The Hennepin Theatre Trust has opened it’s 2011-12 season with a guaranteed winner. Forget what you know about La Cage aux Folles and start over. Yes, the daffy premise and the flamboyant drag queens are there, but this production has…
Author: Janet Preus
“A Wrinkle in Time” at the Minneapolis Children’s Theatre
The Children’s Theatre Company’s fall offering for the grade-school set is a staging of the popular Madeleine L’Engle’s science fiction fantasy, A Wrinkle in Time. This production plays on a relatively simple unit set with well-placed levels, saving the wizardry…
“Neighbors” at Mixed Blood Theatre
Mixed Blood has opened their season with an outrageous play and an equally outrageous concept, and I am equally impressed with both. The play is Neighbors by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, a biting satire of every Black stereotype you’ve ever heard of;…
“Cat’s Paw” produced by Theatre Pro Rata at the Gremlin Theater
“Cat’s Paw†by William Mastrosimone, Theatre Pro Rata’s new offering showing at the Gremlin Theater, paints a “what if†world ignited by pressing ecological issues and fueled by the media’s obsession with ratings. Eco-terrorists—or “eco-warriors,†as the leader (Victor) of…
“Much Ado about Nothing”
The Guthrie Theater opened its 2011-2012 season last night with a new Joe Dowling production of Much Ado about Nothing. One of Shakespeare’s more serious comedies, it is rich in life lessons as the work of a seasoned playwright. The…
“9 to 5: The Musical†at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts
The Ordway has picked a light, summertime treat with the national touring production of “9 to 5: The Musical.†Based rather faithfully on the 1980 movie, with over-the-top aw-shucks humor it tackles, somewhat literally, a very serious subject indeed: gender…
“West Side Story” at the Orpheum Theatre
There’s still time to make a performance of West Side Story brought to the Twin Cities by the Hennepin Theatre Trust – and you should! This recent revival keeps all the grace and beauty of the original Broadway production,…
Songbird by Upright Egg Theatre Company at Nimbus Theater
Upright Egg Theatre Company has opened a company-created show set in a steampunk world laced with dozens of metaphor fragments about love and loss, manmade machines versus nature, lower versus upper classes, beauty versus functionality. But that doesn’t really tell…
“Steerage Song” by Theater Latte Da at the Fitzgerald Theater
Theater Latte Da, in partnership with Minnesota Public Radio, has turned its attention to the stories of our immigrant forebears, as told through newspaper reports, speeches, books of the period and the songs distinctive to each culture. The music the…
“Come Hell and High Water” by The Moving Company at the Southern Theater
A new theater company with firmly established Twin Cities artists has ventured forth with a credo that is, not surprisingly, given the founders, committed to new ideas; this has been the calling card for shows conceived and guided by Dominique…