Jamecia Bennett

Special Offer: Happening Now: Disney’s Beauty and the Beast

What did our critic think of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST at Ordway Center For The Performing Arts?

The Ordway Center for the Performing Arts has announced the cast and creative team for its production of Disney's Beauty and the Beast this holiday season. Running from Nov. 30-Dec. 31, 2022, the Broadway @ the Ordway 2022-2023 show will be the first musical the Ordway has produced since 2019.

The Guthrie Theater today announced casting for Lorraine Hansberry’s theatrical masterpiece A Raisin in the Sun, directed by acclaimed Twin Cities artist Austene Van. A Raisin in the Sun will play January 8 – February 12, 2022, on the McGuire Proscenium Stage.

MN Black Theatre Circle, in partnership with the Guthrie Theater, will present Blackness Is…, a theater-inspired arts festival to be streamed May 21–22 at 7:30 p.m. and May 23 at 7 p.m. CDT. Over the course of three days, the festival will offer a dynamic and diverse showcase of theater, music, dance, poetry and spoken word.

Broadway On Demand, the theater-focused streaming platform, and The Ordway Center for the Performing Arts today announced a virtual holiday presentation of music from The Night Before Christmas: In Concert by Minnesota's three-time Grammy Award-winning, international music sensation Sounds of Blackness.

The Ordway is currently presenting Live at the Loading Dock: Ordway Cabaret. Performances run September 18 - October 11, 2020.

The Ordway Center for the Performing Arts today announced the titles for the 2020-2021 Broadway at the Ordway season.

Going into the new updated version of 42nd Street at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts on Friday wasn't as fresh to me as it was to othersa??because I hadn't seen the show before. That's right, another classical Broadway show was crossed off my list. Since it was announced last year, the Ordway has touted this project as a new reimagined version with a?oerevisions, updates, and some new twists that are totally unique to [their] production,a?? according to the Ordway's Producing Artistic Director, Rod Kaats. However, you can only make a first impression once so this will forever be my version and experience with this musical and I'll say that it was a pretty good first experience to have with it. 

For two nights in a row, I experienced rousing gospel music as part of #TCTheater. In other words, was a good week. The night after seeing Penumbra Theatre's annual gospel rendition of the nativity story BLACK NATIVITY, I attended opening night of Park Square Theatre's regional premiere of the new play MARIE AND ROSETTA, the true story of lesser known gospel legend Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Written by Playwrights' Center affiliated writer George Brant, MARIE AND ROSETTA imagines the night of the first performance of Rosetta and her protege/duet partner Marie Knight. A night in 1946 Mississippi when there was no room at the inn for two black women singers, so they rehearsed and slept in a funeral home with a kindly owner. This play with music paints a beautiful picture of these two very different women, their music, and their relationship, as well as the hardships both faced in their lives and careers, and brings these two musical legends to vivid life. A 'joyful noise' indeed.

Park Square Theatre announces the area premiere production of Marie & Rosetta by George Brandt, to be directed by Wendy Knox, who directed the early workshops of the play at the Minneapolis-based Playwrights' Center. Soulful and spirited, this play with music tells the story of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a 2018 inductee into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame who has become a Facebook sensation with tens of thousands of shares of the vintage video of her playing electric guitar on the street cropping up in feeds for the past several years. Tharpe brought fierce guitar playing and swing to gospel music and went on to influence rock musicians from Elvis to Jimi Hendrix and Ray Charles.

Children's Theatre Company, in collaboration with Penumbra Theatre, presents THE WIZ. At the time of its opening on Broadway in 1974, THE WIZ was a modern retelling of The Wizard of Oz, featuring Soul-inspired songs and an entirely African-American cast. It was later adapted into a popular 1978 film starring Diana Ross and a young Michael Jackson. The Children's Theatre Company's production of THE WIZ opened on January 23rd and will run through March 18th.

Children's Theatre Company (CTC) in partnership with Penumbra Theatre will present The Wiz, adapted from L. Frank Baum's classic story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Children's Theatre Company (CTC) in partnership with Penumbra Theatre will present The Wiz, adapted from L. Frank Baum's classic story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; directed by Lou Bellamy, Founder and Artistic Director Emeritus of Penumbra Theatre Company, assistant directed and choreographed by Patdro Harris (Broadway credits as Choreographer for A Raisin in the Sun), with music direction by Sanford Moore (Musical Director at Penumbra Theatre).

Children's Theatre Company (CTC) in partnership with Penumbra Theatre will present The Wiz, adapted from L. Frank Baum's classic story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Skylight Music Theatre opens the 2017-18 season with Hot Mikado, a swinging version of Gilbert & Sullivan's comic masterpiece The Mikado, running Friday, September 29 through Sunday, October 15, 2017 in the Cabot Theatre at the Broadway Theatre Center, 158 N. Broadway, Historic Third Ward, Milwaukee.

This fresh new musical is a terrific addition to the American musical canon, a show a lot of us have been waiting for. It's a rare thing: the main character is a young African-American woman struggling to find her way in present day USA. Without oversimplifying her struggles with love, sexuality, and work, it takes us all along on her search for self. Tuneful, funny, and soulful, GIRL SHAKES LOOSE is decidedly contemporary and honors the great Sonia Sanchez, a shining light of the Black Arts Movement.

In one of those strange theater-going coincidences, the night after I saw two one-act plays at the Guthrie, I attended opening night of Penumbra's presentation of two one-act plays. Both paired plays by different playwrights linked by a common theme. But unlike the theater comedies THE CRITIC and THE REAL INSPECTOR HOUND, THE DUTCHMAN and THE OWL ANSWERS are dense and meaty dramas dealing with heavy issues. They might not make you laugh (except, occasionally, uncomfortably), but they will definitely make you think. Written in the '60s as part of the Black Arts Movement, these plays take an unforgiving look at the racism, sexism, and classism of the day, that still have implications in today's world. A stellar ensemble cast and top-notch production design tie the two very different plays together and highlight the playwrights' messages. Though they are not easy to watch and I can't say I understood everything that was going on, I certainly came away with much to chew on, and a greater understanding of our shared history. Which is pretty much a given at Penumbra Theatre.

Friends, it's been a rough week. With devastating news here at home (the Children's Theatre lawsuit) and around the country (yet another senseless and horrific mass shooting, this time in San Bernadino, CA), on top of all the other painful things we've been dealing with lately, it's almost more than anyone can take. It was under this cloud that I saw Penumbra Theatre's annual production of BLACK NATIVITY for the first time. Yes, even though this is their 28th year, I've never seen BLACK NATIVITY before. I'm not sure how that happened, but this was the perfect time to first experience this truly joyful celebration. The story, the music, the dancing, the feeling of joy and faith and togetherness in that room, was a balm to my soul and did much to restore my faith in humanity. Maybe in times like this, the first and best response is to 'be the light,' and let that light lead us into appropriate action to heal the wounds of society and prevent things like what happened this week from happening again (and again and again) in the future.