By CHRISTINE SARKES SASSEVILLE My Fair Lady at the Guthrie Theater is a lavish musical theater spectacle that stays true to the Lerner/Loewe, Moss Hart Broadway original while adding its own unique touches. The 1956 production set the record for the longest run of any major musical theater show at the time and has been called “the…
by CHRISTINE SARKES SASSEVILLE Peter and the Starcatcher at the Orpheum Theatre, through this weekend only, is a high-octane and hilarious voyage to Neverland, with wildly innovative staging and scene-chewing acting that will have you laughing out loud and marveling at the inventiveness of it all. The five-time Tony Award winning adaptation by Rick Elice is based…
By MIRA REINBERG In a most propitious timing, Open Window Theatre hosted Argentinean tango singer Claudia Pannone for a two-night performance at their venue in the Metropolitan Minneapolis Building. Claudia Pannone brought alive the sensuous and melancholy music of lyric tango with her deep, expressive voice and infused the January evening with the warmth and…
by CHRISTINE SARKES SASSEVILLE Imagine a whiskey and piano jazz bar fuzed with the salon of your favorite NYU music professor and you’ll understand the captivating vibe of Words By….Ira Gershwin and the Great American Songbook. The play combines singing with a bit of American musical history and offers a wonderful evening’s entertainment for music lovers of all…
by CHRISTINE SARKES SASSEVILLE Russ King’s hilarious holiday drag satire pokes fun of Asians, Christmas, religion, lesbians, bad sweaters and suburbia. No group is safe from Miss Richfield 1981’s sharp-tongued, spike-heeled humor. King’s hysterically funny Sweet & Sour Richfield: Made in China! is a holiday tradition for many repeat audience members and a break from traditional, treacly holiday fare for newcomers. King’s beauty queen alter ego,…
by CHRISTINE SARKES SASSEVILLE Fans of the 1950s classic movie, Born Yesterday, starring Judy Holliday and William Holden, will find much to enjoy in Guthrie Theater’s version, which is based on playwright Garson Kanin’s original Broadway play. Born Yesterday at the Guthrie is an amusing, well-acted romantic comedy and political satire, whose indictment of congressional corruption…
by LIZ BYRON At first glance, Leaves might seem like a confusing mishmash that could go very wrong. Finding its inspiration in the poetry of American great Walt Whitman, and borrowing large swaths of his work, the people of Savage Umbrella have created a play that is part drama, part music, part poetry, moving back and forth between Whitman’s words and…
by LIZ BYRON Brahman/i: A One-Hijra Stand-Up Comedy Show is one of a trilogy of plays by local playwright Aditi Brennan Kapil being premiered by Mixed Blood Theatre. The series is called Displaced Hindu Gods, and also includes pieces The Chronicles of Kalki and Shiv; all three plays are based around the concept of the…
A child of the ‘80s, I prepared for Children’s Theatre Company’s production of Charlotte’s Web by recalling the ‘70s animated movie. Templeton the rat rolling in fair food came to mind, and so too did Wilbur the runt prancing around the farm with a duckling on his snout. As the day came closer, I began singing “Lots in Common”…
I’ve often wondered what the modern equivalent for gory Renaissance tragedy is, but I never thought to compare it with hardboiled detective film. The Final Act at the Woman’s Club of Minneapolis (407 West 15th St.) blends these two styles into a gripping murder mystery about the death of Christopher Marlowe. There are few authors…
