On the Blog
The Wicked Express has arrived in Minneapolis for a 5 week stay (at the Orpheum, 910 Hennepin Ave., through Sept 19, hennepintheatretrust.org). Still going strong on Broadway (after 7 years), Wicked boasts two U.S. tours, strong runs in London, San Francisco, Osaka and Germany, upcoming productions in Australia and Finland. Plus, naturally, a film. ...
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It would be difficult to surpass the pure PPM (pleasure-per-moment) ratio of The Gospel At Colonus (at the Ordway, 345 Washington St., downtown St Paul, through Aug 11, ordway.org). Where else will you find gathered together the Steele Singers, the amazing Blind Boys Of Alabama (founded in 1939), The Legendary Soul Stirrers (1930s), and...
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Tennessee Williams‘s great A Streetcar Named Desire (at the Guthrie through August 29, guthrietheater.org) smolders with the heat of a sultry New Orleans summer. The heavy scent of flowers (“Flores para los muertos”) mixed with the smell of cooking meat, spicy Mexican street food, cheap beer, diesel fumes and, of course, the sweet funk...
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Mandacrest. Hampstead Heath. Home of the tweedily eccentric Lord Edgar – he of the Ronald Colman mustache and the crushing dark secret. Freshly married to Lady Enid – she of the heaving bosom, the swirling blonde hair, and the dark secret. Then there is Nicodemus Underwood, the caretaker with the impossibly thick Scottish accent...
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The newborn in Christopher Durang‘s nasty and funny Baby With The Bathwater (Prospero Theatre, at the Friends Meeting House, 1725 Grand Ave in St. Paul, through June 26, prosperotheatre.org) is relentless. It cries in the morning, it cries late at night, it wets, and poops, gets hungry and fusses, then cries some more, until...
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It doesn’t lack for exuberance, this latest in an ever-lengthening line of Sherlock Holmes adaptations. Katie Forgette‘s Sherlock Homes And The Case Of The Jersey Lily (at Park Square Theatre through July 3; 20 W. 7th Place; parksquaretheatre.org) begins, as always with these plays, with Holmes and Watson relaxing in their cluttered Baker Street...
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“Cash.” This is how Nora Helmer, hero of Rebecca Gilman‘s Dollhouse (on the Guthrie’s McGuire proscenium, through July 11, guthrietheater.org), her modernization of the Henrik Ibsen classic A Doll’s House, succinctly describes what she most wants from this life. Gilman cunningly sets her play in 2004, that not so distant era of wild from-the-hip...
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Circle Mirror Transformation (at the Guthrie’s Dowling Studio, through June 13, 612.377.2224, guthrietheater.org) by Annie Baker sneaks up on you. It all seems, initially, so sweet and innocuous. Marty is conducting a class for beginning actors in a small Vermont town. She sets up some goofy exercises and improvs. But despite (or perhaps because...
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What a pleasure to actually see Autumn Ness. In The Biggest Little House In The Forest (on the Children’s Theatre Co.’s Cargill Stage, 2400 3rd Ave. S., Minneapolis, through June 20, childrenstheatre.org) Ms. Ness wears none of the feature disguising makeup or the over-the-top costume effects that marked her work in Cinderella, The Iron Ring,...
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Ten Thousand Things’ production of My Fair Lady (Ten Thousand Things, various venues, though note that the “public performances” are at the MN Opera Center, 620 N. 1st St., Minneapolis, May 7-30, tenthousandthings.org) owes more to George Bernard Shaw (creator of the source material) than to Lerner and Loewe. If you want to hear the...
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