INTERVIEW: Tyler Michaels on Becoming Hedwig and Trademarking Theater Arts Dance Music Theatre by Basil Considine - March 15, 2019March 15, 2019 Tyler Michaels rehearsing for Theater Latté Da's upcoming production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Photo by Emilee Elofson. 21 years ago, on Valentine's Day, an unlikely success called Hedwig and the Angry Inch opened Off Broadway. An in-your face, mostly solo punk rock musical, Hedwig dives straight into the physical
REVIEW: The Joys of Mamma Mia (Chanhassen Dinner Theatres) Arts Dance Music Theatre by Basil Considine - March 12, 2019March 15, 2019 Michelle Barber, Kersten Rodau, and Therese Walth as galpals in Chanhassen Dinner Theatres' new production of Mamma Mia! If you'd asked me 20 years ago about the commercial future of Mamma Mia!, a then-new musical set to open in London's West End, I would have said "Don't invest in it." You
INTERVIEW: Theatre Unbound’s New Executive Director Jenny Moeller on Taking the Wheel Arts Theatre by Basil Considine - March 11, 2019March 11, 2019 A wordcloud generated from an interview with Theatre Unbound's incoming Executive Director, Jenny Moeller. This fall, Theatre Unbound will celebrate its 20th season of making live theatre created and conceived by women. A 20th birthday is counted as a crown year; for its 20th, Theatre Unbound is crowning a new Executive
INTERVIEW: Daisuke Kawachi and Sara Ochs on Directing The Last Firefly (Theater Mu/SteppingStone) Arts Theatre by Basil Considine - March 11, 2019March 11, 2019 A fight rehearsal for the Theater Mu/SteppingStone Theatre for Youth co-production of The Last Firefly. Photo by Jessica Kray Martin Photo. Fireflies float on the boundary between the mundane and a world of magical realism. They are also important biomarkers, whose disappearance foreshadows local ecosystem collapse. This dual role has made
REVIEW: Powerful Iphigenia and Other Daughters (Theatre Unbound) Arts Music Theatre by Amy Donahue - March 10, 2019March 14, 2019 Iphigenia and Other Daughters, currently being presented by Theatre Unbound at Gremlin Theatre in Saint Paul, MN. Photo by Theresa Burgess. It says something that, 25 years after its premiere in Los Angeles, Ellen McLaughlin's play Iphigenia and Other Daughters still has something powerful to say. It also says something that
INTERVIEW: Bob Neu on Skylark’s Così fan tutte Arts Music Opera Theatre by Basil Considine - March 8, 2019March 8, 2019 A word cloud showing the most popular words in an English-language translation of the opera Così fan tutte, which will be staged by Skylark Opera Theatre from March 22-31 at The Historic Mounds Theatre in St. Paul, MN. Long before Trading Spaces, Celebrity Wife Swap, and other reality televsion, Wolfgang Amadeus
REVIEW: Unexpectedly Deep Tenderly (Old Log Theatre) Arts Dance Music Theatre Visual Arts by Basil Considine - March 8, 2019March 8, 2019 Gracie Anderson and C. Ryan Shipley star in Tenderly: The Rosemary Clooney Musical at the Old Log Theatre in Excelsior, MN. Photo courtesy of the Old Log Theatre. There are jukebox musicals that pass like a piece of cotton candy dissolving on the tongue, and there are jukebox musicals that surprise
REVIEW: Holy Caramels in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Orpheum/HTT) Arts Dance Music Theatre Visual Arts by Basil Considine - March 6, 2019March 7, 2019 Noah Weisberg as Willy Wonka with the cast of the national touring company of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Photo by Joan Marcus. It's a little ironic that a musical about candy opened in Minneapolis on Ash Wednesday, a day of fasting in many Christian traditions. By all rights,
NEWS: Guthrie Theater Announces 2019-2020 Season Arts Music Theatre by Twin Cities Arts Reader - March 5, 2019July 10, 2019 The Guthrie Theater (pictured) announced its 2019-2020 season today. Photo by Erik Blume. It's going to be a season of cabarets, shipwrecks, crazy dancing, sweat, and TV-fueled desire at the Guthrie next season. Add some Austen, a beauty shop, Christmas in New York, some good old-fashioned lying to family, and the
INTERVIEW: Rick Shiomi on Updating The Mikado, Combatting Yellowface, and Post-Mu Life Arts Dance Music Theatre by Basil Considine - March 5, 2019March 5, 2019 Director Rick Shiomi and Music Director Randy Buikema look at an updated score for Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Mikado. On March 15, the Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company opens a very different look at The Mikado. The updated version of this classic light opera, which plays at