On the Blog
Seeing Finland’s Arto Järvelä and Minnesota’s Kaivama perform together at The Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis Friday night made me feel downright happy. For a musical performance to be a success, happiness need not be either the intention or the result, but regardless, it’s a great bonus. Arto Järvelä is a founding member of...
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Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends. – Joan Didion “It will happen to you,” author Joan Didion (played by Barbara Berlovitz) says in the opening scene of Didion’s own adaptation of her 2004 novel The Year of Magical Thinking (at nimbus theatre,...
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In the 1990s during the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina, over 100,000 people were killed and more than 2 million people displaced in one of the most horrific set of human-inflicted tragedies since WWII. Heaven, a new work by Flying Foot Forum, directed by Joe Chvala with music by Chan Poling (The Suburbs, The...
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Kicking off its 10th season, nimbus has christened a new permanent theater space at 1517 Central Avenue in Northeast Minneapolis with a spicy adaptation of Jean Genet’s controversial The Balcony (nimbus theater, February 11th through March 6th). A sign posted at the entry to the house warns: “Please be aware this show contains cigar...
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Wednesday’s bill at the 400 Bar featuring Portland, Oregon’s Black Prairie (members of the Decemberists and friends) and Chicago’s Canasta was more than enough to bring me out of music writer retirement. And I wasn’t disappointed. It turned out to be one of the most enjoyable weeknights of music I’ve seen anywhere in some...
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Eclipsed, the 2009 play by Obie Award-winning playwright Danai Gurira tells the story of an unlikely sisterhood of five women in civil war-torn Liberia. Frank Theatre’s regional premier of the work opened Friday at the Playwrights’ Center (2301 East Franklin Ave.) in Minneapolis. In Frank Artistic Director Wendy Knox’s hands, the production is intense,...
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Who would have thought a re-release party could be so much fun? Peter Wolf Crier, the duo of former Wars of 1812‘s frontman Peter Pisano and drummer Brian Moen, released their debut CD Inter-Be locally more than six months ago to considerable local acclaim. Nonetheless, that same CD being picked up by Jagjaguar records...
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“Delightful” and “fun” aren’t the first two words that come to mind when one seeks to describe the literary legacy left by Franz Kafka. But Frank Theatre’s narratively-faithful rendering of the Bohemian writer’s 1915 novella The Metamorphosis — which opened Friday at Open Eye Figure Theater – is a snappy, impeccably-acted, funny, yet human...
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Though a sizable chunk of Twin Cities indie rock fans were packed into the sold-out Spoon show up the block at First Avenue Friday night, Communist Daughter didn’t have any trouble assembling an exceedingly healthy team of fans at The Fine Line to help them celebrate the release of their debut album, Soundtrack to...
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