Katie Adducci delivers a sweet and winning performance as the young rebel in CTC’s charming Pippi Longstocking (Children’s Theatre Company, through June 10). Whipping Pippi’s famous red braids perilously close to the other characters, leaping and prancing, cackling with laughter, back-flipping across the stage every time she pronounces her name, Adducci finds the pulse...
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The pitch for the Broadway touring production of Mamma Mia! is “You already know you’re gonna love it!” Judging by the opening night audience, at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Minneapolis, I’d say that’s fairly accurate. A good portion of the audience was laughing before the gag and applauding an entrance before it happened....
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The Mill, a new play by International Falls, Minn., native Jeannine Coulombe presented at The Playwrights’ Center by The Workhaus Collective, looks at what it really means to live in a town that is dependent on one major industry and employer for its survival. The town’s history with its life support, a paper mill...
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In the demented, clutch-popping and mud puddle shallow Learn To Be Latina (Mixed Blood Theatre, through May 13), by Enrique Urueta, a sweet-tempered, blissfully open Lebanese-American (clear emphasis on the latter), Hanan Mashalani, is informed that although she exhibits serious musical talent, her Arabic background will never do. We will assume, since we’re all...
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It’s a challenge for writers to get their own work produced; it gets even more complex to produce a new musical. Furthermore, if the new musical does not have a “name” – either one of the writers or recognized subject matter – the effort to mount a new show can be overwhelming. That’s one...
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It doesn’t rain but it pours: playwright Jeannine Coulombe has two major productions opening within a week. The first, The Mill, produced by Workhaus Collective, performing (as always) at the Playwrights Center, opens this Friday, April 20 and closes May 5. Jeannine’s second play, Where The Mountain Meets The Moon, an adaptation for young...
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I’m often asked, in my exalted position as theater reviewer, if I’ve seen anything really good. I hem and haw. “This play at the Guthrie’s not bad, and that play at CTC is terrific if you’re seven years old, and Ten Thousand Things is great, but of course there’s no stage lighting.” But here’s...
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Sarah Goodwin, the hero of Donald Margulies‘s often penetrating (and often static) Time Stands Still (at the Guthrie, through May 20), thrives on conflict. On blood, on insanity, the sudden violence of war. She has acquired – or so she believes – the photojournalist’s knack for using the camera as a shield to keep...
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Illusion Theater has renewed their collaborative relationship with local playwright Jeffrey Hatcher in a commissioned work that also honors producing directors Michael Robins (who directs this production) and Bonnie Morris for their commitment to developing and producing new plays. The relationship and friendship between playwright and theater, in this case, has been a long...
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