Peter Christian News

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. The characters in the play IDEATION are definitely paranoid, entertainingly so, but whether or not someone is out to get them is still a question mark at the end of the play. The regional premiere of IDEATION by Gremlin Theatre is a taut, thrilling, engrossing, and funny 90 minutes of work colleagues going down a paranoid rabbit hole, and it'll make your head spin, in the best way. Rarely has my logical math left brain side been so engaged and excited at the theater as I tried to follow these characters through their hypotheses and arguments and conclusions. Theories and algebraic equations are written on the white board, only to be erased and written over by a new theory. By the end you don't know what to believe, and neither do the characters in the play, but it sure is fun to watch their wheels spin.

For their second show in their new space, Gremlin Theatre is presenting the intense two-hander A STEADY RAIN. Buckle up, friends, this is a tough one. But so beautifully done. In what's basically a treatise on toxic masculinity and the damage it can do, playwright Keith Huff has created two complex characters in a brilliantly written play that's impeccably executed by the team at Gremlin. Two incredible acting performances, tight and clear direction, simple yet powerful design that heightens the storytelling, all in an intimate space that makes it feel all too real. This is the kind of show that's tough to shake. The rest of the day, and even into the next, I found myself back in that room inside that brutal story. It may only be mid-January, but no doubt A STEADY RAIN will be one of the most memorable plays of the year.

I love a good tragic love story, and it doesn't get much more tragic than an interracial couple in 1918 South Carolina. But Penumbra's gorgeous production of the 1966 play WEDDING BAND by Alice Childress (whose TROUBLE IN MIND was seen at the Guthrie last year) is not just a beautiful, complicated, and ultimately tragic love story. It's also (not unlike TROUBLE IN MIND) a still timely work that speaks to the issues of race, racism, and privilege in ways that feel entirely relevant. With a super talented cast directed by Penumbra's founder Lou Bellamy (who recently passed the Artistic Director baton to his daughter Sarah) and gorgeous design, WEDDING BAND is a show not to be missed, and my favorite of my five-show weekend.

Penumbra Theatre kicks off its 41st season Crossing Lines with Alice Childress' nearly forgotten masterpiece, Wedding Band.

Good news friends, Gremlin Theatre is back with a new performance space in St. Paul! Four years after losing their space on University and Raymond, which also hosted other theater companies and the Minnesota Fringe Festival, they've opened a brand new space just a few blocks away on Vandalia. They are continuing to make improvements to the space that includes a spacious lobby and an intimate thrust stage, conveniently located near the Green Line, just off highways 94 and 280, and right next door to Lake Monster Brewery, whose libations can be brought into the theater. And there's also free parking! What more could you ask for from a theater space? Just one more thing, and that's great theater. The inaugural production at the new Gremlin fulfills that last requirement - the hilarious and tight comedy DON'T DRESS FOR DINNER. It's a really funny and fast-moving show with a fantastic cast, and a great way to christen this exciting new St. Paul theater space!

The popular Ruth Easton New Play Series features free public readings of new plays by Playwrights' Center Core Writers.

The 2015 Torch Theater/Gremlin Theatre season at the Minneapolis Theatre Garage continues with the first all-Gremlin production, after the joint production, the dark and disturbing DEATH AND THE MAIDEN, and Torch's perfect screwball comedy BOEING BOEING earlier this year. For their production Gremlin is tackling H2O, a new play by Jane Martin. In the capable hands of director Ellen Fenster and a couple of compelling three-named actors, Peter Christian Hansen and Ashley Rose Montondo, this intense 90-minute two-hander is a funny, painful, and engaging story of fame, faith, and art.

Sometimes something or someone comes along in life that changes everything. Such is Starbuck, aka THE RAINMAKER, to the Curry family in Depression era middle America in N. Richard Nash's play 60-year-old play. Yellow Tree Theatre is mounting a lovely new production of this play with an all-star team of YTT regulars and newcomers. It's funny and sweet, hopeful and devastating, a prime example of the beautiful theater that Yellow Tree has been doing for going on seven years, made only richer by the influx of talent from the larger Twin Cities theater scene.

2014 has already been quite a year so far for NYC's innovative classical/jazz ensemble PUBLIQuartet. They made their debut recital at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Peter Norton at Symphony Space in March and now they are proud to announce the inaugural year of PUBLIQuartet's Emerging Composers Program: PUBLIQ Access. Formed in Spring 2010, PUBLIQuartet, were recipients of the New Music/New Places Fellow and awarded the Sylvia Ann Hewlett Adventurous Artist Prize at the 2013 Concert Artists Guild Competition (CAG is a comprehensive management group founded in 1951 with a mission to discover, nurture and promote young musicians and provides support to a roster of talented artists during the critical and formative time between completion of formal studies and the achievement of an established career). The quartet, which features Curtis Stewart, violin; Jannina Norpoth, violin; Nick Revel, viola; and Amanda Gookin, cello, and their creative, interactive programming, bring a fresh perspective to the classical music scene. Drawing on jazz, world, and electro-acoustic influences, PUBLIQuartet pairs music from the classical repertoire with contemporary works, original compositions, and open-form improvisations that expand the stylistic norms of the string quartet. Following their focus on newly composed works by developing as well as established composers, and their dedication for creating awareness for new talent, they established the inaugural year of PUBLIQuartet's Emerging Composers Program: PUBLIQ Access. The program, designed to promote new works for the string quartet and highlight the voices of today's emerging composers, received 125 submissions, and 7 compositions were chosen. The winning works will be performed by the quartet on May 24th at the PUBLIQ Access Showcase Concert at the Dimenna Center/Mary Flagler Cary Hall in NYC (450 West 37th Street (between 9th & 10th Avenue) at 7PM.

2014 has already been quite a year so far for NYC's innovative classical/jazz ensemble PUBLIQuartet. They made their debut recital at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Peter Norton at Symphony Space in March and now they are proud to announce the inaugural year of PUBLIQuartet's Emerging Composers Program: PUBLIQ Access. Formed in Spring 2010, PUBLIQuartet, were recipients of the New Music/New Places Fellow and awarded the Sylvia Ann Hewlett Adventurous Artist Prize at the 2013 Concert Artists Guild Competition (CAG is a comprehensive management group founded in 1951 with a mission to discover, nurture and promote young musicians and provides support to a roster of talented artists during the critical and formative time between completion of formal studies and the achievement of an established career). The quartet, which features Curtis Stewart, violin; Jannina Norpoth, violin; Nick Revel, viola; and Amanda Gookin, cello, and their creative, interactive programming, bring a fresh perspective to the classical music scene. Drawing on jazz, world, and electro-acoustic influences, PUBLIQuartet pairs music from the classical repertoire with contemporary works, original compositions, and open-form improvisations that expand the stylistic norms of the string quartet. Following their focus on newly composed works by developing as well as established composers, and their dedication for creating awareness for new talent, they established the inaugural year of PUBLIQuartet's Emerging Composers Program: PUBLIQ Access. The program, designed to promote new works for the string quartet and highlight the voices of today's emerging composers, received 125 submissions, and 7 compositions were chosen. The winning works will be performed by the quartet on May 24th at the PUBLIQ Access Showcase Concert at the Dimenna Center/Mary Flagler Cary Hall in NYC (450 West 37th Street (between 9th & 10th Avenue) at 7PM.

Rivertown Theaters for the Performing Arts offers the delightful Pinkalicious The Musical for the younger set just before Easter in the Lagniappe Theater. Rivertown Theaters have added a performance this Sunday, April 13 at 12 p.m.

Rivertown Theaters for the Performing Arts will offer the delightful Pinkalicious The Musical for the younger set just before Easter in the Lagniappe Theater.

Rivertown Theaters for the Performing Arts will offer the delightful Pinkalicious The Musical for the younger set just before Easter in the Lagniappe Theater.

Intriguing 'what if' play about an imaginary meeting between Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis that raises important questions of our existence. Catch the final week in the Guthrie's Dowling Studio.

The Guthrie Theater today announced casting for Mark St. Germain's two-hander Freud's Last Session-an astute comedy about an imagined meeting between Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis that balances intellectual depth with humor and compassion. Rob Melrose (Guthrie: The Acting Company's Julius Caesar, Happy Days and Pen) returns to direct the production that begins performances on February 25 and continues through March 16, 2014.

Mixed Blood Theatre's 2013-14 Season kicks off with Aditi Brennan Kapil's DISPLACED HINDU GODS, an epic festival of three world premieres based on the trinity of Hindu deities Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva reconjured as contemporary inhabitants of the Western world. While each play stands alone and takes on a different genre - stand-up comedy routine, girl-gang thriller, post-colonial fantasy - they coexist in a common universe where dislocation, identity, immigration and puberty are explored through the lenses of creation, survival and destruction. Seven actors, five designers, three directors and one playwright comprise the creative team of this ambitious extravaganza!

On Wednesday, August 21, The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival at SummerStage presents 'Beacons of Jazz' - A Full Length Film Screening. The FREE SHOW will take place at The New School for Jazz & Contemporary Music, located at 55 W. 13th Street, 5th floor. Showtime: 6:30PM - 8:30PM - Seating is First Come, First Served.

City Parks Foundation proudly announces the 21st edition of the beloved late summer jazz favorite, the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival. In the world of modern music, few figures loom as large or cast as long a shadow as saxophonist Charlie Parker, best known as "Bird" (short for "Yardbird") to generations of musicians. He was born in 1920, and almost sixty years since his death in 1955, he is universally celebrated for single-handedly inventing bebop and bringing jazz into the modern era.