points of view: “Just Like Overnight,” about the surprising inevitability of change, and “Framed,” written from the point of view of the framed "first dollar bill" in a bar, a point of view that shows doing the right thing doesn't pay. There also are three songs with a music theme. If not for the events that led to the writing of one of those songs, “The Ghost of Johnny Cash,” there almost certainly would be no Cash Cabin Sessions, Vol. 3. After a visit to Cash Cabin Studio for a Loretta Lynn session in 2015 where she recorded a song they cowrote, Snider began having a recurring dream about the studio that featured the Man in Black himself. The dream led him to book time at the studio and ultimately inspired him to write “The Ghost of Johnny Cash,” which tells the story of Loretta Lynn dancing with Cash’s ghost outside the studio in the middle of the night. As he did on much of the record, Snider played the century-old Martin that had long been Johnny Cash’s favorite instrument on that song. Snider paid tribute to Cash’s longtime friend and confidante in another of the music-themed songs, “Cowboy Jack Clement’s Waltz. ”Inspired by the iconic recordman’s oft-quoted maxims regarding the art of recording, the song achingly laments Clement’s passing, while touchingly celebrating his legacy. The album opens with the other song with a music theme, “Working on a Song.” It’s an existential exercise, a song Snider wrote about writing a song called “Where Do I Go Now That I’m Gone,” an idea he actually has been working on for thirty years, but which remains unfinished. There are also two songs that are personal in nature: “Watering Flowers in the Rain,” which was inspired by a former associate of Snider’s whose nickname was “Elvis,” and “Like a Force of Nature,” a philosophical reflection on the orbital nature of friendships. Isbell also added harmony vocals to “Like a Force of Nature.” If Snider is anything, he is a true artist, and he reminds us of that on Cash Cabin Sessions, Vol. 3. At a point in time when the world has never been more complicated and confusing, with people getting louder and louder, Snider did a 180, went back to his roots as a folksinger, to a simpler, quieter form of expression; and it might be what the world is waiting to hear: just a man, his guitar, and the truth. Doors 7:00/Music 8:00 $25 adv/$30 DOS All ages
The Mersey Beatles are a Beatles tribute band who are from the same British city of Liverpool where the Beatles are from. For over 15 years, they have had a weekly residency performing at the infamous Cavern Club which was made famous as the place the Beatles got their start. For their US tour, they will be performing Beatles songs from all eras, complete with dressing up like the Fab Four, during the first set, with the second set performing the album Abbey Road in it's entirety celebrating the 50th anniversary of one of the greatest albums of all time. Doors 6:00/Music 7:00 $32 adv/$35 DOS/$50 VIP All ages