Lady Day at the Emerson Bar and Grill is a day-in-the-life story of singer Billie Holiday, a.k.a. Lady Day. It is more accurate to say the play is a night-in-the-life story of this popular and singularly talented, jazz singer as…
Review | Taking Shakespeare: an overly slight take on the Bard
For those with mentors willing to invest in them, it can prove invaluable and leave a lifelong impact. In the best of these relationships, inevitably both mentor and mentee are left as stronger, better people. John Murrell‘s Taking Shakespeare, at…
Review | An Enemy of the People: a searing, must-see political thriller
Copper pipes, venture capital, scientific ethics. Who knew combining these elements could make for stimulating, prescient drama? Brad Birch’s new adaptation of the Henrik Ibsen classic, An Enemy of the People, running through June 3 at the Guthrie, uses these…
REVIEW | Marisol challenges us all
Theatre Coup d’Etat has made a brave move with José Rivera’s play “Marisol.†The premise is provocative, the action disturbing and the characters flawed and intriguing. In Rivera’s apocalyptic urban fantasy world, God is old, senile and dying, and violence…
Review | The Good Person Of Szechwan: Hensley comes full circle
The Good Person of Szechwan is Michelle Hensley’s last show as artistic director of Ten Thousand Things Theatre Company. In her distinguished career, she has brought her productions not just to the paying public but also free of charge to…
Review | Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner
Sit in the corner and try not to belch. It’s repulsive. Behave yourself. Cynical Critic: Yes, sir. Go ahead. And don’t shout. CC: Ahem. There’s only one reason the Guthrie did Todd Kreidler (working with William Rose‘s screenplay)’s Guess Who’s…
Review | Follies: rough-hewn charm
Like the recent The Music Man, Follies (Artistry Theater, through May 6) exudes sturdy but rough-around-the edges sweetness and charm. Director Benjamin McGovern has done a crackerjack job casting Follies, (music and lyrics by the great Stephen Sondheim, book by…
Review | Five Points: the production thrills, but the play needs work
In the mid-nineteenth century, the now nonexistent Five Points in New York City was one of the nation’s most diverse neighborhoods, though it was far from a melting pot. As oppressed people groups found themselves relegated to its squalid accommodations,…
Review | The Mermaid Hour Remixed : an appealing premise
Mixed Blood Theatre has just opened Mermaid Hour: Remixed by David Valdes Greenwood with music by Eric Mayson, as part of the National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere. The non-musical version is playing at other theaters around the country,…
Tell Us 5 Things About Your Book: A Flash of Insight and Other Poems
David de Young founded HowWasTheShow in 2002. In 2010, he handed over the reins and moved to Finland. This month he’s returning to Minnesota for the first time in 5 years to celebrate the release of his first collection of…
Review | The Skriker: Churchillian theatricality
Newness: a relatively new (to me anyhow) theater, Fortune’s Fool. FF has done a half dozen plays, plays by Dan Pinkerton, Kira Obolensky, etc. Now they are performing a newish (well, seldom produced in any event) play by the great…
Review | Something Rotten!: Yes, it’s that funny!
What if two brothers got together and decided to write a musical about two brothers writing a musical? (A few adult beverages, perhaps, and …) The brothers come up with a wacky idea about how musicals were born in Shakespeare’s…