INTERVIEW: Ilima Considine as the Sexbots on SXSW, Summertime, and More Arts Lifestyle Music Visual Arts by Twin Cities Arts Reader - April 5, 2017April 5, 2017 Ilima Considine with PDX Dance Collective. Photo by Micah Goldstein. Two weeks after the 2017 installment of South by Southwest closed its doors, it's still the post-recovery (and/or hangover) period for festival attendees. Since its founding in 1987, this Austin, Texas-based festival has grown from a small new music festival to one
REVIEW: Dark Fun in Matilda: The Musical (Hennepin Theatre Trust) Arts Dance Music Theatre by Bev Wolfe - April 1, 2017April 1, 2017 Jaime MacLean as Matilda in Matilda: The Musical. Photo by Cybil von Tiedemann. Child abuse runs rampant in the Orpheum Theatre’s presentation of the Broadway touring musical Matilda. The musical is based upon Roald Dahl’s children's novel Matilda. Dahl is famous for such books as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. For
NEWS: Walker Art Center Transforms into Giant Robot, Stops Monster Menace (April Fools) Arts Dance Dining Lifestyle Movies Music Opera Theatre Visual Arts by Basil Considine - April 1, 2017April 1, 2017 The W.A.L.K.E.R. giant robot prepares to deal a finishing blow to the monster that menaced Minneapolis this morning. The Minneapolis Monster Menace has come to an end. In a stunning development, the Walker Art Center transformed into a giant robot and defeated the monster menacing Uptown in a climactic battle on
FEATURE: The Ordway’s White Christmas and Vocal Teeth (April Fools) Arts Dance Music Theatre by Basil Considine - April 1, 2017April 1, 2017 Ann Michaels in a discarded promotional photo for the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts/5th Avenue Theatre coproduction of White Christmas. Photo by Rich Ryan. Last November, while Minnesota was still flirting with fall and winter weather, the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts was going full-speed ahead with plans for an
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: Gondoliers Gone Wild (GSVLOC) Arts Music Opera Theatre by Twin Cities Arts Reader - March 18, 2017March 18, 2017 Gondoliers Giuseppe Palmieri (Ryan Johnson) and Marco Palmieri (Michael Burton) with their maybe wives Tessa (Maggie Burr) and Gianetta (Blanka Melbostad) in GSVLOC’s The Gondoliers. The Gondoliers was only the fourth-most popular work in the Gilbert & Sullivan canon when it was written, as counted by the length of its original theatrical
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