REVIEW: Freewheeling Adaptation of The Hobbit at CTC (Children’s Theatre Company) Arts Dance Music Theatre by Amy Donahue - March 19, 2019March 19, 2019 Becca Hart and Reed Sigmund in the Children's Theatre Company's new adaptation of The Hobbit. Photo by Dan Norman. There's a freewheeling musical adaptation of The Hobbit playing at the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis. This new take on J.R.R. Tolkien's classic children's novel is very loosely based on the source
INTERVIEW: Soprano Liv Redpath on Singing in the Best of All Possible Worlds Arts Music Opera Theatre by Basil Considine - March 18, 2019March 18, 2019 Opera is seemingly everywhere in the Twin Cities in March, with productions and concerts by the University of Minnesota, Minnesota Opera, Skylark Opera Theatre, and more. Into this tangled period leaps the choral music ensemble VocalEssence, which has chosen "The Best of All Possible Worlds" – that is, to perform Leonard
REVIEW: Timely The Fix (MN Opera) Arts Dance Music Opera Theatre by Basil Considine - March 17, 2019March 17, 2019 The ensemble of Minnesota Opera's world premiere production of The Fix, which opened Saturday at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul, Minnesota. Photo by Cory Weaver. It's rather poetic that Minnesota Opera's The Fix premiered just days after breaking news of a major college admissions fraud and bribery
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
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