The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood

Collective Unconscious Performance is a local company that is quite small, fairly new, and quite ambitious. They take as their goal “to re-imagine stories from our ‘collective unconscious’ (such as fairy tales or myth) with a bold, contemporary perspective.” With the world premiere of their latest show, The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, they show that they…

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

By Anne Skonieczny   The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is unpleasant—in the best possible way. Tasked with telling a story filtered through the “extraordinary mind” of a teenage boy named Christopher (who appears to fall somewhere on the autism spectrum), the play creatively uses sound, light, choreography, and set design to…

Cabaret

by ERIKA SASSEVILLE I’ll admit, I may have been a terrible theater major. Before this week, I’d never seen Cabaret, either in film or on stage. Even so, my companion and I were blown away by Roundabout Theatre’s production playing through October 23 at the Orpheum Theatre. Cabaret premiered on Broadway in 1966 and picked up eight…

Hold These Truths

by LISSI CORBETT Every American should see this play. In one of the most powerful moments of playwright Jeanne Sakata’s one-man show Hold These Truths, Gordon Hirabayashi realizes that his and his family’s faces are the faces of the enemy. By accident of race and ancestry, they are now the dangerous and unwelcome Other. Hold…

Finding Fish

by CHRISTINE SARKES Finding Fish at the Illusion Theater is a labor of love for playwright Carlyle Brown, who lived a seafaring life for over twenty years on the Maine coast. A commission to write a play about the sustainability of Maine’s fisheries led to this work, which imagines a future world in which much…

Ragtime

Despite having been a Twin Cities theatre-goer for years now, last night’s performance of Ragtime was the first time I had ever seen a show by local favourite Theater Latté Da. Nuts, I know, but at least I finally got there. And it seemed like fortuitous timing that I should finally see the much-praised company at their first…

Waiting for Waiting for Godot

By BRYCE + LIZ BYRON. Set in the green room of a production of Waiting for Godot, the play Waiting for Waiting for Godot re-imagines the themes of Beckett’s absurdist play through a lens of modern “show business”. The play’s action unfolds as the two understudies, Ester and Val, wait for their chance to go on stage and…

Sense and Sensibility

by CHRISTINE SARKES I’m writing this review as an unabashed Jane Austen fan and addressing it to the likewise. Anyone else is a mystery to me and I wouldn’t know where to begin. Janeites/Austenites will love the Guthrie Theater and Kate Hamill’s reverent, yet lightly modernized adaptation of Sense and Sensibility. With spot-on lead performances, exceptional ensemble…

2016 Ivey Awards

by CHRISTINE SARKES Inclusiveness and gratitude were the themes of the 12th Annual Ivey Awards held last evening at the Historic State Theater, downtown Minneapolis. Theater professionals honored their own and one of ours–Star Tribune theater critic Graydon Royce–as they reached beyond the typical candidates by awarding a non-actor, costume designer Trevor Bowen, with the Emerging Artist Award. Bowen got his…