Charles Fraser News

Door Shakespeare Producing Artistic Director Michael Stebbins and Managing Director Amy Ensign announces the Autumn Door Shakespeare Reading Series offering: I Hate Hamlet by Paul Rudnick. I Hate Hamlet will be presented on Monday, October 18 at 7 p.m. at the Woodwalk Gallery in Egg Harbor, Wisconsin.

On February 12, 2021, Door Shakespeare brings together an eclectic ensemble of nine artists to share excerpts from three plays by William Shakespeare that are featured in Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven as part of the 2021 NEA Big Read: Door County, running through February 13.

Door Shakespeare has announced their second virtual production: The Comedy of Errors, by William Shakespeare. The Comedy of Errors streams to homes from Tuesday, October 27 through Monday, November 16.

Four people living in a place called denial spend an eventful evening in a NYC hotel suite that goes from party to pathetic in a swift 90 minutes. Playing at Mixed Blood's stage through May 27.

On May 6, Mixed Blood Theatre will host the world premiere of playwright Beck Lee's Subprime, a new dark comedy with Minneapolis roots that was workshopped in New York. Lee's play, about two couples from Minneapolis's Linden Hills neighborhood who travel to New York on a bargain vacation none of them can afford, begins Friday, May 4 at 7:30 p.m., with an opening on Sunday, May 6 at 3 p.m. Produced by Media Blitz Entertainment, the show's four-week engagement closes Sunday, May 27 at 3 p.m. Tickets are now on sale at www.subprimetheplay.com .

Jen Burleigh-Bentz has a lot of enthusiasm for her recent experience working north of the cities -- way north. Her recent gig as The Duluth Playhouse and her work on MAMMA MIA! are the topics of the day in this 6 Questions & a Plug.

Ordway Center for the Performing Arts presents one of the best-loved musicals of all time, Annie, directed by the Twin Cities' own Austene Van. Full of holiday spirit and family fun, this new Ordway Original production will be on stage December 7-31.

Following a critically acclaimed performance as Mama Rose in Gypsy at the John W. Engeman Theatre in New York this past month, Michele Ragusa comes to the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts to play Miss Hannigan in Annie.

Ordway Center for the Performing Arts presents one of the best-loved musicals of all time, Annie, directed by the Twin Cities' own Austene Van. Full of holiday spirit and family fun, this new Ordway Original production will be on stage December 7-31.

Following a critically acclaimed performance as Mama Rose in Gypsy at the John W. Engeman Theatre in New York this past month, Michele Ragusa comes to the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts to play Miss Hannigan in Annie. Ms. Ragusa is best known for her Broadway performances in A Class Act, Titanic, Ragtime and taking over for Megan Mullally in Young Frankenstein. She has also performed with some of the top Symphonies in the country including: Detroit Symphony, Oklahoma City Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Phoenix Symphony and The Kennedy Center Holiday Pops with Marvin Hamlisch.

Ordway Center for the Performing Arts presents one of the best-loved musicals of all time, Annie, directed by the Twin Cities' own Austene Van. Full of holiday spirit and family fun, this new Ordway Original production will be on stage December 7-31.

Brilliance! Made Here, downtown Minneapolis' urban walking gallery, will unveil a new fall/winter series of nearly 40 storefront window "Showcases," featuring Minnesota art inspired by the creative interpretation of light, on November 28, 2014. Led by Hennepin Theatre Trust and Joan Vorderbruggen, the Trust's Cultural District Arts Coordinator, Made Here is the largest storefront window initiative in the country. Brilliance! lights up the downtown Minneapolis Cultural District during an unveiling and free public launch from 6-7:30 p.m. on the Today after Thanksgiving, November 28. Festivities will begin at Marin Restaurant and Bar, located at 901 Hennepin Avenue, and lead into guided walking tours of the window galleries at 6 and 7 p.m. The launch also coincides with the opening of the Holidazzle Village featuring the Minneapolis Christmas Market in Peavey Plaza. For more details, visit MadeHereMN.org.

Brilliance! Made Here, downtown Minneapolis' urban walking gallery, will unveil a new fall/winter series of nearly 40 storefront window "Showcases," featuring Minnesota art inspired by the creative interpretation of light, on November 28, 2014. Led by Hennepin Theatre Trust and Joan Vorderbruggen, the Trust's Cultural District Arts Coordinator, Made Here is the largest storefront window initiative in the country. Brilliance! lights up the downtown Minneapolis Cultural District during an unveiling and free public launch from 6-7:30 p.m. on the Friday after Thanksgiving, November 28. Festivities will begin at Marin Restaurant and Bar, located at 901 Hennepin Avenue, and lead into guided walking tours of the window galleries at 6 and 7 p.m. The launch also coincides with the opening of the Holidazzle Village featuring the Minneapolis Christmas Market in Peavey Plaza. For more details, visit MadeHereMN.org.

Park Square continues its 2014-2015 season next month with Moises Kaufman's 33 VARIATIONS. The acclaimed author of Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde and The Laramie Project explores genius, obsession and the ability to connect against all odds. Edwin Strout and Karen Landry* play Ludwig van Beethoven and Dr. Katherine Brandt, separated by a continent and a century, but little else. Entertainment Weekly hailed 33 VARIATIONS as 'a convincing case for the genius of emotional variation in each of us, whether we're Beethoven or not.'

With Sexy Laundry opening tonight, the entire cast roster for the theatre's biggest season is almost complete. Nearly 300 Minnesota artists - including actors, directors, designers and technical operators - will mount 18 productions on two stages. The season lineup confirms Park Square's commitment to the work of women writers like Amy Herzog, Michele Riml and Alice Walker. The casting emphasizes Park Square as a home for local artists of color, from returning favorites like James A. Williams, T. Mychael Rambo and Regina Williams to dozens of debuts like Dominique Wooten, Kurt Kwan and Sarah Ochs.

This spring marks the 15th anniversary production of The Diary of Anne Frank by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett at Park Square Theatre. When it closes on May 15, the production-the touching story of a brave young woman coming of age in hiding from the Nazis-will have played for 638 performances and inspired 201,000 audience members, including tens of thousands of students from all over Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa. The original Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway production played for 717 performances. Julie Ann Nevill, who has played Mrs. Van Daan since the first curtain call, said 'This show has tremendous impact on our whole region with as many as 16,000 students seeing it every year - for most it's their first professional live theatre experience. Who wouldn't want to be part of that magic?'

The Jungle's 2013 season concludes with DRIVING MISS DAISY, directed by Artistic Director Bain Boehlke, and starring Ivey Award-winning Wendy Lehr as Atlanta matriarch Daisy Werthan, and James Craven as her compassionate chauffeur, in his Jungle debut. Alfred Uhry's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, a searing, humorous and ultimately hopeful meditation on race relations in America, runs November 8-December 22, 2013 at the Jungle Theater, 2951 Lyndale Av. S. in Minneapolis. Check out a first look below!

Harper Lee's Pulitzer-prize winning classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, returns to Park Square after sold-out performances in 2011. Set in a small town in Alabama in 1935, it is a story of one man's pursuit of justice in a climate of racial inequality. The novel's hero Atticus Finch serves as an iconic inspiration for tolerance and integrity; his eight-year-old daughter Scout remains among the most beloved young characters in literature with her pluck, smarts and willingness to understand the perspectives of others. Directed by David Mann, this large-scale staging of Christopher Sergel's adaptation includes a gospel chorus and an evocative set designed by Joel Sass. To Kill a Mockingbird is on stage for eight general audience performances April 4-14, 2013.

History Theatre will honor the legacy of Nellie Stone Johnson, a Minnesota labor and civil rights activist who broke countless race and gender barriers during her lifetime of civil service in countless community leadership roles, running now through February 17, 2013. Get a first look at the production in the photos below!

Park Square Theatre presents its annual production of THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK, based on one of the 20th Century's most inspiring and enduring narratives. The story comes to life in three weeks of student performances February 26 -March 22 at Park Square Theatre, 20 W. Seventh Place, Saint Paul.