The Great Divide II is a collection of 5 short one acts presented without intermission by Pillsbury House Theatre (through March 25), a follow-up to last season’s successful The Great Divide. The plays – by Andrew Rosendorf, Christina M. Ham,…
Review | Newsies: First act: terrific. Second act: not so much
I must admit I had low expectations when I arrived for opening night of Newsies, the Broadway Musical at the Chanhassen Dinner Theatre. When our waiter took our orders and told us that in the seven years he’s been at…
Review | Indecent: beautifully dilapidated
Your two agèd (make that astute and intelligent) www.HowWasTheShow.com reviewers, John Olive and Janet Preus, recently attended a performance at the G of Paula Vogel‘s Indecent. They then repaired to the bar downstairs and prepared the following review: John Olive:…
Review | The Pirates of Penzance: a fresh reframing of a beloved classic
There is a reason Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance is a theater mainstay – it is clever, approachable, and hilarious. Yet, with so many productions of the show over the years, it’s charm inevitably has faded for all…
Review | Park & Lake: a hoot and a half
What gives with all these outré comedies currently gracing stages in the twins? Two Mile Hollow. 21 Extremely Bad Breakups. Noises Off. And now the latest offering from Ten Thousand Things: Park & Lake. Are the sanctimonious clowns in Washington…
Review | Two Mile Hollow: over-the-top, and thoroughly enjoyable
Camp: when the process(es) of the performers supercede(s) the needs of the story being told. By this definition, Two Mile Hollow – a co-production between Mixed Blood Theater and Mu Performing Arts (an arrangement one wishes more theaters would make),…
Review | 21 Extremely Bad Breakups: should I stay or should I go?
Any play with a title like 21 Extremely Bad Breakups is bound to be a bit of a yuk-fest and so it is with Walking Shadow’s new work of that name. Though 21EBB fits this description, it’s more than just…
Review | The Humans: realism returns
It is Thanksgiving Day. A family gathers in the Manhattan Chinatown apartment that one of the daughters shares with her boyfriend. Grandmother, in a wheelchair, only somewhat “with it.†Sister, dealing with recent breakup. Mom, mother hen-ing, and Dad, doing…
Review | Assassins: overlong maybe, but fab
Ever wonder why the dapper Johnny Wilkes Booth murdered Abraham Lincoln? Laid awake at night sorting out the reasons why the cheerfully insane Charles Guiteau put a bullet in President Garfield’s back? Tried to figure out why the effervescently cute…
Review | My Mother Has 4 Noses: brilliant music, difficult subject matter charmingly rendered
Let’s get this out of the way right off ye olde bat: My Mother Has 4 Noses (at the Jungle, through March 4) is not really a play. It’s a story. Relentlessly past tense. The teller – the charming and…
Review | The Wiz: a fun, funky fairytale
The Twin Cities is blessed with many storied theater institutions, two of the most vital being the Children’s Theatre Company and Penumbra Theatre. Both have distinct missions – one to introduce theater in approachable ways to new generations and one…
Review | Noises Off: a fine British farce
Noises Off is a perennially popular farce about all the things that can go wrong with a theatre production. Anyone who knows theatre knows the list is almost endless: last minute changes that rattle the actors, backstage romances that threaten…