Mixed Precipitation returns for a fourth season with opera outdoors, paired with snacks and set in a community garden. It’s about music, theater, community, sustainable food production and eating locally—and simply delightful entertainment. The annual production is masterminded by one…
Author: Janet Preus
Fringe 2012
It’s here! It’s here! If you haven’t “done the Fringe,” you are in for several days of theatrical surprises. Part of the fun is the comraderie, so get into! Swede Home, Nebraska The name’s not made up. That’s…
Fela at the Ordway
You have just until June 17 to see “Fela†at the Ordway before it heads back to Broadway for a run starting in July. Forget what it was you were going to do this week, quit reading this and get…
Interview: Cory Hinkle and Victoria Stewart
Howwastheshow (HWTS) reviewer, Janet Preus, sat down with Cory Hinkle and Victoria (Tory) Stewart, the writers of a new play, “Clandestino,†premiering in the Twin Cities June 15, to learn about its context in recent history and the collaborative…
Wonderful Town produced by Skylark Opera at the Concordia University Theater
Skylark Opera’s fifth annual Summer Festival opens with Wonderful Town, a frothy delight set in 1930s New York City. With little point but to be entertained, we are free to skip from one clever song to the next, taking in…
Noises Off at the Jungle Theater
Are you ready for a mop-your-eyes-and-try-to-catch-your-breath laugh? The Jungle Theater plans a summer run of Noises Off by Michael Frayn, which is easily the funniest farce I’ve ever seen. I first knew about the play when I read it on…
Standing On Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays. A co-production of Frank Theatre and the Hennepin Theatre Trust
Last night your intrepid HWTS theater reviewers, Janet Preus and John Olive, betook themselves to the spiffily spartan New Century Theatre to see Standing On Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays (a co-production between Frank Theatre and the Hennepin Theatre Trust,…
Steampunk Delusions at Open Eye Figure Theatre, produced by Hardcover Theater and English Scrimshaw Theatrical Novelties
Steampunk Delusions features two plays, one produced by Hardcover Theater and the other by English Scrimshaw Theatrical Novelties. Hardcover Theater fills a curious niche in the Twin Cities, bringing to life somewhat obscure books and stories in sparsely but cleverly…
Are You Now or Have You Ever Been … at the Guthrie Theater produced by Carlyle Brown & Company
In the 1950s, there was a contingent in American politics with an intense fear of the rise of communism, fueled by the belief that communist infiltrators were everywhere, trying to bring down the American way of life. Headed up by…
Mamma Mia! at the Orpheum Theatre
The pitch for the Broadway touring production of Mamma Mia! is “You already know you’re gonna love it!†Judging by the opening night audience, at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Minneapolis, I’d say that’s fairly accurate. A good portion of…