MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL THEATER REVIEWS

SUPERMAN BECOMES LOIS LANE is an autobiographical play, tracing the transgender transition of a Saint Paul politician. Fledgling playwright Susan Kimberley was once an investment banker, a lobbyist, and chair of the Saint Paul City Council in her earlier identity as Bob Sylvester. (She also served o...

Once On This Island, playing at the Ordway Theatre through February 9th, is an exhilarating musical fable that seeks to transport the audience into the world of Haitian folklore through a story of love, resilience and sacrifice....

Heather Raffo's NOURA, a variation on themes from Ibsen's A DOLL'S HOUSE set within an immigrant Iraqi family, serves as the mainstage anchor for an ambitious, multi-month series of four shows plus a distinguished panel talk at the Guthrie Theater. Collectively, these comprise the theater's Celebrat...

The goal of the Dowling Studio at the Guthrie Theater is to present groundbreaking theater that asks thought-provoking questions, inspires dialogue, and expands the diversity of voices on its stages: Grey Rock does exactly all of these things. Grey Rock, at its core, tells the story of an ordinary P...

The touring production of JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR at the Orpheum this week is just what the Hennepin Theatre Trust calls it: spectacular. Staged originally in London in 2017, it won that year's Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival. This young company is brim full of talent and energy. They bring ...

If the idea of an update to one of the world's most groundbreaking plays makes you dubious, because you think it will be a stodgy yawner or because you believe classics should not be messed with, or if you know little about Ibsen's most famous play, and so think you'll be too clueless to get this on...

This musical adaptation of Lorca's all-female play is visually arresting, aurally reminiscent of flamenco, and provides a grim dissection of misogynistic oppression within one female-headed household....

Writer and performer Tina Fey was featured guest on the second stop of OPRAH'S 2020 VISION Tour at Saint Paul's Xcel Energy Center on Jan. 11, 2020, where this creator of Broadway's MEAN GIRLS shared some insights and more than a few good one-liners with a sold-out crowd of 15,000....

Perhaps as composer Gioachino Rossini believed, at certain times, life might resemble a comic opera. For opera aficionados in the Twin Cities area, MN Opera at the Ordway Center presents a beloved classic by Rossini--The Barber of Seville. In this story about a rapscallion, yet well to do  barber n...

Do descendants inherit any familial traits or do they assimilate them from their childhood environment? Lyric Arts poses a poignant production of David Auburn's 2000 multiple award winning play, Proof, that deftly tackles this question along with other relevant themes convening mental health. Throug...

The Minnesota Opera (MN OPERA) christened their new season at St. Paul's Ordway Center with Richard Strauss' 1909 score of ELEKTRA combined with a libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. After a century, Strauss' Elektra, a tragic Greek myth, confronts the wrath of God on men, and the revenge of families...

a?oeLips as red as blood. Hair as black as tree bark. Heart as pure as driven snow.a?? These vivid characteristics describe the famous princess Snow White. In an innovative retelling of Snow White from Children's Theatre Company (CTC) adapted and directed by Britian's Greg Banks, this Snow White fo...

The 9th floor black box space at the Guthrie showcases short runs of plays that foreground diverse voices from local and international companies. This season, they've chosen a string of works featuring Arab artists. Currently up is ZAFIRA AND THE RESISTANCE, by Kathryn Haddad, mounted by the Minnes...

AUBERGINE is, like its title, a quirky cross-cultural offering; like eggplant, it won't be to everyone's taste. It's a meditation circling around the ways food, family, memory, and mortality intertwine. Personally, I found it engaging though longer than it needs to be, at 2 hours and 10 minutes, i...

Whether you were born in the '80s, '90s or early 2000, you probably still laugh just as hard as you did the first time you watched the cult classic, Mean Girls. Well now, it's back to make audiences laugh in a whole new way with the Tony-nominated Broadway musical of the same name. The show, which o...

Playwright Dominique Morisseau is a gifted rising voice in the theater, recognized with a 2018 Macarthur 'Genius' Grant. Her straight play PIPELINE centers contemporary lives we see on stage too rarely: an anguished black mother trying to keep her teenage son safe, and her financially successful ex...

The Commonweal Theatre in tiny Lanesboro, Minnesota, takes us on a journey a?" along with the three extremely intrepid female explorers a?" into the late 19th century and beyond....

Wow! When two brothers from East Africa dream their childhood dreams they imagine an Abyssinian circus. The Tesfamarian brothers, Bichu and Bibi, magical, marvelous circus arrives at the Minneapolis Children's Theatre Company (CTC) by way of Ethiopian culture, a country previously titled Abyssinia. ...

Gloria Steinem turns 85 this year, and she's still working as a feminist activist. As embodied in this regional premiere by the great Charity Jones, she's as humble as she is savvy. This production dives into her long life, consistently dedicated to issues of women's rights, but full of personal evo...

Theater Latte Da is justly famous locally for high quality intimate takes on the American musical. This time, they've done their best to erase all division between audience and actor, creating the feel of a 1920s speakeasy in their 240 seat proscenium space. Full disclosure: I don't much like CHIC...

The Guthrie's current production of THE GLASS MENAGERIE (the fifth in its history) is delicate and heartbreaking as well as absolutely faithful to the non-naturalistic spirit of the play, which was so ground-breaking in its day. And while theater nowadays often bounds over all the strictures of real...

Issue driven theater can too often be, well, bad theater: haranguing, simplistic, didactic, predictable. Thankfully, FRIENDS WITH GUNS avoids those pitfalls. Playwright Stephanie Alison Walker, a frequent finalist in a handful of prestigious competitions, has written a contemporary piece from a fem...

I'm all for efforts to create new ensemble musicals in tune with our times. RIDE THE CYCLONE was composed in 2008 by Canadian artists Brooke Maxwell and Jacob Richmond, played at the Toronto Fringe Festival, and has bumped across Canada and the US (including New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and Seattle)...

An arresting artistic light shines over Lyric Arts in September, 2019. To begin their fall season,  Anoka's enterprising theater company produces on the Main Stage Theater, Bright Star--- a 2016 award winning musical by the creative genius of Steve Martin and Edie Brickell. These two tale...

The Classical Actors Ensemble is a company that focuses on classic work and they are currently doing two shows in repertory: a?oeArden of Favershama?? and a?oeMuch Ado About Nothinga??. According to the program, the company wanted to explore a?oeboth sides of the coina?? and do two shows that are op...