Luke staggers into his ex-wife Margaret’s Harlem flat – it’s the closest thing he has to “home” – carrying one thing: his shiny, lovingly maintained trumpet. Margaret, popular pastor of a fundamentalist church, is appalled to see him. He represents…
The Addams Family at the Ordway
The Addams Family has settled into the friendly confines of the Ordway for a solid two week run (through May 20). Your intrepid HowWasTheShow.com reviewers, Janet Preus and John Olive, attended opening night, then repaired to the Amsterdam Bar for…
Steampunk Delusions at Open Eye Figure Theatre, produced by Hardcover Theater and English Scrimshaw Theatrical Novelties
Steampunk Delusions features two plays, one produced by Hardcover Theater and the other by English Scrimshaw Theatrical Novelties. Hardcover Theater fills a curious niche in the Twin Cities, bringing to life somewhat obscure books and stories in sparsely but cleverly…
Are You Now or Have You Ever Been … at the Guthrie Theater produced by Carlyle Brown & Company
In the 1950s, there was a contingent in American politics with an intense fear of the rise of communism, fueled by the belief that communist infiltrators were everywhere, trying to bring down the American way of life. Headed up by…
Pippi Longstocking at Children’s Theatre Company
Katie Adducci delivers a sweet and winning performance as the young rebel in CTC’s charming Pippi Longstocking (Children’s Theatre Company, through June 10). Whipping Pippi’s famous red braids perilously close to the other characters, leaping and prancing, cackling with laughter,…
Mamma Mia! at the Orpheum Theatre
The pitch for the Broadway touring production of Mamma Mia! is “You already know you’re gonna love it!†Judging by the opening night audience, at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Minneapolis, I’d say that’s fairly accurate. A good portion of…
The Mill at The Playwrights’ Center
The Mill, a new play by International Falls, Minn., native Jeannine Coulombe presented at The Playwrights’ Center by The Workhaus Collective, looks at what it really means to live in a town that is dependent on one major industry and…
Learn To Be Latina at Mixed Blood Theatre
In the demented, clutch-popping and mud puddle shallow Learn To Be Latina (Mixed Blood Theatre, through May 13), by Enrique Urueta, a sweet-tempered, blissfully open Lebanese-American (clear emphasis on the latter), Hanan Mashalani, is informed that although she exhibits serious…
Deal! The Musical at the Ritz Theater
It’s a challenge for writers to get their own work produced; it gets even more complex to produce a new musical. Furthermore, if the new musical does not have a “name†– either one of the writers or recognized subject…
Interview: Jeannine Coulombe
It doesn’t rain but it pours: playwright Jeannine Coulombe has two major productions opening within a week. The first, The Mill, produced by Workhaus Collective, performing (as always) at the Playwrights Center, opens this Friday, April 20 and closes May…
Spring Awakening, a co-production with Theater Latté Da and The University of Minnesota Department of Theatre Arts and Dance
I’m often asked, in my exalted position as theater reviewer, if I’ve seen anything really good. I hem and haw. “This play at the Guthrie’s not bad, and that play at CTC is terrific if you’re seven years old, and…
Time Stands Still at the Guthrie Theater
Sarah Goodwin, the hero of Donald Margulies‘s often penetrating (and often static) Time Stands Still (at the Guthrie, through May 20), thrives on conflict. On blood, on insanity, the sudden violence of war. She has acquired – or so she…