Want to enjoy Walking Shadow Theatre Co.‘s giddy, swashbuckling, sword-happy The Three Musketeers (at the Guthrie‘s Dowling Studio, through May 25)? Here’s my firm advice: go with the sprawl. Lay aside whatever need you might have for coherent narrative, for…
Photo Set: LIVE LETTERS 2nd Anniversary, 5/8/14
The Working Boys Band at The History Theatre
The History Theatre has premiered a new musical that uses a relatively obscure bit of history to illuminate a corner of the dynamic environment of Minneapolis in 1917, just as America was entering W.W. I. The show’s composer, the late…
Passing Strange at Mixed Blood Theatre
Passing Strange (at Mixed Blood Theatre, through May 11) is an example of that ancient, hoary, and utterly old-fashioned theatrical entity: the rock musical. Everyone is in the band. The cast plays various instruments – not brilliantly, but you can’t…
Shrek, The Musical at Children’s Theatre Company
Unless you’ve spent the last dozen years sequestered in a Kazukistan monastery, you know the story of Shrek, The Musical (at Children’s Theatre Company, through June 15): Shrek, an ogre, rescues Princess Fiona from the nasty dragon, falls for her,…
Mercy Killers at Pillsbury House Theatre
The best theater kicks down walls, pulls off the gloves and starts swinging. Mercy Killers, written and performed by Michael Milligan and produced by Pillsbury House Theatre, is that kind of play – a piece that rages against America’s broken…
Three Penny Opera by Frank Theatre, performing at the Southern
Three Penny Opera (Frank Theatre, performing at the Southern, through May 4) was written in 1928 by playwright Bertolt Brecht with music by composer Kurt Weill. I point this out because the program for the Frank production makes no mention…
Detroit at the Jungle Theater
A friendly backyard barbeque with the neighbors builds to the frayed edges of an absurd but frighteningly believable premise in the Jungle Theater’s production of “Detroit†by Lisa D’Amour. You just won’t believe what happens and it’s not what you…
Romeo and Juliet by Collide Theatrical Dance Company at the Lab Theater
Collide Theatrical Dance Company came flying out on the stage last night with an exuberant, fresh interpretation of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.†Have you not imagined Juliet tap dancing her despair over her banished Romeo, to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It? 
Once by Hennepin Theatre Trust, at the Orpheum Theatre
Compare the focused intimacy of Once (at the Orpheum, through April 6) with the over-the-top, big-bang-for-your-buck musicals recently produced in the same venue. Phantom Of The Opera, Evita, The Book Of Mormon, et al. Once contains no gee-whiz, that-musta-costa-fortune scenic…
The Mountaintop by Penumbra Theatre performing at the Guthrie
We see it when we walk into the McGuire: the Lorraine Motel sign, visible through the window of Room 306, stark against the black Memphis sky, crashes of lightning bringing it into high relief. The Lorraine. Where Martin Luther King…
Porgy and Bess at the Ordway
Soaring melodies! Big orchestrations and choruses of voices big enough to take it on! Diva voices larger than life! Oh, this is gorgeous! Thank you, Ordway, for bringing us our beloved “Porgy and Bess†in a form that befits this…