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Even though it was filmed here and directed by a Norwegian native, Factotum, based on the Charles Bukowski novel, is anything but Minnesota Nice. Like this spring’s film version of Ask The Dust—based on the novel that got Bukowski started as a writer—Factotum offers up Hollywood beauties playing the bums. This time it’s Matt Dillon … Read more

Showing as part of the Heights Theater’s eightieth-anniversary celebration, Vincente Minnelli’s masterpiece is not to be missed on the big screen. For all its nostalgic kitsch, this musical—one of the golden era’s finest—is surprisingly powerful. The gossamer plot, involving nothing more than Father Smith landing a job in New York, thus forcing his family to … Read more

All The King’s Men provokes more questions than interest: Why another version of Robert Rossen’s Oscar-winning 1949 film? To show that Sean Penn can outdo Broderick Crawford’s iconic Willie Stark? To introduce Robert Penn Warren’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel to modern audiences, and perhaps draw likenesses to the stumblebum currently in the White House? If so, … Read more

Coming up from the rambunctious Hijackers: a duet exploring the “unique gender” of male figure skaters, and a ballet set to tunes from a polka songstress called Lady Hard On. By boldly approaching modern dance with a certain irreverence, the veteran duo of Kristin Van Loon and Arwen Wilder have become widely known, and quite … Read more

This show was initially set to wrap in July. But after critics laid it on thick with praise and audiences started lining up for their sultry Tennessee Williams fix, the Torch Theater cleared the way for a run into September. No doubt one of the production’s biggest attractions is Stacia Rice, who wowed audiences a … Read more

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece is notoriously thorny where film and stage adaptations, even the recent premiere that inaugurated the Guthrie’s new theater, are concerned. Leave it to a group of avant-garde New Yorkers to set aside the adaptation imperative and take on the whole enchilada: Basically, Elevator Repair Service’s Gatz is an unabridged audio version … Read more

Done in the style of an old-fashioned radio play, this production comes replete with the sound effects that go beyond approaching footsteps and door slamming. The zinger part of Kid-Simple’s plot is that its protagonist, a high school science-fair champ named Moll, has invented a hypersensitive listening device that amplifies the world around us. Minneapolis-based … Read more

This is “sort of a mini Fringe,” according to the organizational brains behind this endeavor, although this particular festival does bear the modest touch of a curator. Hundreds of scripts for ten-minute plays, mostly by local writers, were submitted to the Bedlam company. They plucked the finest of the bunch—which, in most cases, meant the … Read more

Dear Nostalgia, I hate you. And yet, you are brilliant. Because if I ever stop hating you, I will long for the days when I did hate you and then I will hate you all over again. The French called you maladie du pays—the disease of home—which, though I hate you, does not do you … Read more

Why wasn’t David Rakoff delighted about the prospect of being exiled to a desert island, even a fantasy one? After all, the Canadian-born writer and actor said “OK” when Outside magazine asked him to take “an intense, weeklong wilderness course, where I was trained in primitive skills such as animal tracking, skinning, shelter construction, and … Read more