by SOPHIE KERMAN & ANNA ROSENSWEIG Something about the transition from fall to winter – the impending gloom that is just around the corner – has made the local theater scene shift from playful and speculative to downright brutal. Two adaptations of Greek tragedies opened this past weekend – and not just any Greek tragedies,…
by SOPHIE KERMAN How do you tell the true story of a man when you don’t know what he looks like, where he came from, or what his real name is, and when a whole team of Royal Canadian Mounted Police had to spend two cold months tracking him down? You make it up, of…
by SOPHIE KERMAN As a former sixteen-year-old prep school student from the New York metropolitan area, I might have a skewed perspective on The Edge of Our Bodies, Adam Rapp‘s (almost) one-woman play about a sixteen-year-old prep school student from the New York metropolitan area. Unlike most of the Guthrie Theater‘s Minnesotan audience, I can…
by SOPHIE KERMAN For a play inspired by an ethnographic study, Four Destinies has a whole lot of heart and a surprising amount of humor. Playwright Katie Hae Leo was drawn to write the play – which opens Mu Performing Arts‘s 2011-12 season in its world premiere – after reading a study by Kim Park Nelson on adopted children,…
by SOPHIE KERMAN There are some plays that are so heartfelt that you root for their success before the actors even open their mouths. This is even more true when there are important political and ideological reasons for the play to be written and produced – in this case, creating theater that represents gender identities…
by SOPHIE KERMAN “I got one! I got one!” For all of the many reasons we might say we go to the theater, at the heart of it, we all just want a good story. At least that is the argument behind The K of D, a play which takes us back to our very earliest…
by SOPHIE KERMAN Cshhh. Cshhh. Cshhh. From the very first moments of Two Trains Running, the pace of the action is metered out by the slow scuff of diner waitress Risa’s shoes as she crosses from the kitchen to the tables and back again. Risa (Crystal Fox) walks as though she is burdened by much…
by SOPHIE KERMAN What could the Mixed Blood‘s production of Neighbors have to say to the New York Times Sunday Book Review? Quite a lot, I imagine, and I bet the characters in “Neighbors” would have some strong words for the Times. The NY Times article in question is called “The Post-Black Condition” (September 25, 2011), a…
Our kind press contact at the Minnesota Opera has a special offer for the performance of Così Fan Tutte TOMORROW NIGHT, 9/27/11. If you call the ticket office or puchase online at www.mnopera.org, you can get any available seats for Tuesday night’s performance for only $20 using code blog20! This is an amazing opportunity to see world-class opera for…
by SOPHIE KERMAN With Così Fan Tutte, opening on Saturday for a five-day run, the Minnesota Opera throws down a gauntlet to anyone who thinks opera is stodgy, irrelevant or boring. Can you sit through Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart‘s 1790 opera without cracking a smile – or bursting out in an explosion of giggles as two grown men roll…
Aisle Say - Twin Cities 