The Great Gatsby is a notably contemporary choice for a company best known for its Shakespeare. But by honoring both the spirit of St. Paul’s favorite son and the opulent Jazz Age epitomized by his classic novel, the company is making quite the symbolic statement for christening its glamorous waterfront playhouse. A second Minnesota son-made-good … Read more
What Momentum does for choreographers (see above), Fresh Ink does for playwrights. Among our top picks is Boldly Going Nowhere, a one-man, five-character study put on by Theatre Latté Da veteran Tod Petersen. As wear-tested at the Minnesota Fringe Festival two years back, it demonstrated Petersen’s uncanny ability to pick up the speech patterns and … Read more
These days, Stockholm, Wisconsin, is a sweet daytrip for retirees looking to buy Amish quilts or decorative objets from discerning folks who’ve escaped the big-city rat race. But in 1854, this town was the promised land for two hundred Swedish settlers; their compatriot, Eric Peterson, had left Bjurtjärn for America with his two brothers, who … Read more
While taking tango lessons from an Argentine national, local choreographer Gerry Girouard became interested in the famous Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo—a group whose mission since 1977 has been to track down missing Argentine children, many of whom were born to political prisoners. By teaming his own dancers with Off-Leash Area Productions, a theater … Read more
This year’s lineup of fresh Minnesota dance includes inspired moments like the pairing of the gorgeous music of Spaghetti Western String Co. with Live Action Set, an inventive company of clowns, dancers, and stage performers. Their piece is titled “Percussionist,” even though, yes, Spaghetti Western is a string quartet; it’s the bodies in movement that … Read more
Boys will be there but your parents will not,” promised the summer camp brochures that came in winter’s mail like seed catalogs. There were pamphlets for marine biology camp in Florida, space camp in Alabama, and some sort of geology road trip called the Central Rocky Mountain Institute. “I hear scientific greatness calling me,” I … Read more
No one ever added more acreage to the Roman Empire than Julius Caesar (the Roman geezer). Until his time, Roman territory in what is now France was the relatively narrow sliver along the Mediterranean coast that is still called Provence, precisely because it was the original Roman province. In ten years Caesar took over all … Read more
A few weeks ago, Joseph C. Phillips, one of my childhood “ace boon coons” (black Southern speak for best friends), rolled through the Twin Cities. He’s mainly an actor (The Cosby Show, General Hospital, and the upcoming Vanished), but on this trip he was promoting his book, He Talk Like A White Boy—Reflections on Faith, … Read more
It was the Paris Hilton-Stavros Niarchos breakup that did it. I’ve decided that since the average celebrity liaison lasts less time than it takes Britney Spears to endanger a baby, I’m in favor of assigning these jet-set hook-ups shorter, more easily memorable names. The TomKats, Brangelinas, and Bennifers of the entertainment world become shorthand for … Read more
On a hot Fourth of July, as I ate oddly flavored brown stew off a rusty plate and downed fake whiskey from my tin cup, all while seated outside at a wooden table with a crowd of people watching, I started feeling like a capuchin monkey at the zoo. This was all part of my … Read more