by SOPHIE KERMAN Blair Thomas may have just changed the way I think about puppet shows. While In the Heart of the Beast has made itself known for its kid-friendly, large-scale puppet theater, Thomas’s Hard Headed Heart is not for children and only partly about puppets. This trio of short pieces, each an adaptation of a different…
by SOPHIE KERMAN After wowing Minnesota Fringe Festival audiences for the past two years running, Isabel Nelson has brought 2010 Fringe Festival Favorite Ballad of the Pale Fisherman to the Illusion Theater mainstage. After being blown away by Red Resurrected at the 2011 Fringe, I was excited to see the expansion of Pale Fisherman, the show that…
by ANNA ROSENSWEIG Judy Garland played an important role in my childhood. I literally wore out my VHS of The Wizard of Oz, the 1939 hit with MGM studios that propelled her into stardom at just sixteen. And my family’s folklore has it that for weeks at a time I insisted on being called Dorothy.…
by SOPHIE KERMAN Although witty, suspenseful and well-acted, the Jungle Theater‘s latest production is not a Valentine’s Day offering for the insecure couple. As you get sucked into the detective work and criminal reverse-engineering that drives Frederick Knott‘s Dial M for Murder, you may find yourself glancing sideways at your date and wondering just how much…
by SOPHIE KERMAN With its latest offering of Werther by Jules Massenet, we start to see the trajectory of the Minnesota Opera‘s 2011-12 season. Having started the year with the user-friendly Cosí Fan Tutte and continued with the innovative Silent Night, the Opera now presents a completely different kind of audience experience. Werther, based on…
by ANNA ROSENSWEIG The Guthrie’s production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is electric. The first few minutes of this Tennessee Williams classic promise a riveting theatrical experience, a promise that the rest of the show fulfills. Haunting in both its beauty and its sadness, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof achieves a kind…
by SOPHIE KERMAN In the summer of 2011, I spent a few hurried weeks hunting for the perfect one-bedroom apartment on a graduate student’s budget**. One of the best prospects, at least on paper, was a garden-level with impressive square footage for the price. But when I got there, I was both fascinated and a…
by ANNA ROSENSWEIG Looking for some deceit to spice up your week? Look no further than the Torch Theater’s production of Dangerous Liaisons. Based on the 1782 epistolary novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, this delightfully devilish drama presents the scathing battle of wills and desires between La Marquise de Merteuil (Stacia Rice), a wealthy…
by SOPHIE KERMAN Although every woman is different, there are some things that tie us all together – the mental anguish of putting on a pair of nylon stockings, the enormity of a first crush, the strange and wonderful experience of growing boobs and figuring out what to do with them. These common trials and…
by SOPHIE KERMAN Julius Caesar is not theater for beginners. Of all of Shakespeare‘s plays, Caesar is one of the least eventful and yet the most cataclysmic. In Acts I-II, a charismatic leader becomes too big for his britches and is brutally murdered for it; Acts III and IV show us the aftermath of the killing on…
Aisle Say - Twin Cities 