Duluth has a polo club left over from the days when it was one of the richest cities in America. Old Italian men still play bocce ball in the city’s West End. The Coney Island hot dog stand is the same one my dad went to in 1922, and the menu boards are still up … Read more
Walking north along Second Street through Northeast Minneapolis, one eventually happens upon the most unusual variant of a white picket fence: Based roughly on piano keys, it has the occasional cutout or half-missing panel that allows passersby a peek into a thriving vegetable garden. This artsy parapet belongs to David Salmela, a musician, software designer, … Read more
The Chinese have been using acupuncture for cosmetic purposes for centuries; while here, in the medically advanced West, we like to suffer for our beauty by winching away the years or injecting our faces with bovine toxin. But these methods give some people pause, especially when they can no longer even furrow their brows to … 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
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
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
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
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
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
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