A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Mission Theater promises that its production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a “highly physical, energetic production”, and they aren’t lying. From start to finish, the play is bursting with energy. Characters dance, fight, frolic, and do just about anything but stay still. Australian director Penelope Parsons-Lord cleverly decided to use physicality to help…

A Novice’s Guide to Successful Theater-Going

Ever sat through a bad play? Afraid you’re about to? Never fear: we have tips to make the theater-going experience fun, no matter what appears on the stage. by JIM JOHNS, guest writer There are two ways to look at going to the theater. The first way is to condemn yourself to the evening and hope…

Other Desert Cities

by CHRISTINE SARKES SASSEVILLE Jon Robin Baitz’s Other Desert Cities is a cunningly crafted family drama set in a plush Palm Springs living room. The play, directed by Peter Rothstein at the Guthrie Theater is superbly acted and written, with powerhouse female performances by Sally Wingert, as Polly, the Wyeth family matriarch, Michelle Barber, as her sister Silda,…

As You Like It

by CHRISTINE SARKES SASSEVILLE The Guthrie Theater and The Acting Company’s staging and interpretation of William Shakespeare’s whimsical romantic comedy, As You Like It, is wonderfully inventive, superbly acted and suprisingly accessible to modern audiences. Everything from the mystical set design, roaring twenties costume vibe, musical interludes and the modern cadence of the monologues cleverly evokes Shakespeare’s motifs…

Catch Me If You Can

by CHRISTINE SARKES SASSEVILLE The Orpheum Theatre’s glitzy, new musical offering, Catch Me If You Can, tells the true-life con man “coming of age story” of Frank Abagnale, Jr., who posed as a doctor, lawyer and Pan Am pilot all before age 21.  The Tony-nominated musical, set in the 1960s with a rat pack meets Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In…

Aisle Say Twin Cities: Launch!

Welcome to Aisle Say Twin Cities, the new offshoot blog of AisleSay.com, an internet resource for theater reviews across the country. At Aisle Say Twin Cities, we strive for reviews that push Minneapolis and St. Paul to provide consistently high-quality theater. You can read more about us on the “About” page. We hope our reviews…

Arms and the Man

by ANNA ROSENSWEIG Sergius Saranoff is the very model of a Major and a gentleman. We learn this in the first scene of George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man when his fiancée, Raina Petkoff, coos over a photograph of him in full officer’s garb and revels in reports of his valor and bravery. Sergius…