MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL THEATER REVIEWS

Carl Perkins, 'the king of rockabilly.' Jerry Lee Lewis, 'rock and roll's first great wild man.' Johnny Cash, 'one of the best-selling musicians of all time.' Elvis Presley, simply 'the king.' In 1956, these four men were in their 20s and at the early stages of their influential and prolific careers...

For nearly 60 years, the University of Minnesota has been presenting a summer melodrama on a docked showboat on the Mississippi River, currently across from downtown St. Paul. The Minnesota Centennial Showboat was christened in 1958, as those who know their Minnesota history could guess. The first s...

Two years ago I saw Philip Dawkins' one-act play FAILURE: A LOVE STORY at the Minnesota Fringe Festival, and it was one of my favorite things I've ever seen at the Fringe. In fact I called it 'everything I want in theater,' a perfect blend of comedy and tragedy, with tons of heart. At the time I di...

Devised physical theater company Transatlantic Love Affair won an Ivey in 2012 for BALLAD OF THE PALE FISHERMAN, an original work based on the legend of the selkie, a seal who takes human form. I did not see that production, having only 'discovered' TLA shortly before their Ivey win through their Fr...

Why do we believe what we believe? Can our beliefs change? What happens when those we love don't believe the same things we believe? How important is it to find a group of people that believe in the same things you do? These are just a few of the questions raised by Walking Shadow Theatre Company's ...

Friends, something exciting is going on at the Guthrie Theater. In the wake of (not unjustified) criticism about their lack of diversity onstage and backstage, they are currently presenting a 60-year-old play written by Alice Childress, one of the most important female African-American playwrights o...

When the ingenious gentlemen of Four Humors apply their unique, clever, and hilarious storytelling style to a classic such as THE INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA, it's a thing not to be missed. And even though I've experienced many such unique adaptations by Four Humors, as well as orig...

The Moving Company is a unique theater company in this town of over 70 theater companies. The descendant of the beloved departed Theatre de la Jeune Lune, MoCo's productions are typically original ensemble-based creations. Like the proverbial box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get w...

Sometimes theater is more than just theater. Sometimes theater is about giving a voice to people whose voices are not often heard. Sometimes theater is about increasing our understanding of people who seem different than us, but who really are the same. Sometimes theater is about giving everyone a c...

DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: THE MUSICAL - I've got an animal heart for you. Even though I have no familiarity with the successful book series or movies, I felt obliged to see Children's Theater Company's world premiere musical adaptation because of the talk about a possibly Broadway run, and producer Kev...

The theory of the quantum multiverse suggests that many different universes simultaneously exist, based on every choice we ever (or never) made. I don't know if I believe that, but I do believe that we are where we are in life based on a million choices we've made in our life, both significant and s...

It may be spring (almost) outside, but inside Nautilus Music-Theater's tiny studio space in Lowertown St. Paul, it's most definitely September. The kind of September 'where grass is green and grain is yellow,' and 'no one weeps except the willow.' A lovely hopeful youthful September that slowly fade...

Imagine being so wealthy and successful that you need to build a mall in your basement just to hold all of your excess stuff. Such is the situation that living legend of stage and screen Barbra Streisand has found herself in, as described in her 2010 book MY PASSION FOR DESIGN. Playwright Jonathan T...

The weekend before last, New Epic Theater opened a strikingly beautiful and devastating production of the 1985 Off-Broadway play THE NORMAL HEART about the early days of the AIDS crisis. Last weekend they opened part two of their ambitious spring repertory production, Shakespeare's CORIOLANUS. Th...