INTERVIEW: Another Chat with The Realish Housewives of Edina Arts Theatre by Basil Considine - March 30, 2017March 31, 2017 The 50th & France shopping district name-dropped in The Realish Housewives of Edina, Season 2. Part 2 of Basil Considine's interview with The Realish Housewives of Edina, Season 2's writers Kate James and Tim Sniffen and actresses Katherine Kupiecki and Karissa Lade. Read Part 1 Reality TV is often a love-it-or-hate-it thing. Where do you stand
INTERVIEW: Three Questions with the Writers Behind The Realish Housewives of Edina Arts Theatre by Basil Considine - March 29, 2017March 30, 2017 The Realish Housewives of Edina, Season 2 is currently playing at the New Century Theatre in Minneapolis. The show, the sequel to last year's hit Season 1, spawned a national tour of localized productions skewering affluent suburbs around the country. The show was penned by Kate James and Tim Sniffen, a Chicago-based team
REVIEW: Good Cider from Twisted Apples (Nautilus Music Theater) Arts Music Opera Theatre by Basil Considine - March 29, 2017March 29, 2017 Minnie Pearson (Norah Long), Ray Perason (Gary Briggle), and Hal Winters (Eric Morris) in Twisted Apples. If your life is missing opera and you can't wait until La Bohème arrives in May, see Twisted Apples. For that matter, if you like opera, period – or stories told with interesting, beautiful, and emotional turns of
INTERVIEW: Tyler Michaels on West Side Story and His New Theatre Company Arts Dance Music Theatre by Basil Considine - March 24, 2017March 24, 2017 Caroline Innerbichler (Ariel) examines Tyler Michaels (Prince Eric) in Chanhassen Dinner Theatres' 2014 production of Disney's The Little Mermaid. Somali gangs in Minneapolis might get all the press, but the City of St. Paul is about to get its very own gang problem. Well, kind of – the Jets and Sharks of West
REVIEW: The Flash‘s “Duet” Best Musical Episode of Season Arts Music TV by Basil Considine - March 21, 2017March 22, 2017 "My mother used to say that musicals had the power to make everything better." In this evening's musical episode of The Flash, we learn that The Flash and Supergirl grew up watching movie musicals. It's the sort of previously undisclosed detail that seems entirely plausible – both because of how classic
FEATURE: Trump’s Proposed NEA Cuts and the Legacy of Piss Christ Arts Dance Music Opera Theatre Visual Arts by Basil Considine - March 19, 2017July 11, 2017 Nikolay Petrovich Lomtev's Girolamo Savonarola preaching in Florence. Father Savonarola's incendiary critique of luxury led to the infamous Bonfires of the Vanities, the largest of which on Feb. 7, 1492 including the burning of several paintings by Renaissance masters. Among other achievements, Savonarola successfully advocated for laws banning sodomy and declared that
REVIEW: Realish Housewives of Edina, Season 2 Skewers Reality TV (Hennepin Theatre Trust) Arts Theatre by Basil Considine - March 18, 2017March 18, 2017 There's a drinking game for the Real Housewives television series where you take a drink when a character says something snarky in a camera confession. If you watched The Realish Housewives of Edina, Season 2 while playing this game, your liver wouldn't make it a quarter of the way though Act I. Alcohol is
REVIEW: The 24 Hour Plays: The Second Half (Hennepin Theatre Trust) Arts Music Theatre by Basil Considine - March 16, 2017March 18, 2017 There's always something exciting about a frenzied rush to create. Sometimes the work produced under pressure is brilliant, with daringness that would probably get sanded with too much reflection. Sometimes the results are...less than appealing, which is something that happens. Most often, the results are a mixed bag – which
REVIEW: Dinner at Eight, Performance Edition (Minnesota Opera) Arts Music Opera Theatre Visual Arts by Basil Considine - March 14, 2017March 15, 2017 The eponymous dinner party in Minnesota Opera's Dinner at Eight. Photo by Cory Weaver. Minnesota Opera's Dinner at Eight, which premiered on Saturday at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, is a vibrant new comedy with an engaging score and finely tune libretto. This review focuses on the performances in the
REVIEW: Dinner at Eight‘s Splendid Comic Melodrama (Minnesota Opera) Arts Music Opera Theatre by Basil Considine - March 14, 2017March 15, 2017 New money socialites Dan Packard (Craig Irvin) and Kitty Packard (Susannah Biller) squabble in the world premiere production of Dinner at Eight by Minnesota Opera. Photo by Cory Weaver. Contemporary American opera is usually no laughing matter. At any given opera premiere, you can expect an occasional inserted joke and perhaps some moments of wry underscoring,