INTERVIEW: Colin Mochrie on HYPROV: Improv Under Hypnosis (Ordway) Arts Comedy by Basil Considine - October 22, 2019October 23, 2019 Comedian Colin Mochrie, of Whose Line Is It Anyway? fame, performs with hypnotist Asad Mecci at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts on Sunday in Saint Paul, MN. Canada's Comedy Person of the Year. The Second City. The Vancouver TheatreSports League. Whose Line Is It Anyway? What do these have in common? Comedian and
REVIEW: Falstaff’s World in Rogue Prince (Theatre Coup d’Etat) Arts Theatre by Basil Considine - October 20, 2019October 20, 2019 Gary Briggle, James Napoleon Stone, and Bruce Bohne in Theatre Coup d'Etat's production of Rogue Prince. Theatre Coup d'Etat's current show, Rogue Prince, takes a different approach to Shakespeare. Where the Bard's history plays normally unfold in sprawling detail, adapter Gary Briggle has spun elements of two plays to form a
REVIEW: Mike Birbiglia’s The New One Hit (Ordway) Arts Comedy by Basil Considine - October 18, 2019October 18, 2019 Comedian Mike Birbiglia. A clean comic can be hard to find these days. Not in terms of personal hygiene – that's something we wouldn't presume or want to have to judge – but in terms of content. Shock-value, fame, and R-rated comics seem to go hand-in-hand, which does tend to segment
INTERVIEW: Mike Birbiglia on The New One and Opting Out of Winter Arts Comedy by Basil Considine - October 15, 2019October 15, 2019 Comedian Mike Birbiglia, who performs at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul from Oct. 17-19. When reviewing comedian Mike Birbiglia's latest solo show The New One, the New York Times' Ben Brantley decided to wax poetic. "Mr. Birbiglia’s voice," he wrote, "becomes a low, wraparound, pleasure-drenched caress.
REVIEW: Pleasant, Low-Calorie Most Happy Fella (Skylark Opera Theatre) Arts Dance Music Opera Theatre by Basil Considine - October 14, 2019October 15, 2019 Bill Marshall and Sarah Lawrence in the Skylark Opera Theatre production of The Most Happy Fella, now playing at the Mounds Theatre in St. Paul, MN. Photo courtesy of Skylark Opera Theatre. What would you get if Frank Loesser of Guys and Dolls fame decided to write an opera? You'd get
REVIEW: Powerful, Bloody Elektra (Minnesota Opera) Arts Music Opera Theatre by Basil Considine - October 8, 2019October 16, 2019 A scene from Minnesota Opera's new production of Elektra, which opened Saturday in St. Paul, MN. Photo by Cory Weaver. Before there was Kill Bill, there was Elektra: a drama from Classical Greece whose culmination is a well-telegraphed murder. Did your father kill your sister and your mother kill your father?
REVIEW: Ephemeral Mean Girls Just Gotta Have Fun (Orpheum Theatre) Arts Dance Music Theatre Visual Arts by Basil Considine - October 3, 2019October 3, 2019 A scene from the touring production of Mean Girls, now playing at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis. Pictured: Danielle Wade, Megan Masako Haley, Mariah Rose Faith, and Jonalyn Saxer. Photo by Joan Marcus. If stage and film were taken as the measure of U.S. society, one thing's for sure: our high
INTERVIEW: Ilana Ransom Topelitz on Sharpening Rocky Horror‘s Bite (Park Square Theatre) Arts Dance Music Theatre by Basil Considine - October 2, 2019October 2, 2019 Director-choreographer Ilana Ransom Topelitz on the set of Park Square Theatre's upcoming production of The Rocky Horror Show. Photo by Rachel Wandrei. Of all the people that you might expect to love The Rocky Horror Show, Princess Diana of Wales was probably not at the top of the list. But it
INTERVIEW: Mariah Rose Faith on Mean Girls and Her Personal Screen-to-Stage Journey Arts Dance Music Theatre by Basil Considine - September 30, 2019September 30, 2019 Jonalyn Saxer, Mariah Rose Faith, Megan Masako Haley, and Danielle Wade in a promotional photo for the national tour of the musical Mean Girls. Photo by Mary Ellen Matthews. Minneapolis is about to get mean. Mean Girls, that is. The brand-new national tour of this Broadway musical kicked off in Buffalo, NY
INTERVIEW: Sabine Hogrefe on Battling the Soprano-Wrecker in Elektra Arts Music Opera Theatre by Basil Considine - September 24, 2019September 28, 2019 Costume sketches by Mathew LeFebvre for Minnesota Opera's upcoming production of Richard Strauss's opera Elektra. The Soprano-Wrecker. The End of Harmony. The Most Horrific Tragedy in Opera. The First Freudian Opera. These are but a few of the nicknames for the opera Elektra. Composed by Richard Strauss, the opera first took