FEATURE/PREVIEW: The Tale of the Raucous Don Pasquale (Minnesota Opera) Arts Dance Music Opera Theatre by Basil Considine - September 16, 2017June 24, 2018 A scene from Arizona Opera's 2015 production of Don Pasquale. The same production design will be used in Minnesota Opera's upcoming production of the same opera. Photo by Ed Flores. For an opera that people thought was going to be a failure, Don Pasquale (1843) certainly has done very well for itself. Today,
NEWS: Royal Shakespeare Company Announces Season of All-Female Directors Arts Theatre by Basil Considine - September 13, 2017September 13, 2017 A promotional image for the Royal Shakespeare Company's upcoming production of Macbeth. The Royal Shakespeare Company, one of the world's pre-eminent theatre organizations, announced yesterday that every single new mainstage production in its next season will be directed by women. The announcement came the same day as news broke of the
PREVIEW: In the Heights Rises (Ordway) Arts Dance Music Theatre by Basil Considine - September 11, 2017September 12, 2017 The cast of the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts/Teatro del Pueblo production of In the Heights. The musical Hamilton is such a cultural juggernaut that it's brought a lot of non-traditional audiences to the altar of musical theatre. Such is its publicity that many regular theatregoers assume that its creator
PREVIEW: Marketing the Disturbing in The Nether (Jungle Theater) Arts Theatre by Basil Considine - September 9, 2017September 9, 2017 Stephen Yoakam and Mo Perry in the Jungle Theater's upcoming production of The Nether. Photo by William Clark. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the theatre, another play about child abuse is opening in Uptown Minneapolis. In case the above sentence didn't tip you off, have some
REVIEW: Capturing a Dance Icon in Dancing on the Edge (Theatre Novi Most) Arts Dance Theatre by Basil Considine - September 8, 2017January 4, 2018 A happier moment in Isadora Duncan (Lisa Channer) and Sergei Esenin (Sasha Andreev)'s turbulent romance in Theatre Novi Most's Dancing on the Edge. If you study modern dance, sooner or later you'll come across the name of Isadora Duncan. Duncan (1877/1878-1927) was one of the most famous dancers of the early 20th
PREVIEW: Lady with a Lap Dog (Fortune’s Fool) Arts Music Theatre by Basil Considine - September 6, 2017September 6, 2017 Laurel Anderson (Mrs. Prozorov, Dasha, others), Joel Liestman (Dmitri), and Andrea Leap (Anna). Photo by Daniel Pinkerton. "Translation," Umberto Eco wrote, "is the art of failure." The subtleties of translation may make seemingly small differences large and cause one thing to be mistaken for another. Next week, Fortune's Fool Theater opens a
FEATURE: The Venezuelan Crisis and Music – A Tale of El Sistema, Bolivarists, and Sphinx Arts Music by Basil Considine - August 31, 2017September 6, 2017 The Catalyst Quartet rehearsing. It was the first of August. Dr. Deborah Justice was settling in for a month of fiddling around – musically speaking – when the email arrived. "I’m afraid I have some sad news from Caracas," it began. "Venezuela at this moment is now a war zone." At that
NEWS: Sally Ordway Award Proves Fatal to Recipient Arts Theatre by Basil Considine - August 29, 2017August 31, 2017 The late J. Otis Powell. Poet, playwright, and overall multi-talented artist J. Otis Powell died on Monday, August 28. Powell was 61 years' old, and had been awarded a Sally Ordway Irvine Award for Commitment just five days prior. He had struggled with ill health, and received a kidney transplant several
Fringe File, #30: Final Box Office Results for 2017 Arts Dance Music Theatre by Basil Considine - August 23, 2017August 23, 2017 A bar chart showing historical box office totals for the Minnesota Fringe Festival. The Minnesota Fringe Festival announced the final statistics today for the 2017 Minnesota Fringe Festival. The 11-day festival brought in 46,076 butts-in-seats, spread across 860 performances of 167 shows at 17 venues in Minneapolis. Why Count Butts-in-Seats? Since 2016, the
Fringe File, #28: Graphs and Charts, Part 1 Arts Dance Music Theatre by Basil Considine - August 21, 2017August 21, 2017 A mosaic of different graphs of Fringe Festival sold-out attendance data. It's been one week since the 2017 Minnesota Fringe Festival closed its doors and the Fringe staff are still tallying and double-checking festival data. While a fuller report on the festival box office is still forthcoming, here are six figures