Every ten years or so someone decides to put some part of the bible on stage. The latest attempt is To Begin With by local playwright Jeffrey Hatcher (Hennepin Theatre Trust, performing in the old Wesley Church). Hatcher has taken…
Category: Reviews
Macbeth is The Bard, efficiently abridged
In Shakespeare’s tragedies, politics and fealty are thread with dark warnings of power’s corruptive force and the destructiveness of human hubris. This is never more true than in Macbeth, a story of greed, secret plotting, and murder at the highest…
Six Degrees Of Separation: highly recommended
First things first: Six Degrees Of Separation (Theater Latté Da performing at the newly purchased Ritz, through April 9) looks terrific. Yeoperson work has been by the crackerjack design team – Kate Sutton-Johnson (sets); Alice Frederickson (costumes); Barry Browning (lights).…
Grease: slick and entertaining
The Chanhassen Dinner Theatre‘s production of Grease is a funny, tightly performed show. Set in 1959, (book, music and lyrics by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey) Grease pairs a group of high school girls, more interested in boys and parties…
The Red Shoes mind-bends a classic
Open Eye Figure Theatre and Oddfellows Collective, a new theater entity formed of well-known local artists, most notably the play’s writer/director/designer Joel Sass and writer/performer Kimberly Richardson, have opened “The Red Shoes.†Although inspired by the Hans Christian Andersen…
King Lear: a grandly produced disappointment
Shakespeare’s King Lear is a dense tapestry of a play. Themes of loyalty, insanity, blindness, compassion and even base nature are all explored. Every director must choose what to emphasize and what to allow to pass without development. Guthrie artistic…
Fiddler On The Roof: another barebones masterwork from TTT
When Ten Thousand Things, decides to mount Fiddler on the Roof, one of Broadway’s longest running and best loved musicals, one can’t help but wonder just how they will handle it. The answer is a singular, energetic experience. The itinerant…
Anna In The Tropics: a missed opportunity
The Jungle Theater has opened its 2017 season with a play by Nilo Cruz, “Anna in the Tropics,†a Pulitzer Price winner for the playwright in 2003. The piece starts with the jewel most writers treasure: a little known slice-of-life,…
Marie Antoinette: featuring the sparkly Jane Froiland
Marie Antoinette never said, “They don’t have enough bread? Then let them eat cake.” This libel was perpetrated by the people of France who despised MA for her youth, her penchant for expensive jewelry, for dressing up as a shepherdess…
Peter and the Starcatcher is a silly, boisterous good time
Theater Latte Da has now certainly solidified itself as one of the best companies in the Twin Cities, especially for the production of musicals. It should come as no surprise then that their latest offering, Peter and the Starcatcher, is…