Since graduating from Marquette in 1991, Milwaukee native Peter Mulvey has performed concerts in Canada, France, the Netherlands, Ireland, England and every state in America excluding Hawaii. But this summer he's bringing his tour closer to home – on his bicycle.

Toting his guitar and clothing behind him in a trailer, Mulvey will make the 380-mile trip to Fort Atkinson, Madison, Green Lake, Appleton, Green Bay, Sheboygan and back to Milwaukee where he resides with his wife.

"I've played forever at a place 50 miles from here called Cafe Clark," he said. "I've always had this idea that I could bike out there, and then I thought that it's only 30 more miles to Madison."

But don't worry – you have a chance to catch him at Marquette before he pedals away.

On Sunday, Mulvey will perform a concert on the set of "The Odd Couple" as a fundraiser for the Dublin Project, an original theater project that the Marquette theater department will create this summer at the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin, Ireland.

"It'll be a real kick to have him on the set of 'The Odd Couple,'" director Deb Krajec said.

Mulvey plays a mixture of Americana, jazz and folk music that has been compared to Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Randy Newman and many other great songwriters.

"I'd say I'm a singer-songwriter, but that sounds like a sewing machine," Mulvey said. "Tin Pan Alley Buddha music, that's the kind of music I play. Steel '30s and '40s jazz and Buddha ring big bells with me."

After graduating, Mulvey moved to Boston with a few friends. Many of his first performances in Boston were on subways and at open mic nights. One of his favorite gigs was when he opened for Chris Smither, a blues singer-songwriter and veteran of the road.

"He's what I'd like to be," Mulvey said of Smither. "I'd like to have a nice quiet living on the American road for the next 25 years."

But before his bicycle tour and whatever else lies ahead, Mulvey brought his past experiences back to his alma mater through a workshop in Marquette's Studio 13 theatre on April 2. He related his education at Marquette to his career as a performing artist.

"It was nice to hear a theater graduate speak about how he has applied what he learned at Marquette to the real world," said Emily Wille, a junior in the College of Communication who attended the workshop.

Mulvey drew similarities between his acting experience and songwriting.

"The essential task of an actor on stage is to say lines that he has memorized as though he were speaking them for the first time. And you do that by recalling emotions," Mulvey said. "I think that it's the same thing with music, even if it's an instrumental piece, but certainly if it's got a lyric to it. You want it to come alive. One way to do that is to train yourself to re-experience the emotions of singing it each time, to make it real by emotionally inhabiting that moment."