I was in Nashville recently and found myself bragging to musicians there about all the great legit singers, particularly women, in the Twin Cities. A new opera company, I learned last night, is out to give them more performance opportunities.…
Interview: Peter Christian Hansen and Ashley Montondo
We stopped in at the Garage Theater to talk with Peter Christian Hansen, founder and artistic director of St. Paul’s Gremlin Theater, about his approach to his craft as well as his current project, a regional premier of Jane Martin’s…
Juno And The Paycock at the Guthrie Theater
You have to respect Joe Dowling for closing his long and celebrated tenure as the Guthrie Theater’s artistic director with Sean O’Casey‘s classic Juno and the Paycock, a show that pays homage to his most personal cultural and artistic influences…
Twelfth Night by Mu Performing Arts performing at Mixed Blood
I’ve never seen the Mixed Blood stage looking so good. The space is arranged arena style, stage painted a nice warm color, with a few tastefully placed platforms, some truly lovely Vietnamese lights, a few sit-upons. The set for Mu’s…
The Gospel Of Lovingkindness at Pillsbury House Theatre
As the father of an eighteen year old son, I readily understood, in Marcus Gardley‘s moving The Gospel Of Lovingkindness (at the Pillsbury House Theatre, through June 28), Mary Lee Black’s simple statement, “I put everything I had into that…
Camelot at the Ordway
Camelot (at the Ordway, through May 17) harkens back to a simpler age, when a sturdy chap like Lancelot could be an arrogant, egotistical, sword-twirling, overweening and preening [your carefully chosen word here], and still get the girl. Nowadays a…
forget me not when far away by Ten Thousand Things Theatre
In Kira Obolensky‘s delicious forget me not when far away, John Ploughman returns from an endless War (it feels like WWI, but who knows), limping into a town populated entirely by women. John is looking for Flora, his sainted ex,…
Plotholes: A Fool’s Foibles Produced by Interact Theater at Interact Center for Visual and Performing Arts
A cardboard box on the edge of the stage shakes. A black-costumed “imp†emerges, and then several more imps appear, each with its own disfigurement. Farting. With this appropriate irreverence, Interact Theater celebrates the move to its new home with…
Jersey Boys at the Orpheum Theatre
As contemporaries of The Beatles in an era when that foursome was bending pop genre and Bob Dylan when he was openly protesting corruption, The Four Seasons made music for the everyman; the underemployed of America and our boys serving…
Peter Pan The Musical at Children’s Theatre Company
Brimming with playful charm, Peter Pan the Musical bounds onto the Children’s Theater stage, emphasizing the lighthearted excitement of the story’s well-known adventures while also offering up some nifty new tricks. The story is a mainstay for the company, having…
Hapgood, produced by Six Elements Theatre at Nimbus Theater
A man faces the audience, standing at a sink downstage center. He unhurriedly applies shaving cream, shaves, and ignores a considerable amount of coming and going behind him in this public swimming pool locker room. (It is CIA agent Ben…
For The Loyal by Illusion Theater
The Illusion Theater’s stated mission is “to create theater that illuminates the illusions, myths and realities of our times and to catalyze personal and social change.†It makes sense, then, that the company would choose to premier Minnesota-born playwright Lee…