INTERVIEW: Incoming Producing Artistic Director Rod Kaats and Ordway President/CEO Jamie Grant on the Future of the Ordway Arts Dance Music Theatre by Basil Considine - January 22, 2018January 22, 2018 Rod Kaats, the incoming producing artistic director at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. There were big tap shoes to fill at the Ordway when James Rocco announced last year that he would step down as Vice President of Programming and Producing Artistic Director. On Thursday, the Ordway Center for
TOP 10: Basil Considine’s Favorite Twin Cities Stage Performances of 2017 Arts Dance Music Opera Theatre by Basil Considine - January 12, 2018January 12, 2018 Brittany Bellizeare as Pecola (foreground) in the Guthrie Theater's production of The Bluest Eye. Photo by Dan Norman. During the 2017 calendar year, I saw more than 150 theatre performances. That tally excludes shows that I directed and dance-only performances, but includes spoken theatre, musicals, opera, improv, and pretty much anything
PREVIEW: The Humans Captures a Vanishing Middle Class (Orpheum/Hennepin Theatre Trust) Arts Theatre by Basil Considine - January 10, 2018January 10, 2018 Sarah Steele and Cassie Beck in the Broadway tour of The Humans by Stephen Karam. Photo by Brigitte Lacombe. In the last several years, I have read and heard a growing chorus of calls for the American theatre to reflect and represent more of the turmoil roiling American society. As U.S. society
INTERVIEW: Sarah Rasmussen on the Jungle Theater’s New Season Arts Music Theatre by Basil Considine - January 8, 2018January 8, 2018 A promotional image for the Jungle Theater's upcoming production of Ishmael. It's been several winters – and, some would say right now, not enough summers – since the Jungle Theater announced the appointment of Sarah Rasmussen as its new artistic director in March 2015. At the time, the native of Sisseton,
INTERVIEW: Elena Giannetti, The Last Five Years, and Creating Directing Spaces Arts Music Theatre by Basil Considine - January 5, 2018January 5, 2018 A promotional photo for Artistry's upcoming production of The Last Five Years showing Cathy (Aly Westberg O’Keeffe) and Jamie (Ryan London Levin). Photo by Devon Cox/Artistry. One of the archtypical cult musicals of the early 20th century is Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years. This two-person show tells the story of a
INTERVIEW: John Olive and How the Ghost of You Clings Arts Theatre by Basil Considine - December 27, 2017January 9, 2018 A photo collage of the early-20th century actress Anna May Wong, whose story is the focus of the upcoming How the Ghost of You Clings, the Anna Wong Story. Some people make New Year's resolutions to do less. The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis doesn't seem to have gotten that memo – come
FEATURE: The Chandelier in The Phantom of the Opera Arts Dance Music Theatre Visual Arts by Basil Considine - December 21, 2017December 21, 2017 The chandelier used in the current Broadway production of The Phantom of the Opera. The current touring show chandelier is proportionally taller and emphasizes other details of the model chandeliers at the Paris Opera. Read Basil Considine's review of The Phantom of the Opera. At the height of the first megamusical craze,
PREVIEW: True Stories Brought to Life in Our House: The Capitol Play Project Arts Theatre by Basil Considine - December 21, 2017December 21, 2017 Photo by Tracy Swenson. The term "site-specific" gets tossed around a lot in theatre nowadays. The once highly specific term is often used to describe any performance outside a traditional performance space. This genericization obscures what made the idea of site-specific theatre revolutionary – and what continues to give the idea power.
REVIEW: Darkly Beautiful Phantom of the Opera‘s Triumphant Return (Orpheum/Hennepin Theatre Trust) Arts Dance Music Theatre Visual Arts by Basil Considine - December 19, 2017December 21, 2017 Christine (Eva Tavares) and Raoul (Jordan Craig) snatch a kiss in the Broadway tour of The Phantom of the Opera. Photo by Matthew Murphy. They say you never forget your first love. This is at the crux of The Phantom of the Opera's plot, and even more so in its sequel Love Never Dies.
INTERVIEW: Leah Nanako Winkler on Parodying Stage Whiteness, the Kilroys, and More Arts Theatre by Basil Considine - December 11, 2017December 11, 2017 Playwright Leah Nanako Winkler in the rehearsal studio. Photo by Leni Kei Photography. Next Valentine's Day, Mu Performing Arts and Mixed Blood Theatre will be sitting down together over glasses of white wine. The occasion? Their co-production of Leah Nanako Winkler's play Two Mile Hollow, a parody of a certain well-worn