Author: John Olive

H.M.S. Pinafore at the Guthrie Theater

Perhaps director Joe Dowling and playwright Jeffrey Hatcher (provider of “additional material”) are right: as it stands Gilbert and Sullivan‘s gloriously English, emphatically 19th century H.M.S. Pinafore (at the Guthrie, through August 28) is too dry and dreary for 21st…

Panic at Park Square Theatre

In Panic (at Park Square Theatre, through July 10), playwright Joseph Goodrich creates a “cozy” mystery: characters are powerful, wealthy, self-assured.  They live postcard-perfect lives.  Henry Lockwood, famous film-director, prepares to open his latest film (a grand success, of course)…

Guys And Dolls at the Ordway

“What kind of doll are you?” Sky Masterson, high-roller extraordinaire, asks incredulously. To which Sergeant Sarah Brown, proud marcher for the Salvation Army, now sober after getting herself roundly sloshed on Bacardi-flavored milkshakes, replies defiantly, “I’m a mission doll!”  End…

God Of Carnage at the Guthrie Theater

New York is a marvelous city: compact, gorgeously slummy, ethnicities swirling together, SROs right next to upper income high-rises.  The City (New Yorkers never bother with the actual name) is filled with weird clubs, outstanding eateries, architectural gems, astounding street…

Opus at Park Square Theatre

Park Square Theatre is turning plays about classical music into a minor specialty.  They recently produced (it opened the night of the Big Blizzard) 2 Pianos 4 Hands, a lively and affecting mediation on failure: what happens when you devote…

after the quake by Walking Shadow Theatre Company

Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami is a master of the everyday surreal: he creates ordinary characters – bank clerks, university students, data processors – and builds around them fantastic dream-like stories.  Like Dorothy thrust into the land of Oz, Murakami’s people…

Sexy Librarian: File Under Rock Musical by Joking Envelope at the Minneapolis Theatre Garage

The play stars Anna Sundberg, and that’s all you really need to know. In Sexy Librarian: File Under Rock Musical (Joking Envelope at the Minneapolis Theatre Garage through May 21) Sundberg plays Constance Black, ultra-frumpy librarian, frizzy-haired, near-sighted, bent under…

I Wish You Love at Penumbra Theatre Company

I approached the production of Dominic Taylor‘s powerful I Wish You Love (Penumbra Theatre, through May 22) with some trepidation.  Dennis W. Spears is lavishly talented, tall and charismatic, with a presence as big as the grand outdoors.  We recently…