by MICHAEL J. OPPERMAN For 25 years, the Ordway has been bringing contemporary performing artists from around the world to Minnesota through the Target® World Music & Dance Series. Since the initiative began in 1991, more than 900,000 P-12 students have attended performances. Thousands more have attended public performances, participated in workshops, and experienced pre-show…
by CHRISTINE SARKES The Broadway classic and iconic A Chorus Line receives reverential treatment at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, with spot on, heavily local casting and fabulous triple-threat performances (dancing, singing, acting). It is worth the price of admission to remember the 1970s groundbreaking themes of coming out and coming of age in the…
BY TAMAR NEUMANN: The latest production from In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre (HOBT), The Story of Crow Boy, is an adaptation of the children’s book by the same name. But due to the nature of theatre and the collaboration of this production, it is much more than that. It goes beyond…
By ELLEN FERRY. I took my seat before the Andy Boss Thrust Stage fearful that what I was about to witness—a 90-minute rendition of one of the finest plays ever written—would feel severely truncated. Romeo and Juliet’s star-crossed love is archetypal. The tale need not be explained, but would such a short run-time leave me…
Seeing Shakespeare always makes me a little nervous. I do not fear the language or the twisty-turny plots; rather, my reaction is based on years of experience of seeing all sorts of wacky “new” twists on the Bard’s plays. I’ve seen a steampunk Macbeth and a post-apocalyptic The Tempest, a reverse-gender cast of Romeo and…
Jessica Dickey wrote and performed her one-woman show The Amish Project in response to the 2006 school shooting in the Amish community of Nickel Mines, PA. She is very careful, however, to point out that the play, although based on real events, is entirely fictional; no real people’s names are used, and she deliberately did not research…
by Rebecca Halat and Adam Schenck Illusion Theater’s Right Wrong or Bomb! A Dating Musical explores the contemporary (read: online) dating scene. How many of us aren’t familiar with the daunting process of searching through hundreds of photos and descriptions in an attempt to find one–just one!–other human being with enough attractiveness and a tolerable…
by CHRISTINE SARKES This is not your dreaded high school AP English version of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens: Director Joel Sass’s adaptation at Park Square Theatre is instead alive and accessible, with diverse casting and dynamic staging that highlight the humor and humanity of the play. My daughter, who was my guest to the opening…
When producing artistic director Natalie Novacek referred to her “stupidly talented cast” during a toast on the preview night for The Best Brothers, I smiled and raised my glass, but I’ll admit that I was thinking, ‘Sure, you’re the director, you’d have to say that, wouldn’t you?’ But as I sat in the Open Eye Figure Theater and watched the…
By ELLEN FERRY. Anyone in search of the perfect evening out this holiday season should certainly consider a stroll under the glittering lights of St. Paul’s Rice Park, followed by a visit to the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. For a production as iconic as Rodger and Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music,” I can…
Aisle Say - Twin Cities 