Review: HELL ON WHEELS at Barbara Barker Center For Dance

I’ll admit that before seeing HELL ON WHEELS: The Winter Strike of 1934 at the 2026 Minnesota Fringe Festival, I didn’t know much about this part of Minneapolis history. That ended up being one of the things I enjoyed most about the show. I walked away feeling like I had learned something about the city I live in while also seeing a really engaging piece of theatre.

Written by Theo Ebarb and directed by Libby Wasylik, HELL ON WHEELS takes place during the Great Depression and follows Minneapolis truckers and their families as they begin organizing for better working conditions. Rather than trying to tell the entire story of the labor movement, the show focuses on the people involved and what was happening in their everyday lives.

There is quite a bit happening throughout the production, but it moves quickly. The story goes between family life, conversations among workers and the growing effort to organize. There are serious moments, but there is also plenty of humor, which I wasn’t expecting going into a show about a labor strike.

The cast works well together, with Bjorn Long, Samantha Roback, Moses R Young, Talia Smigielski, Nick Willcocks, Chandler Clement-Oja and Belinda Burkitt taking on the people at the center of the story. It feels very much like an ensemble show, which fits a story that is ultimately about a group of people coming together.

I also really enjoyed the use of live music. Emmett Doyle serves as music director and performs alongside Izzy Wizzel, bringing folk and labor music into the production. It adds another layer to the show and fits naturally with the story being told.

The physical staging also stood out to me. The Barbara Barker Center for Dance is used in creative ways as the cast moves from one location to another without relying on a large or complicated set. Claire Burkitt’s costume design, Margaret Lindahl’s art design, Aaron Lockrem’s props and Mason Tyer’s fight and intimacy choreography all help build the world of 1934 Minneapolis.

There is a lot of history packed into a short amount of time, and I could have easily watched a longer version. Ebarb is currently working on a larger three-act play covering the winter, spring and summer strikes of 1934, so there is clearly much more of this story still to tell.

For me, the biggest takeaway was simply learning about something that happened right here in Minneapolis nearly 100 years ago. We hear about major events in American history all the time, but sometimes the history that happened in our own backyard is the history we know the least about.

HELL ON WHEELS: The Winter Strike of 1934 gave me a reason to want to know more about what happened in Minneapolis in 1934. It’s an interesting and entertaining look at local history and the people who were part of it, and it was a great addition to the 2026 Minnesota Fringe Festival.

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