Dan Norman News

The ending of WE ARE PROUD TO PRESENT, now playing in the Guthrie's Dowling Studio, is unlike anything I've ever seen in theater. It left me shocked, confused, and a little traumatized, but mostly it left me incredibly moved. It's such a powerful and important piece, forcing us to look at the long-lasting effects of colonialism around the world, its parallels with slavery in America, and how difficult it is to talk about racism. But even though the show leaves on a heavy and intense note, it's also really funny and innovative and theater-y too. It fools you into thinking it's a fun look at actors in rehearsal and then sneaks in some serious issues that soon become almost more than one can bear. Fortunately the Guthrie's Level Nine initiative includes what they call Community Engagement Activities, which often means a post-show discussion with the cast or creative team or experts on the subject. Take advantage of this - it's a wonderful opportunity to decompress and process what you've just seen, and begin a conversation.

This world premiere of a new musical based on a short story by Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, has just opened in Minneapolis. It's the latest collaboration between Seuss Enterprises and the Children's Theatre, and it's clearly a parable for our time-despite the fact that it's been in the works for a full four years.

Children's Theatre Company (CTC) announces the world premiere production of Dr. Seuss' The Sneetches The Musical which opened on February 7, 2017. Directed by Peter C. Brosius, the production is written by Philip Dawkins, whose many works have been produced from Canada to Washington DC to Los Angeles, and upcoming at the MCC Theatre (Off-Broadway), with music by David Mallamud, whose works have been heard at Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center and Off-Broadway. This new production is the third Dr. Seuss work that CTC has commissioned in a historical partnership that dates back to the first production in 1979 of Dr. Seuss's The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. It is also the first Dr. Seuss commission since 1994 when Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas premiered at CTC before it became the Old Globe Theatre's annual holiday show and its Broadway transfer. CTC retains the exclusive rights to produce and perform both works in Minnesota.

Sarah Ruhl's recent play puts a contemporary mother's dilemma at the center of the story. This is not the only radical thing about the show. It also includes depiction of a live birth on stage, carefully staged so as not to offend audience sensibilities. And it steps directly into the treacherous but vital terrain of cross-cultural connection, conflict, and appropriation.

There's something for everybody in this raucous and hilarious CINDERELLA: plenty of glitter and stage magic and romance (lite) for the kids, but also cat videos, a Tshirt slingshot, a killer drag rendition of Joe Cocker's “You are So Beautiful” and even a poop emoji blanket. It's a really smart show that hews to the moral center of the old fairy tale but steers entirely clear of stuffiness.

Children's Theatre Company (CTC) presents the back-by-popular-demand production of Cinderella.  This rambunctious musical originally created by CTC brings together the heart-warming, classic story of Cinderella's transformation, a Victorian Christmas party with lavish period costumes, grandiose sets and holiday carols, with brand-new, clever pop culture references, shameless physical comedy, audience participation, and gut-busting gags.  

In 1961, Parchman Penitentiary served as a detention site for the Freedom Riders, mixed race and mixed gender groups of activists who put their lives on the line to protest segregation. To keep their spirits up in jail, they sang. This documentary theater piece is rich in music, and tells their story while tying directly to themes about race and justice in America today.

This pre-eminent children's theatre company is one of the wellsprings of new plays for young audiences, and has twice commissioned playwright Naomi Iizuka in that effort. This time, Iizuka has woven together aspects of seven different Japanese folktales to create THE LAST FIREFLY, the tale of a boy in search of his absent father.

Children's Theatre Company (CTC) is unveiling the world premiere of The Last Firefly, written by Naomi Iizuka and directed by CTC's Artistic Director Peter C. Brosius, beginning September 27. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

The Guthrie's well cast, wittily directed, beautifully costumed production of a new adaptation of one of Jane Austen's beloved novels is a delightful concoction, firmly set in period but updated to our time in terms of thematic emphasis. This upbeat show is well worth a visit, even if you are someone who finds the marriage plot kind of a yawner, usually.

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 show was UNDER THE GASLIGHT, which returns this summer for their last season at the Showboat. While this is only the second U of M show I've seen at the Showboat, I'm sad that it was my last. The creative team includes some of the top talent in town, and the cast is chock-full of talented young people that are the future of theater in this town. The melodrama is a fun, entertaining, and little-seen genre that encourages the audience to 'vocalize appropriately.' The Showboat is a unique and charming venue, and I hope that someone puts it to good use. Whether you've seen dozens of Showboat melodramas, or none, it would behoove you to board the Showboat one last time for this uniquely pleasing theatrical experience.

Children's Theatre Company (CTC) will present the audience favorite Cinderella, starring CTC Acting Company member Traci Allen Shannon in the title role. The entire CTC Acting Company stars as well with Reed Sigmund and Dean Holt playing Cinderella's stepsisters, Dorcas and Pearl, Autumn Ness playing the Stepmother, and Gerald Drake playing Lord High Chamberlain. CTC's 15/16 Performing Apprentice China Brickey will perform as the fairy godmother. David L. Murray,Jr (upcoming Theater Latte Da's Ragtime) will debut at CTC as Prince Eric.

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 didn't know who Philip Dawkins was, but now I know he's a Chicago-based playwright who is a core writer with the Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis. His name has come up again recently when his new play CHARM (also a mix of comedy and tragedy with heart) was produced at Mixed Blood earlier this year. And now comes LE SWITCH, developed at the Playwrights' Center and having a rolling world premiere this year, including at the Jungle Theater. I'm happy to report that like FAILURE, it gave me all of the feels. Like FAILURE, LE SWITCH is a funny and beautiful love story, but not just a romantic love story. It's also a love story between a brother and a sister who are each other's only family; a love story between childhood best friends who, despite their differences, still love and support each other unconditionally; a love story between the main character and a man who was more of a father to him than his biological father ever was or could be. It's a fantastic new play and I'm excited to see where it goes next.

St. Ann's Warehouse, having just concluded an immensely successful inaugural season in its "stunning" (New York Magazine), "gorgeous" (The New Yorker) new theater on the Brooklyn Bridge Park waterfront, kicks off its 2016-17 season with a highly anticipated event five years in the making: the World Premiere of Taylor Mac's A 24-Decade History of Popular Music. The "staggering magnum opus" (The New York Times) performance art concert is Mac's subjective history of the United States, told through songs that were popular throughout the country, and in its disparate communities, from 1776 to the present day. From September 15 through October 8, Mac, a 24-piece orchestra and a vast group of special guests will perform this massive spectacle in two ways: as a series of concerts covering three decades each, and in a one-time-only, non-stop, 24-hour marathon performance.

Producer Kevin McCollum discusses the possibilities for the new musical based on Jeff Kinney's graphic novel series.

With a boost in the box office and the final days of an extension dwindling, Minneapolis' Children's Theatre Company's world premiere of DIARY OF A WIMPY KID is preparing for its next move.

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 original work, last night's world premiere opening night still gave me something unexpected. As the play points out, everyone knows Don Quixote, even if you're never read the book or heard the name Miguel de Cervantes. Four Humors tells the classic story about honor, chivalry, and madness in a unique way using puppetry projection and by making Cervantes a character in the play, allowing the characters to step outside the story and comment on it. I believe this is Four Humors' debut at the Guthrie, which will no doubt expose a new audience to their often accomplished mission 'to create art that celebrates the humor, stupidity, and beauty of our world by letting the artist connect with the audience in a vulnerable and honest way.'

Enter a world ruled by fevered delusions and far-flung imagination, where a windmill transforms into a giant and a filthy innkeeper becomes a king. Join us in a realm of illusions and experience the story of a man who can no longer leave his beautifully imagined world, even after the curtain has come crashing down.

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 Kevin McCollum also produced my favorite musical RENT. But all sense of obligation quickly went out the window as the show won me over with it's clever and musically diverse score, universally relatable story of a kid trying to find himself in middle school, and most of all this incredible cast of mostly Twin Cities youth. Whether you're a kid stuck in the middle (school), or a jaded grown-up, DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: THE MUSICAL is simply irresistible, and I think it's going to go far.

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 seemingly insignificant. It's intriguing to think that if we had made one or a hundred choices differently, we might be in a completely different place in life, doing something completely different, surrounded by completely different people. English playwright Nick Payne's new play CONSTELLATIONS, the second production in the Jungle Theater's 2016 season, plays with that idea to great effect. In one of my favorite plays that I've seen all year, we are taken on a journey of a relationship, but not just one single linear journey, rather countless iterations of that journey, some funny, some heart-breaking, some hopelessly romantic, all focused on these two people that are connected in some way in every one of the universes traveled.