PREVIEW: Nuns Flocking Back to Chanhassen in Soaring Sister Act Arts Dance Music Theatre Visual Arts by Basil Considine - September 17, 2017September 17, 2017 Regina Marie Williams (center) as Deloris Van Cartier "blending in" at the convent in Chanhassen Dinner Theatres' 2015 production of Sister Act. Photo by Heidi Bohnenkamp. The Star Tribune's Graydon Royce said that Chanhassen Dinner Theatres' 2015 production of Sister Act "soared on the wings of Regina Marie Williams’ performance as nightclub
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,
PREVIEW: An Advance Look at The Abominables (Children’s Theatre Company) Arts Dance Music Theatre by Twin Cities Arts Reader - September 11, 2017September 11, 2017 Rival hockey teams face off in The Abominables, opening this week at the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis, MN. Photo by Dan Norman. It is a time-honored theatrical adage that the show must go on. Thus, the Children's Theatre Company took a moment over the weekend to acknowledge the tragic death of
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
FEATURE: The Secret Life of Fringe Remounts Arts Dance Music Theatre by Amy Donahue - September 10, 2017September 10, 2017 Note: This article has been updated to include a mention of Dancing Bare Feet. Extending or reprising a show's run is every theatrical producer's dream. Evidently dreams do come true, because several shows from the 2017 Minnesota Fringe Festival are having reprises and remounts. Two of the best-selling shows of this year's
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: Facts and Figures – the National Tour of Aladdin Behind the Scenes Arts Dance Music Theatre Visual Arts by Twin Cities Arts Reader - September 1, 2017August 18, 2017 Adam Jacobs (Aladdin) and Isabelle McCalla (Jasmine) star in the national touring production of Aladdin. Photo by Deen van Meer. How many people does it take to put on a national tour of a Broadway show? If the show is Aladdin, the answer is 75...if you only count the people who show
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
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
PREVIEW: Love Letters (Cannery Works/Plymouth Arts Council) Arts Music Theatre by Twin Cities Arts Reader - August 22, 2017 Actors Gary Briggle (left) and Wendy Lehr (right). Photo by Keith Bridges. The playwright A.R. Gurney passed away two months ago. Many of the various eulogies and obituaries cited his 1988 play Love Letters, a tale of charmed correspondence that was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Love Letters encapsulated many of the themes