On the eastern edge of Minneapolis, in the beautiful, aging-hippie enclave of Prospect Park, stands the witch’s hat tower, a landmark known to anyone who’s lived here more than five minutes. Two blocks to the west is another neighborhood landmark known mainly to the localest of locals: the Signature Cafe. Since 1999, Mahmoud Arafa and … Read more
The Loring Pasta Bar—the second coming of owner Jason McLean’s original downtown success—is as fantasmic as anything Disney could have dreamed up (after his third martini) for a night of debaucherous eye candy smothered in gorgonzola and crimini mushrooms. It’s high theatre and nobody in town heaps it on like McLean. No stone—or tile or … Read more
To fill the Sunday night void following the third season of The Sopranos, HBO launched Six Feet Under, created by the Academy-Award winning writer of American Beauty, Alan Ball. That Ball boy happens also to be a recent winner of the Golden Globe for best drama series, thanks to this new gig. The show follows … Read more
Let’s just get this out in the open right away: Is Xena a lesbian, or merely bi-curious? Even if it’s been twelve months since the series ended its five-year run on network TV, it’s important to dwell on these questions of ancient history, rather than the soft issues of “female empowerment,” say, or “historical accuracy” … Read more
It began with a simple question: “Kirk or Picard?” No sooner had our lips formed the letter P than the wretched geek leaped from his barstool and set upon us with his Palm Pilot stylus, jabbing us repeatedly in the left kidney and unleashing a spit-drenched litany of Klingon epithets. Only hours later, laid up … Read more
A video rite of passage for anyone who’s ever donned a pair of breezers and nearly had his or her teeth knocked out of his or her head, Slap Shot is to the sports comedy what The English Patient is to the teary wartime epic. You’ll find more than a few non-hockey-buffs who’ll vouch for … Read more
Proof covers all the big themes: death, depression, the relationship of intellect to madness, professional success and personal failure, seduction and deduction, memories of the past and dreams of the future, and does it in a scathingly witty and highly pleasurable evening on a back porch. It is the story of Catherine, whose genius father … Read more
What makes commercial theater commercial is the way it delivers the reassuringly familiar, and Chanhassen’s current revival of The Music Man does not disappoint. The audience for this show expects to see a stage version of the movie version of the original Broadway musical, so that’s what director Michael Brindisi and his cohorts have put … Read more
Although the American theater has spent the last 30 years exploring issues of group identity, until recently the agenda has not included folks with disabilities. This show, which originated in Chicago in 1999, takes a step in that direction. The History of Bowling pulls together a collection of monologues and scenes in order to tell … Read more
You’d think the corporate-HQ-storming antics depicted in Michael Moore’s breakout feature Roger & Me (and his too-short-lived TV Nation) would be enjoying a full-on revival in this heyday for reality–TV and Enronic corporate America. But no—this relentless agitator’s most regular exposure comes by way of his much-forwarded Internet missives in the wake of 9/11. (The … Read more