NEWS: Metropolitan Regional Arts Council Announces Arts Impact for Groups Recipients Arts Dance Music Theatre Visual Arts by Twin Cities Arts Reader - March 20, 2023March 30, 2023 On March 28, 2023, the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council voted to award $1,076,356 in funding for 109 groups and organizations. These grant awards, offered through MRAC's Arts Impact for Groups grant program for fiscal year 2023, provide up to $10,000 in funding to help groups create and sustain Minnesotans’ access
REVIEW: Rock ‘n’ Roll with Tina – The Tina Turner Musical (Orpheum/HTT) Arts Music Theatre by Boo Segersin - March 3, 2023March 3, 2023 A promotional photo for Tina – The Tina Turner Musical, playing through March 12 at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis, MN. As rockstar biographies go, Tina Turner's just about has it all – great heights, great lows, turning points, struggles, and victories. And so it is in Tina - The Tina Turner
REVIEW: Building The Prom for Everyone (Chanhassen Dinner Theatres) Arts Music Theatre by Brian Bix - February 18, 2023February 21, 2023 The cast of Chanhassen Dinner Theatres' new production of The Prom, now playing in Chanhassen, MN. Photo by Dan Norman Photography. Hell hasn't exactly frozen over, but the thermometer eased over freezing this weekend in the Twin Cities. Thus, one can say empirically that the musical The Prom, which opened Friday at Chanhassen Dinner
REVIEW: Joy Cometh in the Morning? To Kill a Mockingbird (Orpheum/Hennepin Theatre Trust) Arts Dance Music Theatre by Brian Bix - February 15, 2023February 15, 2023 Atticus Finch (Richard Thomas) examines a witness in To Kill a Mockingbird, playing through Sunday, 2/19 at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis, MN. Photo by Julieta Cervantes. Almost everyone in the packed Orpheum Theatre last night knew the story of To Kill a Mockingbird, having read the 1960 Harper Lee novel
REVIEW: The 2023 AOI Operas at the Kennedy Center (Washington National Opera) Arts Music Opera by Basil Considine - January 23, 2023January 24, 2023 The gods of Oshun: Olodumare (Christian Simmons, left), Shango (Daniel Smith, upstage center), Oshun (Katerina Burton, downstage center), and Esu (Athony P. Ballard), which premiered on Saturday at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Photo by Scott Suchman. On Saturday, a trio of new operas premiered at the Kennedy Center in
REVIEW: Thrilling, Retro Hairspray Earns Its Shots (Hennepin Theatre Trust) Arts Music Theatre by Boo Segersin - January 12, 2023January 16, 2023 Aloft, L-R Sage as Gilbert, Kyle Kavully as Thad, Charlie Bryant III as Seaweed J. Stubbs, and the Company of Hairspray, now playing at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis. Photo by Jeremy Daniel. The Tony award-winning musical Hairspray has returned to Minneapolis, and it is just as fun and relevant as
PREVIEW: Well-Behaved Women Coming To… (Theatre Elision) Arts Music by Basil Considine - January 10, 2023January 16, 2023 A poster riffing on Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's infamous quotation, showing "transgressive" women from different periods. In 1976, the historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich wrote in an article, "Well-behaved women seldom make history." Ulrich's commentary was double: on the one hand, the women condemned by the early Puritans of New England were excoriated in
INTERVIEW: Matt Crowle on Embodying Thénardier in Les Misérables Arts Music Theatre by Basil Considine - December 2, 2022December 2, 2022 Matt Crowle (center-left) as Thénardier and Christina Rose Hall (center) as Madame Thénardier in the national tour of Les Misérables, which opens Tuesday at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis. Photo by Matthew Murphy & Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade. Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables is often ranked as one of the greatest
NEWS: The Hennepin Theatre Trust’s Disney Musicals in Schools Arts Theatre by Twin Cities Arts Reader - November 22, 2022November 24, 2022 The interior of the Pantages Theatre in Minneapolis – one of three historic theatres managed by the Hennepin Theatre Trust, and the venue for the final showcase of the Disney Musicals in Schools program. The Minneapolis-based Hennepin Theatre Trust announced today that four Twin Cities schools that have been selected to participate
NEWS: Late, Lamented Dave Aeikens Awarded Wells Memorial Key Arts by Twin Cities Arts Reader - November 1, 2022 The Society of Professional Journalists has honored the late Dave Aeikens with the Wells Memorial Key, its highest honor for members. Aeikens, a cornerstone of local journalism, served the profession in many capacities, including as the Society of Professional Journalists's national president from 2008-2009. He also served as Region 6 director, president of the Minnesota Pro Chapter,