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BWW Review: The Old Vic's Charming, Magical, Fun, and Poignant New Musical DR. SEUSS'S THE LORAX Receives its Triumphant U.S. Premiere at Children's Theatre Company
Unless. What a powerful word. So many scary things might happen. Unless. Unless what, you ask? 'Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.' The best thing to happen lately in this dark and scary world is people caring a whole awful lot about things, an...
BWW Review: GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER at The Guthrie
The Guthrie can be counted on to mount beautifully designed and lit shows on its two main stages, peopled by fine actors under crisp direction, and this production of GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER is no exception. Playwright Todd Kreidler, who worked for many years with August Wilson, penned this ada...
BWW Review: Mixed Blood Theatre Adds Music to a Rolling World Premiere Play to Create a Funny, Sweet, Relatable, and Poignant New Original Musical MERMAID HOUR: REMIXED
On a snowy Sunday afternoon, several of the Twin Cities Theater Bloggers gathered in an old firehouse in Minneapolis to witness the rolling world premiere of a new play called MERMAID HOUR, which means that the premiere is happening in several theaters around the country. In this story of a 12-year-...
BWW Review: Illusion Theater's THE PINK UNICORN is a Funny, Poignant, Relatable Story of a Small Town Woman Turned Activist in Support of Her Gender Queer Child
When you need to dig in your purse for a tissue to blow your nose after seeing a play, you know it was a good one. I don't cry, but @IllusionTheater #pinkunicorn made me cry with its beautiful message of love, hope, & acceptance. #tctheater #bringtissues #openheart #walkwithme
Thus reads my 280-c...
BWW Review: The History Theatre and COLLIDE Theatrical Dance Company Join Forces on the Wonderful Original Dance Musical DANCE 'TIL YOU DROP
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...
BWW Review: Full On Teen Female Bonding in THE WOLVES at Jungle Theater
The WOLVES are a girls travel soccer team of highly competitive high school athletes, many hoping to be noticed and recruited by college coaches. Yes, they are fierce, and yes, they howl. They also grapple with issues as varied as (spoiler alert!) genocide and justice, social anxiety, love and sex...
BWW Review: Lyric Arts' SHE LOVES ME Channels Tangled True Love
Spring's rebirth in March invites magical thoughts of budding romance. A beloved multi-award winning musical rom-com, She Loves Me, sings in the sunny emotions and weather at Anoka's Lyric Arts. The playful musical first ran on Broadway in 1963, and was translated from Miklos Laszlo's 1937 play "Par...
BWW Review: Only One Weekend Left to See Skylark Opera Theatre's Beautifully Moving Contemporary Opera AS ONE
The new incarnation of Skylark Opera Theatre, under new Artistic Director Robert Neu, is presenting their third work of accessible, intimate opera. As someone who usually stays on the musical theater side of the music-theater spectrum, this approach seems like a good one for me, sort of bridging tha...
BWW Review: Chanhassen Dinner Theatre's Summer Blockbuster NEWSIES is a Big, Bold, Energetic, Rousing Regional Premiere
The Children's Crusade: kids walk out of their jobs or schools to take to the streets and stand up for what they believe in, for a fairer and safer world. Does this describe recent current events, a historical event, or the plot of a Disney musical? Trick question - the answer is all of the above! A...
BWW Review: FAMILIAR at Guthrie
Gurira's family drama FAMILIAR has just opened in a lavishly designed and carefully calibrated production at the Guthrie. It's familiar in many ways, as a well-made play on a single set (the interior of an upscale household in Minnetonka, MN) unrolling in real time, that dives into the secrets and ...
BWW Review: INDECENT at the Guthrie
INDECENT is a play about a play: Sholom Asch's GOD OF VENGEANCE, first performed in 1907 in Berlin, then widely across Europe, and eventually in 1923 in New York. There it was censored and the acting troupe was arrested and jailed. It's also about how writers work, about forbidden love, about fam...
BWW Review: Theater Mu and Mixed Blood's Successful First Collaboration on the Hilarious New Play TWO MILE HOLLOW Provides Smart Commentary on Race and Class in America
My 280-character (or less) review of Theater Mu and Mixed Blood Theatre's first ever collaboration: 'Friends, run don't walk to see #twomilehollow (co-production from @theatermu and @mixed_blood). I can't decide whom I love most in this cast of comic geniuses! But behind all the wackiness and humor ...
BWW Review: Faithful and Funny Updated PIRATES OF PENZANCE at Park Square Theatre
'History is something that we can and should improve upon' sings the modern Major General in an added lyric in this cleverly refreshed production of the Gilbert & Sullivan classic. The laugh-out-loud show remains faithful to the original while integrating historical asides and contemporary politica...
BWW Review: Illusion Theater's Funny and Sobering New Play DANCING WITH GIANTS Explores the Intersection of Sports and Politics Through Pre-WWII Boxing
I'll admit it. Before I was a theater geek, I was a TV geek. I grew up watching TV, and my best friends were characters on TV shows. I'm still a TV geek, and I still consider TV characters* my friends. So when I heard that an actor from two of my favorite current shows was doing a play in Minneapo...
BWW Review: In the Heart of the Beast's MAKE BELIEVE NEIGHBORHOOD Pays Homage to the Beloved Mister Rogers, as Well as the Heroes of Its Own Neighborhood
I, like millions of children in America and across the world, grew up watching MISTER ROGERS NEIGHBORHOOD, which aired on PBS from 1968 through 2001. But I don't think I realized at the time what an exceptionally good and kind human Fred Rogers was, a strong advocate for children's education and dev...
BWW Review: Brilliant ASSASSINS at Theater Latte Da
It's hard to imagine a better production of the Sondheim/Weidman dissection of the perpetrators of violence toward US presidents than the ASSASSINS that has just opened in Minneapolis at Theater Latte Da. Running a brisk 100 minutes without intermission, it is staged, sung, and performed with terri...
BWW Review: A CRACK IN THE SKY at History Theatre
A CRACK IN THE SKY is a new autobiographical play about an immigrant from Somalia who arrived in the Twin Cities in 1997. As a civic project-something the arts can and should provide-this event is hard to beat. Still, it is true that as a play, A CRACK IN THE SKY is not very compelling theater....
BWW Review: Penumbra Theatre and Children's Theatre Company's First Collaboration is a Hit - the Fabulous and Inspirational THE WIZ
'Combining CTC's critical literacy work and Penumbra's racial justice work allows us to forge something together that neither could do alone.' These words in the playbill of THE WIZ, the first collaboration between these two acclaimed #TCTheater companies, brought tears to my eyes before the show ev...
BWW Review: CARDBOARD PIANO at Park Square Theatre
CARDBOARD PIANO is an ambitious play centered on questions of trauma: what can and can't be fixed. It opens with life-affirming and joyous love between two young women in Uganda....
BWW Review: The Intense Two-Hander A STEADY RAIN is a Brilliantly Written Play that's Impeccably Executed by the Team at Gremlin Theatre
For their second show in their new space, Gremlin Theatre is presenting the intense two-hander A STEADY RAIN. Buckle up, friends, this is a tough one. But so beautifully done. In what's basically a treatise on toxic masculinity and the damage it can do, playwright Keith Huff has created two complex ...
BWW Review: Dignity and Humanity Deliciously Discovered in Lyric Arts' SUPERIOR DONUTS
Once again, Anoka's Lyric Arts presents an area premiere for their audiences. This winter, Superior Donuts, a 2008 play written by Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner Tracy Letts, arrived for opening weekend. Letts, an ensemble actor at Chicago's famed Steppenwolf Theatre, has recently been in the ...
BWW Review: The Ordway's Swell Production of ANNIE Will Leave You Feeling Optimistic About Our Female Future
'The future is female.' If the main stage at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts is any judge of it, this statement is true, and gives one hope for the future. The story of one 11-year-old girl who changes hearts and minds with optimism and determination is an inspiring one, as is the boundles...
BWW Review: Have a Cool Yule at Lyric Arts' Retro FOREVER PLAID: PLAID TIDINGS
For the 2017 season, enjoy the sights and sounds to Have a yule that's cool at Anoka's Lyric Arts. The retro greeting tag line recreates the theater's holiday show titled Forever Plaid: Plaid Tidings. Stuart Ross wrote the clever, lighthearted book to this festive musical in 1989, along with nume...
BWW Review: Anoka's Lyric Arts Uncovers a Child's Heart in A CONEY ISLAND CHRISTMAS
On stage at Anoka's Lyric Arts, A Coney Island Christmas presents a child's heartfelt dreams to its audiences for the holiday season. One of two theatrical presentations alternating at the venue in December, this play features a flashback to 1930's New York, in the midst of the Great Depression, whe...
BWW Review: The Guthrie Theater's BLITHE SPIRIT is Pure and Pleasant Escapist Entertainment, an Exquisitely Written and Executed Comedy
If you're looking for a fun, light-hearted, escapist night at the theater (and really, who isn't in need of that?!), look no further than the Guthrie's sublimely entertaining production of No l Coward's BLITHE SPIRIT. Featuring Guthrie favorites and newcomers in this perfect concoction of a cast, br...
Videos
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Footloose: The Musical Open Door Community Theatre (6/20-6/28) |
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Rockin’ The Island: Stone Temple Pilots, Skillet & Theory Of A Deadman – 2 Day Pass Treasure Island Amphitheater (6/26-6/26) |
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Shrek The Musical Stages Theatre Company (6/20-8/02) |
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Nobody's Perfect Scottish Rite Temple (6/03-6/27) |
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Outlander in Concert State (10/22-10/22) |
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Rocky Horror Spooktacular Tour State Theatre (10/01-10/01) |
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The Music Man Ordway Center for the Performing Arts (12/08-12/27) |
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Explorasaurus: A Dinosaur Adventure Stages Theatre Company (8/05-8/23) |
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A Taste of Ireland - The Irish Music and Dance Sensation Richard G. Hardy Performing Arts Center (6/10-6/10) |
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A Taste of Ireland - The Irish Music and Dance Sensation Gichi-ziibi Center for the Arts (6/11-6/11) |
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