Max Wojtanowicz News

Theater Latte Da (TLD) announces the slate of artists and projects for this year's NEXT Festival. Four dynamic new works from Angelica Cheri and Ross Baum, Jelloslave cellists Michelle Kinney and Jacqueline Ultar, Michael Gruber, Harrison David Rivers, Nikki Swoboda, Ryan Underbakke and Matt Spring, and Max Wojtanowicz will each receive workshops and public readings beginning Sunday, July 15. The NEXT Festival is part of TLD's NEXT 20/20, a robust new work initiative aimed at developing 20 new musicals or plays-with-music by 2020, shepherding many of them to full production. Past NEXT Festivals have offered audiences a first look at new musicals that have gone on to full production including C. (2015) and Five Points (2018).

Michelle Hensley, retiring Artistic Director and Founder of Ten Thousand Things, is a gift. A gift to theater, a gift to Minnesota, a gift to the world. She taught us a new way to do theater, a new way to experience theater, one that considers who the audience can and should be, which is everyone. Read her book ALL THE LIGHTS ON if you want to know more about it, or go see her beautiful swan song THE GOOD PERSON OF SZECHWAN, which is also the first play that TTT ever did nearly 30 years ago when Michelle started it in California. We've been lucky enough to have TTT as a vital part of the #TCTheater community for 25 years, a tradition that will continue after Michelle's retirement under the leadership of new Artistic Director Marcela Lorca. One can only hope that all of the artists and audience members she's worked with and influenced in those years will continue on this tradition of inclusive, accessible, imaginative theater that is unlike anything else.

'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 political memes, all with a knowing wink at the audience, which had a roaring good time on opening night.

Park Square continues its 43rd season on the Proscenium Stage with a new adaptation of Gilbert & Sullivan's operatic romp The Pirates of Penzance. Inspired by a true story, director Doug Scholz-Carlson has reimagined the perennial favorite that puts the composer themselves smack in the middle of their own farce. The pair's lush score includes some of their most famous songs, including I am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General and Poor Wand'ring One. The production stars local favorites Bradley Greenwald* as the Pirate King and Christina Baldwin* as the Major General.

Children's Theatre Company (CTC) announces the reprise of audience favorite Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas for the holidays, a production that has delighted since its world premiere at CTC in 1994. The Grinch was Dr. Seuss's first villain, and it is said that he appeared to the author as he looked in the mirror on December 26, 1956; what he saw in his grumpy countenance was the disdain for the commercialization of the holiday, a very Grinchy image, and that was how the Grinch was born. This piece is both a critique of commercialization and a celebration of community, and has become Dr. Seuss's most enduring piece.

The Guthrie Theater has announced casting for the theater's summer musical, Sunday in the Park with George. Leading the cast will be Randy Harrison (Guthrie: The Glass Menagerie) who will play French pointillist painter George Seurat, a role originated by Mandy Patinkin in the 1984 Broadway production, and Erin Mackey (Guthrie: South Pacific) who will play Seurat's lover and model, Dot, a role originated by Bernadette Peters.

???????Twin Cities actor and playwright Max Wojtanowicz will tour his highly-acclaimed original musical Ball: A Musical Tribute To My Lost Testicle to the Underground Theatre in Duluth, MN.

When Rice, MN, native Max Wojtanowicz was diagnosed with stage 3 testicular cancer in January 2016, a friend told him to 'conquer it, and then sing about it.' He accepted that challenge. Through storytelling and original songs about chemotherapy, community, and courage, Ball is a show about laughing (and singing) in the face of darkness when life throws you a curve… ball. Wojtanowicz's first solo performance effort is his fourth original musical with director Nikki Swoboda, in collaboration with composers Michael Gruber, Jason Hansen, and Andrew Cooke. Jerry Rubino will join Wojtanowicz at the piano.

???????Twin Cities actor and playwright Max Wojtanowicz will tour his highly-acclaimed original musical Ball: A Musical Tribute To My Lost Testicle to the Underground Theatre in Duluth, MN.

It's the halfway point of the 11-day, 168-show Minnesota Fringe Festival. I've seen 29 shows in the last 6 days, with 20+ more scheduled for the final 5 days of the fest. The new system of daily wristbands that get you into any and all shows that day seems to be working great. The handy Fringe website has all the information you'll need about schedule, venues, cast and creative team, and reviews from people who have already seen the show. The Fringe continues through Sunday August 14, so there's still time to get your Fringe on!

Helly my Broadway World Minneapolis friends. I know it's been a while since I've shared anything with you, but that's because I've been all-consumed by the 174-show 11-day festival that is the Minnesota Fringe. If you have not yet sampled from this glorious smorgasbord, don't worry, the fest continues through August 9 with 4-7 shows offered each day at 15 venues in Minneapolis, plus 9 site-specific shows. Believe me, I understand that this can be overwhelming, but I'm here to help. Read on to see a list of my 10 favorite shows of the Fringe so far. Now get out there, open your eyes and your heart and your mind, and see some of the beautiful, challenging, hilarious, disturbing, silly, profound, amazing theater that this festival has to offer.

 Summer brings a Pulitzer Prize-winning play to the stage with Gary Gisselman making his directorial debut at the Jungle. Hilarious and heartwarming, Kaufman and Hart's YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU opens tonight, June 19 at the Jungle Theater, 2951 Lyndale Av. S. in Minneapolis, and runs through August 9.

 Summer brings a Pulitzer Prize-winning play to the stage with Gary Gisselman making his directorial debut at the Jungle. Hilarious and heartwarming, Kaufman and Hart's YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU opens June 19 at the Jungle Theater, 2951 Lyndale Av. S. in Minneapolis, and runs through August 9.

Have you ever imagined your life as a musical? Lifelong BFFs Max and Sheena have done more than imagine it - they've written it! And since in addition to being best friends, Max Wojtanowicz and Sheena Janson are both super talented music-theater artists* (you may know Max from the Children's Theatre and Sheena from numerous production with Mu Performing Arts), the result is a musical that's not only fun and entertaining, but also brutally honest and from the heart. FRUIT FLY: THE MUSICAL began as a hit Fringe show in 2012 and has had several workshops and readings since, and is now a full-fledged show at Illusion Theater. Each time I see it, it has a bit more depth, but always retains the beautiful, poignant, hilarious, endearing heart that is this real life friendship.

No one does musicals like Ten Thousand Things does musicals. And even though it defies everything we know about musical theater, after seeing a TTT musical I think that maybe that's the way musicals should always be done. The music, like everything else about the show, is stripped down to the very basics, extraneous layers removed to reveal the very heart of the matter. A one-man orchestra provides the minimal accompaniment, and the small cast imperceptibly transitions from speaking to singing, so that you can't even tell where songs end and begin, it's just all one seamless story. And above all else, Artistic Director Michelle Hensley and all of the artists at Ten Thousand Things are storytellers. Whether it's Shakespeare or a classic American musical, they share the story in a pure and unadorned way so that all of their audiences, whether prisoners or seasoned theater-goers, can hear it and see themselves in it. One such masterpiece is their latest musical venture, THE UNSINKABLE MOLLY BROWN, a reprise of their very first musical venture 15 years ago. It's lovely, spirited, sweet, funny, moving, heart-warming, and real.

Musical theater loving friends, if you're not at Hell's Kitchen on the first Monday of the month, you are missing out. This is when Sheena Jansen and Max Wojtanowicz gather a few of their friends, who just happen to be among the most talented musical theater artists in town, for a little cabaret show. They've been doing it for over two years now, and it just keeps getting better and better. Each month has a theme, and this being February, the theme for this month's show was love. It was a fabulously entertaining night of musical theater, and it also served as a preview for shows to come this spring and summer. Read on for highlights and to find out where you can see the cast on stages around town.

'Tis the season for stories of sad, lonely, grumpy people who experience a change of heart and learn to love their fellow citizens, whether of London or Whoville. After a double bill of CHRISTMAS CAROLs last week, I saw a similar story this week in Dr. Seuss' classic fable HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS. Like Scrooge, the Grinch hates Christmas, people, and dogs. Also like Scrooge, the Grinch learns how wrong he was, not from ghosts but from one sweet open-hearted little girl. Where A CHRISTMAS CAROL is the perfect image of a Victorian Christmas, THE GRINCH takes place in the fantastical rhyming world familiar to anyone who's read Dr. Seuss, or had it read to them, as the case may be with much of Children's Theatre Company's audience. It's a bright and colorful, silly and funny, sweet and heart-warming tale of redemption and love.

The 2013-14 Playwrights' Center McKnight Theater Artist Fellows Sun Mee Chomet, Denise Prosek and Stephen Yoakam, along with their collaborators, will present selections from works in progress on June 16 at 7 p.m. at the Southern Theater. The event is free and open to the public; advance reservations are strongly recommended and can be made at www.pwcenter.org. The Southern Theater is located at 1420 S Washington Avenue in Minneapolis.

Votes are cast; polls are closed; and results have been tabulated! This was our biggest year yet! After a record number of voters in more than 50 regions worldwide, BroadwayWorld is very excited to announce the 2013 Minneapolis winners! Thanks to all who voted, and huge congratulations to all the winners!

Voting is now underway for Minneapolis! We have a record number of votes in already, but if you haven't voted yet, click here to vote! If you have voted already, tell your friends.