Game show hosts, goateed beatniks, and a chorus line of bathing beauties? Why, it could only be a McCarthy hearing! Time Track Productions takes an absurdist look at the red scare by envisioning the questioning of J. Robert Oppenheimer as a fifties-era variety show. It’s hard to take on the politics of fear, whether vintage … Read more
It’s usually not a good thing when your landlord takes an interest in your love life. But in Annie Wilson’s case, a little meddling is just what she needs. Having recently lost what she thought was the love of her life, she’s uprooted herself to a new apartment across town. The landlord tells her 3A … Read more
Yes, it seems outlandish, but that’s the correct title. Charlotte Bronte’s classic tale of bitterness and resignation, rendered as a musical. Poor dowdy Jane cultivated an air of invisibility as she skulked about doing her menial work and watching her cruel crush woo other ladies, so the very thought of this mousy heroine breaking into … Read more
We’ve all heard about the different levels of grief and Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Lately I’ve had reason to re-examine the varying levels of “relevance and cool” in the music business. There are phases, to be exact. Level 1. You start out, fresh, unknown, and interestingly unstudied. Someone more famous than yourself has gone … Read more
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Exit 127 off Interstate 90 doesn’t seem to go anywhere. There are no towns, no farms, no apparent reason to build an exit in the middle of the driest, flattest section of South Dakota, a desolate expanse of land. If you steal a glance at the right moment, though, you may notice a nondescript vinyl-sided … Read more
On the third floor of the temporary library in downtown Minneapolis—a retrofitted office building that once housed the Federal Reserve Bank—a skinny man with a shock of white hair paced hurriedly up and down the aisles carrying a bouquet of roses wrapped in a wad of shredded newspaper. He looked disheveled, a little like Sam … Read more
We’ve long heard about the charms of Hopkins’ Main Street from folks who once cruised it at night as partying teenagers, and who now enjoy patronizing its antique stores on weekends (just as their mothers do). We, too, appreciate goods from yesteryear, but let’s be honest, antique-shop districts can get a little precious—despite the presence, … Read more
“Can I pick those up tomorrow?” Frank Stone stands at the bottom of a thirty-foot mountain of stainless steel scrap metal and points to its peak—a bouquet of four-foot-long, auger-like spirals, salvaged from crop sprayers, flailing in the chilly wind. Employees at the American Iron scrapyard in North Minneapolis are well acquainted with Stone, who … Read more
In 2001, keyboardist Herbie Hancock, tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker, and trumpeter Roy Hargrove teamed up under the moniker New Directions to pay tribute to the music of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, and their chemistry clicked so well they decided to keep the collaboration going. This time out, they’re setting their sights on an even … Read more