Marie Williams News

BARBECUE is a darkly funny new play that turns the traditional family comedy on its head, forcing hilarious and uneasy revelations about the assumptions we make about poverty, race and social class.

Taking care of yourself is often ranked as the top priority amongst actors. You need to be able to pull off long rehearsal hours standing, singing, and/or dancing. You need to be able to bend and move the way your director envisions you doing, so in that case, taking care of your body is the most important so that you have a good personal support system. However, I might argue that taking care of those around you is equally important. The friends and allies you make within the industry are often the difference between a cannonball and a belly flop. 

Mixed Blood Theatre today announced a new season with daring works and world premieres. From wildly irreverent comedies to deeply moving dramas, the company continues its tradition of putting the full spectrum of the ever-changing face of the US on stage, celebrating the breadth of our humanity in content and in form.

I think it's only fair, dear reader, that I tell you a little bit of myself. If you are to continue indulging in this relationship we are forming it would only suffice that you know a bit about me and where I come from. I am a rising junior attending the private prep school MICDS in Saint Louis Missouri. I am an actress, poet, and story teller. I have always known I was an artist. Details often jump up at me and claim my attention. Sometimes they were sights or smells--vivid and demanding to be translated into art. The world has always been a bright and lively place to me. Through the years my mediums have danced about: from singing to dancing, painting to acting, drawing to modeling; however, the stage has always been my true home.  

I know next to nothing about jazz singer and Civil Rights activist Nina Simone. But I do know Regina Marie Williams, Aimee K. Bryant, Thomasina Petrus, and Traci Allen Shannon, the four women starring in the new play based on Nina's song 'Four Women.' So I knew I was in for a treat and an education with Park Square Theatre's world premiere of NINA SIMONE: FOUR WOMEN. I was not wrong on either count. Proving once again that everything I know I learned from theater, I now have a greater understanding of the remarkable and talented woman that was Nina Simone, as well as the importance of her music and her voice in the Civil Rights movement. And watching these particular four women, some of the best voices and actors we have here in the Twin Cities, bring full and complicated life to the Peaches, Auntie, Saffronia, and Sweet Thing of Nina's song, is a treat of the highest order.

Back for more! After last year's sold out run in the ACTLab, Seattle Vice ups the ante with more musical acts, a larger cast, a revised script, a bigger band, and more dance numbers. It will now take place in Seattle's best venue for live music, The Triple Door - historical home of the The Embassy, once a XXX burlesque and vaudeville theatre. Winner of the 2014 Gypsy Rose Lee Award for excellence in Local Composing (Seattle Theatre Writers) this hit show 'returns us to the saucy, swinging sixties.' (Seattle Times)

On Monday night I attended my 9th Ivey Awards. Yes, even before I started Cherry and Spoon in 2010 and started getting press tickets to the event in 2013, I was still a theater geek (read all the words I've written about the Iveys here). The Ivey Awards are my favorite theater night of the year, not so much for the awards themselves, but because it's a celebration of another year of amazing local theater that gathers all of my favorite theater artists in one room. Even though I've met many of them, I still get starstruck when I walk through the crowd and every other face I see is someone I've enjoyed watching on stage. I love to watch awards shows on TV so it's a thrill to get all glammed up and actually attend one in person. I even painted my toenails with a glittery green called 'One Short Day' - appropriate because of its musical theater geekiness and and because this event that I look forward to all year goes by in a whirlwind of people and honorees and loud music and conversations. And now it's over for another year, but more great theater is still to come which we will be celebrating next year!

The Ordway Center for the Performing Arts has announced the complete casting for its much anticipated summer production of Damn Yankees. The Ordway-produced musical comedy runs June 16-28 for a total of 16 performances. Tickets are available now and can be purchased online at www.ordway.org, by phone at 651-224-4222 or in-person at the Ordway ticket office.

Midway through its first season producing on two stages, Park Square Theatre shows no sign of slowing down with its 2015-2016 theatre season. In addition to a range of area and regional premieres, the company is commissioning two brand new works - one for each stage - from Joel Sass (Great Expectations) and Christina Ham and Regina Marie Williams (Nina Simone: Four Women). The line-up also includes the first Midwest licensed production of an ingenious miniature musical that will delight mystery lovers, two family-friendly holiday treats, and new productions by two of Park Square's Theatres in Residence, Sandbox Theatre and Theatre Pro Rata. The season will conclude with a flash of mature flesh as nine leading actresses bare all in Calendar Girls by Tom Firth.

Gary Hines, an accomplished talent who's best known for his 45-year career with The Sounds of Blackness, is music director for the acclaimed run of THE COLOR PURPLE at St. Paul's Park Square Theater. We got to know a little more about this production and Gary in this BWW Interview.

At first glance, the musicals THE COLOR PURPLE, CALVIN BERGER, and LA CAGE AUX FOLLES may not seem to have much in common. The settings couldn't be more different - the rural South in the early 20th century, a modern day high school, and a drag club in 1970s France. But since I happened to see them all on the same weekend, I couldn't help but draw parallels between them. All three musicals all speak to themes of beauty, identity, self-worth, and having the courage to be who you really are, despite what the world is telling you. In THE COLOR PURPLE, a young, poor, black woman is told that she's ugly and worthless, but after a lifelong journey she arrives at a place of strength and self-love. CALVIN BERGER sets the classic play Cyrano de Bergerac in a modern high school, where a young man feels that his large nose prevents him from getting what he wants in life and chooses to hide behind the handsome popular guy, both of whom eventually learn it's better to be loved for who you are. Finally, in LA CAGE AUX FOLLES, a middle aged man who feels more comfortable dressed as a woman is asked by his own son to hide who he is, but confidently declares 'I am who I am!' Another thing these three musicals have in common is that they can all currently be seen on Twin Cities stages featuring talented local casts. Read on for more details on each, pick one that suits your fancy, and go see a local musical that just may inspire you to love you you really are!

Park Square Theatre will produce the musical The Color Purple featuring a cast of 20 actors, a live orchestra, and some of the finest talent in the Twin Cities on its Proscenium Stage January 16 - February 15, 2015.

No one does Shakespeare like Ten Thousand Things. They manage to boil the text down to its bare essentials, and convey the heart of the story in a way that feels fresh and modern. This season they bring their unique Shakespeare style to perhaps his most well-know play, the story of star-crossed lovers that inspired all others, Romeo and Juliet. In the typically minimalist production (since TTT performs on location at prisons, homeless shelters, and community centers, the paid public performances are also in a small, fully lit room with little in the way of sets and costumes), director Peter Rothstein and his fantastic cast of eight playing multiple characters bring this familiar story to life in a unique way.

With Sexy Laundry opening tonight, the entire cast roster for the theatre's biggest season is almost complete. Nearly 300 Minnesota artists - including actors, directors, designers and technical operators - will mount 18 productions on two stages. The season lineup confirms Park Square's commitment to the work of women writers like Amy Herzog, Michele Riml and Alice Walker. The casting emphasizes Park Square as a home for local artists of color, from returning favorites like James A. Williams, T. Mychael Rambo and Regina Williams to dozens of debuts like Dominique Wooten, Kurt Kwan and Sarah Ochs.

James Rocco's BROADWAY SONGBOOK series at The Ordway Center for Performing Arts in Saint Paul, Minn., is a treasure for anyone who has an iPod full of showtunes (me: guilty!) and should earn continuing education credits for audience members who gain a wealth of knowledge in theatre history over the course of the show.

The Ordway Center for the Performing Arts' Broadway Songbook series returns June 13-15 with a tribute to Betty Comden and Adolph Green, who co-wrote some of the most beloved and successful Hollywood musicals and Broadway shows in the mid-20th century. Seating for Broadway Songbook: Comden and Green is on the Ordway's Music Theater Stage, providing a unique backstage experience.

The Ordway Center for the Performing Arts' Broadway Songbook series returns June 13-15 with a tribute to Betty Comden and Adolph Green, who co-wrote some of the most beloved and successful Hollywood musicals and Broadway shows in the mid-20th century. Seating for Broadway Songbook: Comden and Green is on the Ordway's Music Theater Stage, providing a unique backstage experience.

Psst! Hey Buddy! Yeah you! You lookin' for a good time with some scantily clad performers who are ready and willing to do whatever you want while putting on a hell of a show? Well then you'd better hop in your time machine and head back the 1960's because Seattle doesn't do that anymore. But luckily we have "Seattle Vice" now performing over at ACT which takes a look back at those grittier days of Seattle in the 60's where the booze and the boobs flowed freely.

Inspired by the book Seattle Vice by Rick Anderson, this cabaret musical set in 1965 combines dancing, comedy, and original music created by Mark Siano (The Habit, Soft Rock Kid) and Opal Peachey (Modern Luv, Cafe Nordo).

Inspired by the book Seattle Vice by Rick Anderson, this cabaret musical set in 1965 combines dancing, comedy, and original music created by Mark Siano (The Habit, Soft Rock Kid) and Opal Peachey (Modern Luv, Cafe Nordo).