In Harold And The Purple Crayon (at Children’s Theatre Co, through Feb 26) a company of first rate artists and performers collaborate on a deceptively simple, sweetly accessible and yet highly sophisticated… Well, what would you call Harold? A play? I suppose, but it’s really more a celebration of elegant design, tuneful music, astute...
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CTC’s The Wizard Of Oz (Childrens Theatre Company, through Jan. 8, 2012) imitates the 1939 MGM classic beat-by-beat: the structure is identical, the character conceits, the exquisite Arlen/Harburg songs. Much of the play’s dialogue comes directly from the movie. All the classic lines – “I’m not a witch at all!” “Who’d've thought a...
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Mercy Watson gets where she’s going in Act 1, Scene 1, page 1: “Toast!” she cries. “Toast and butter!” Mercy, a pig, says this, oh, seven or eight hundred times during CTC’s charming Mercy Watson To The Rescue (at the Childrens Theatre Co., through Oct 23). Mercy never sways from this desire. Indeed, she...
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Jumpin’ Jehosaphat, but those orphans are cute. Led by the inimitable Annie, belting out the uptempo “Maybe”, a niftily drawn 1930s NYC skyline looming in the background, the girls dance and mug winningly and by golly they steal our hearts. “Awwwwwwww”s and “Oooooooooh”s swept through the Children’s Theater auditorium on opening night. Never mind...
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The Kennedy Center has brought its national tour of Barrio Grrrl! to the Minneapolis Children’s Theatre, offering a view of summer in the barrio through the eyes of 9-year-old Ana (Desireé Rodriguez). To alleviate the boredom of being left home alone while her grandpa (“Abuelo,” played by Diego Prieto) goes to work in a...
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I can try to paint you a picture of Babe the amazing sheep pig: blinking, clutching Farmer Hoggett with his piggy fists, pudgy around the middle, with too short pink pants, head bald save for a small wiry shock of white fur at the tip top, prancing around the stage with endearing little hops,...
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The Children’s Theatre Company is among the first to roll out this year’s holiday offering with an adaptation by Philip Grecian A Christmas Story by Jean Shepherd. Grecian, with director Peter Broshius (also CTC’s artistic director) steeps us in the story’s setting with a period look, done on a very functional revolving set, costumed...
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Director Greg Banks is the maestro of the small cast classic. His m.o.: keep the story-line as simple as possible, the characters one-dimensional, and the set filled with playable levels. Bring the audience as close to the action as possible (sometimes in the action, as he did with his astonishing Romeo And Juliet a...
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Theater-goers, young and old! Go see Bradley Greenwald, currently holding forth in The 500 Hats Of Bartholomew Cubbins (Childrens Theatre Co., 2400 Third Ave., Minneapolis, through Oct 30, childrensheatre.org) before an evil Broadway producer swoops down and snatches him away from us. This guy is seriously good. His gorgeous singing voice is combined with...
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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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