Anya Kremenetsky

What do you get when you combine COLLIDE Theatrical Dance Company, known for creating original dance musicals, with the History Theatre, dedicated to creating new work based on or inspired by true events in Minnesota history? You get DANCE 'TIL YOU DROP, a dance musical about a Minnesota dance team who competed and set a record in a dance marathon in the 1930s. Let's call it an original historical dance musical! Like all COLLIDE productions, it features exquisite storytelling through dance, and like all History Theatre shows, it's an informative and compelling look at history and how it relates to today. It's fun, inspirational, nostalgic, and over in a quick two hours that will leave you wanting more.

Among the many vital functions of theater are these: to give voice to the voiceless, to tell stories that are lost to time, and to give audiences empathic access to lives they never personally intersect.* Saint Paul's History Theatre scores well on these aims with their remounting of ORPHAN TRAIN, set in 1889, which first premiered as a commission by the theater in 1997.

The History Theatre in St. Paul is committed to bringing new plays and musicals to the stage, usually inspired by true events in Minnesota history. Their yearly Raw Stages festival, a series of workshops and readings of new works, often results in full productions in the following season or two. But I often wonder, what happens next? After a new play or musical is developed, produced, and well-received, where does it go? In the case of 2001's WATERMELON HILL, it comes back again 15 years later. As much as I love seeing new works of theater on History Theatre's stage, I'm thrilled that they brought this wonderful old new work back to the stage, giving it a fresh new production. Inspired by historical events, WATERMELON HILL tells the stories of three young women in the mid '60s, pregnant and unmarried, sent in shame to St. Paul's Catholic Infant Home to wait out their pregnancies, deliver their babies, give them up for adoption, and then leave and never look back. Surprisingly light and funny for such a somber topic, the play brings light to the all too familiar tale of the challenges and lack of education and choices facing women in the past, and perhaps to a lesser extant, even today. Along with THE HOW AND THE WHY and NINA SIMONE: FOUR WOMEN, it's another fantastic choice of theater to present during Women's History Month.

History Theatre will once again partner with the Minnesota History Center to present four staged readings of new scripts that are currently being developed by Minnesota artists. This year's RAW STAGES New Works Festival will include a revised script by Eric 'Pogi' Sumangil about Minnesota's Filipino community (Debutante Ball), along with three newly commissioned scripts from Carlyle Brown (Boundary Waters), Jeffrey Hatcher and Chan Poling (Glensheen), and Garrison Keillor (Radio Man).

Bloomington Theatre and Art Center (BTAC) is offering a variety of theater classes for youth and adults this spring and summer, including classes that introduce actors young and old to the works of William Shakespeare.

Registration is now open for Bloomington Theatre and Art Center's Camp Shakespeare, a special 2-week summer theater camp for all youth entering Grades 2-12. This educational offering for young people will introduce dramatically-inclined students to the beautiful language and stories of William Shakespeare in a workshop-based rehearsal setting, weekdays from June 17- June 28, 9:00 a.m. to noon. The camp will culminate in two free public performances on June 29 and 30, as the youth enrolled in Camp Shakespeare share the stage with the professional artists who will teach them.

Bloomington Theatre and Art Center (BTAC) is offering a variety of theater classes for youth and adults this spring and summer, including classes that introduce actors young and old to the works of William Shakespeare.

Bloomington Theatre and Art Center (BTAC) is offering a variety of theater classes for youth and adults this spring and summer, including classes that introduce actors young and old to the works of William Shakespeare.