Hamlet (at the Jungle Theater, through Oct 9) is the greatest play ever written. William Shakespeare‘s sinuous exploration of (in no particular order) revenge, love, ambition, power, madness, violence, suicide, lust, agonizing passivity, aristocratic privilege represents, along with the Sistine…
Category: Theater
Minnesota Fringe Festival 2011
Billed as “Minnesota’s festival of the performing arts”, The Fringe Festival boasts performances of 160+ shows spread over a breathless ten day period, Aug 4-14. We at HowWasTheShow.com (J.O. = John Olive and J.P. = Janet Preus) offer herewith highly…
“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,…
Waiting For Godot by Theatre Pro Rata at the Hollywood Theatre
In a just world, the Hollywood Theater, that Depression-era temple to the art of cinema, would thrive. A small but worthy arts group – like, oh, say, Theatre Pro Rata – would take over, quickly find the dough for lovely…
Street Scene by Girl Friday Productions at the Minneapolis Theater Garage
Elmer Rice‘s brilliant Street Scene (beautifully done by Girl Friday Productions, performing at the Minneapolis Theater Garage through July 30) burst onto the Broadway stage in 1929. Groundbreaking, realistic but not grimly naturalistic, Street Scene explores the textures of life…
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…
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…