The Green Room

What's Happening This Week?

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 11:55:00 -0400

Welcome to our weekly-posts concerning which performances are opening this week, and which will be ending. Come back every Monday for the latest update on the shows around the Twin Cities that can’t be missed!

As always, check out our the Ivey Awards’ Facebook page and Twitter page for more info and discussions on all things Twin Cities theater.

Monday May 20^th – Sunday May 26^th

Opening:

Hamlet – May 22^nd

Theatre Coup d’Etat

http://www.theatrecoupdetat.com/echo_base.html

Closing:

Cinder Edna – May 25^th

Stages Theatre Company

http://www.stagestheatre.org/upcoming-shows/01/31/2012/cinder-edna

Changes In Time – May 25^th

20% Theatre Company

http://www.tctwentypercent.org/season.html

An Illiad – May 26^th

Guthrie Theater

http://www.guthrietheater.org/plays_events/plays/_iliad

Ring of Fire: The Life and Music of Johnny Cash – May 26^th

Plymouth Playhouse

http://plymouthplayhouse.com/ring-of-fire/

What Happened to the Dollar – May 26^th

Box Wine Theatre

http://boxwinetheatre.com/

Forever Plaid – May 26^th

Actors Theater of Minnesota

http://www.actorsmn.org/node/1282

Out of the Pan Into the Fire – May 26^th

The Moving Company

http://themovingco.org/nowplaying

On the Town – May 26^th

Bloomington Civic Theatre

http://www.btacmn.org/2perform/at_theaters/schneider/on_town.html

Streetcar Named Desire – May 26^th

Ten Thousand Things

http://www.tenthousandthings.org/streetcar

MINNESOTANS ARE HOT IN NYC

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 11:36:00 -0400

Ivey is intrigued to see that a ‘bitter and strong’ comedy lampooning Norwegians and taking pokes at Minnesotans is currently enjoying a successful run off-Broadway in NYC. So intrigued, in fact, that Ivey pummeled Texas native and resident C. Denby Swanson with the following questions:

Ivey: What was your inspiration for developing a play that has as its subject Minnesotans / Norwegians?

Swanson: Life.

Ivey: What is your Minnesota connection?

Swanson: Interstate-35. I got on it at my house, drove straight up to Minneapolis, and took a slight jog to the east.

I received a Jerome Fellowship in 2001 and then a McKnight Advancement Grant in 2002, both were year-long playwriting fellowships awarded through The Playwrights Center, so I relocated to Minneapolis from Austin, TX for just about 2 1/2 years. I lived in Seward and ate so often at the Birchwood Cafe that I didn’t need my own silverware at home. My first weekend in Minneapolis was Memorial Day, and a) I almost froze my hiney off it was so freakin’ cold; and b) I was taken to a super nice suburb that had literally just been carved out of farmland, everybody had their Winnebago in the driveway and were grilling hotdogs in the front yard. They heard I was from Texas and offered me some “extra mild salsa,” which was basically just tomatoes, and I was like, ya’ll this is the whitest place I have ever been in my life. And then at D’Amico’s I met up with a bunch of the other emigre writers, all of whom had moved to Minneapolis because of grants from the Playwrights Center. D’Amico’s had a bottomless glass of house wine for like three bucks - and let me just say that a cold place where a gaggle of itinerant writers live should NOT offer cheap bottomless wine, we WILL drink it all - and over wine and cheese and many meals I met some of the best, funniest, most generous people on the face of the planet. In fact, sitting there drinking bottomless wine one time, one of my new friends actually told me that the secret to living in Minneapolis was that you had to find a boyfriend before the first freeze. And that’s in the play. And I failed at that, by the way.

Ivey: Everything is bigger in Texas. Complete the following: ‘Everything’s _____________ in Minnesota.”

Swanson: Answer #1: “north” (duh)

I mean, at some point when I lived there someone described their weekend travel plans to a lake “up north” and I was like, I’m sorry where do you think you are right now, because this is already north to most everybody else. From my hometown there’s still room to say “We’re heading down south,” because to get to Mexico from my house you still have to drive basically the length of France. Where my mom lives, it takes her 35 minutes just to get to a road, and then she goes 90 miles and through a border checkpoint and that’s just her regular trip into town to the grocery store.

Answer #2: “nice”

Because look, there’s “Texas nice,” you know, which is really not nice. I mean, if you hear someone in Texas say, “We just LOVE her, we love to her DEATH,” they are intending to take her out back and shoot her. The nicer people get down here the less nice they probably are. It’s a study in subtext. But “Minnesota nice” is actually nice. I found this just, like, baffling. The nicer ya’ll are, the nicer you actually are. No subtext. It’s weird. It still freaks me out. (Ivey comment: If a Texan says ‘Bless her heart’, it means that the Texan thinks she is bat-shit crazy).

Ivey: What is the Minnesota stereotype equivalent to big hair in Texas?

Swanson: Given that we’re sort of polar opposites on the polar line of I-35, it’s appropriate that the bigger the Texans are the more restrained the Minnesotans are. I feel like you’re all out of some Eddie Bauer catalog. So wholesome, so nicely pleated, such warm sweaters. Everything is restrained - not always in terms of the outfit, but very frequently in terms of the aura.

“The Norwegians” runs through Sunday at the Drilling Company Theater, 236 West 78th Street, Manhattan; (212) 868-4444, smarttix.com.

2013 and Beyond at Park Square Theatre

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 13:52:00 -0400

You can see it here first, folks!

Park Square Theatre just announced its 2013-2014 season, and it’s one composed entirely of area, regional, and world premieres.

Ivey is betting that Linda Kelsey will out-Lincoln Sally Fields when she plays that President’s wife in Mary T. and Lizzy K beginning in October. But first, audiences catching Good People in September / October will enjoy the Minnesota stage debut of James Denton, who must forever bear the burden of having the words ‘hunky plumber’ immediately precede his name.

The other productions rounding out the season are The School For Lies directed by Amy Rummenie, Cyrano directed by Joe Chvala, Behind the Eye directed by Leah Cooper and The Red Box directed by Peter Moore.

Dear Ivey

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 23:22:58 -0400

Help Stages Theatre Company Light A Spark

Think back on your childhood… what was the spark for you? What inspired you to try something new, believe in yourself, or take a risk? At Stages Theatre Company, those sparks are lit in the kids they serve, allowing them to discover a new part of themselves.

Your contribution now helps Stages achieve the following:

In the coming year they will reach more than 130,000 youth and their families.

Here are some highlights of what can be accomplished with your support:

More than 270 performances, featuring the outstanding work of local youth performers and the rich talents of professional local artists;
More than 15 local schools will receive high-quality arts-integrated programming designed to improve student academic achievement;
More than 2,000 youth participants will be served through our workshops and conservatory program which take place during non-school hours.

Stages Theatre Company also works hard to make its performances and programs accessible to all youth and their families, regardless of their ability to pay. Each year they serve more than 20,000 individuals through their Open Door Program, which offers free and reduced price tickets and educational programs to those with the most pressing financial need. Here’s what one participant had to say:

I attended the ‘Giggle, Giggle, Quack’ performance yesterday with my four-year old daughter through the pay-what-you-can performance. I just wanted to follow up to thank you for offering such a wonderful campaign. I lost my I.T. job in January and it was wonderful to have the opportunity to attend this event! I am an avid theater lover and this was the first time I’d brought my daughter to a ‘real’ play …and she absolutely loved every minute of it.

Thank you for offering this program and treating my entire experience with such decency. I’m not accustomed to being on the receiving end of assistance, but wanted to express my sincere gratitude. My husband and I are now committed to supporting the Stages (Theatre Company) once we get back on our feet.

Your financial support helps us provide this access:

Next season they plan to offer a sensory-friendly performance for the families of autistic youth. Please help them to accomplish this and other program goals of their Open Door Program by making a tax-deductible donation today. You may make your donation securely by clicking on Contribute Now.

Thank you for helping light a spark.

Tradition With a Twist

Mon, 28 May 2012 20:44:12 -0400

By Faith Christine

Sometimes Drama Queen sees a show that mixes familiar bits from several stories and still makes it come out feeling authentic and different. The world premiere of Deal! The Musical –- with a pinch of church basement ladies, a little Lake Wobegon, and a dash of Raisin in the Sun -– was just such a show.

The semi-autobiographical story about growing up in a small Minnesota farm community was given an added twist by Tom Broadbent, who mixed these elements into a pseudo-opera that recently ran at the Ritz Theater.

The characters portrayed in Deal! were his family and neighbors, hard-working Scandinavians who came together over a weekly poker game. They shared a cultural heritage that called upon people to accept what life had given them with quiet patience and circumspect logic, a trait DQ has observed in others who come from persevering stock.

Each week, this group gathered at the kitchen table with their reserves of loose change to play cards, joke, vent, and occasionally celebrate. The custom of poker night provided them with stability no matter what kind of hand life dealt them otherwise.

But for the kids in the household, it also represented a sort of cultural and generational prison. They hankered to escape the narrow, safe environs of the family kitchen.

Such yearning was best expressed by Julie, the frustrated daughter, when she cried that she wanted to live some place where people weren’t all named Peterson, Johnson, or Anderson. Some place like, maybe, New Ulm. But unlike the playwright, she did not escape her upbringing, even though she grew up to love and appreciate the people in her life.

While Deal! may seem an odd marriage of cheery music and hard-luck tales, it worked for DQ. It made sense that Broadbent would choose music as his tool of choice to convey his affection for the people and culture that shaped him.

Sometimes, it seems, tradition needs a bit of a twist.

+ Faith Christine (a.k.a. “the Drama Queen”) blogs every week for METRO. See more of her work here.

Adoptive Art

Mon, 14 May 2012 23:22:33 -0400

By Faith Christine

Drama Queen knows a vibrant theater community demands constant nourishment and renewal. And as self-appointed mother hen to the theater arts, she feels a particular obligation to help foster the development of new works and talent, whether it’s born flawless or wrinkled and ugly. A not-so-attractive baby herself, she recognizes not all newborns are beguiling, but that even homely ones can be surprisingly captivating.

Not all theater communities are as exceptional as the one DQ enjoys. She has kept her maternal feelings toward the theater community satisfied because she lives in a hotbed of creative incubation. Her hometown has a strong tradition of encouraging innovation among thespians, and the 2012 theater season has proved particularly fertile.

Recognizing her good fortune, DQ also feels sympathy for theater lovers who miss out on the bounty by not living in her town. Friends who have moved away bemoan the paucity of theater in other cities. Even in California. So on a recent visit to Palm Springs, DQ was thrilled to learn her friends arranged to attend a play reading contest.

A local arts organization, DezartPerforms, was holding its Fourth Annual Play Reading Series. They put out a call for new scripts early last winter. It yielded 121 entries, which were winnowed down to eight. Excerpts from the finalists were presented to audiences over two weekends in April, and the winner will be staged during their upcoming season.

Although she didn’t attend all eight readings, Drama Queen is rooting for a script titled after a cat named Lorraine. As a lover of dogs and cats, it resonated with her in spite of its imperfections. The story featured a pretty feline who gets banished to the animal shelter after missing the litter box one too many times. The best friend of Lorraine’s callous owners is horrified when he learns of their feline abandonment, questions their relationship, and even considers rescuing the hapless kitty from her undeserved providence.

It’s just the sort of tale that would attract an adoptive mother to the arts, dogs, and cats.

+ Faith Christine (a.k.a. “the Drama Queen”) blogs every week for METRO. See more of her work here.

A "Pinteresque" Performance

Mon, 07 May 2012 14:43:00 -0400

By Faith Christine

After being caught recently in the crossfire of an argument, and then a post-performance outburst, by her Partner for Life, Drama Queen believes without question that bringing up Harold Pinter can incite powerful emotions. She can vouch that people she knows either love or despise plays by him. And even the lovers of his work acquired their taste for it gradually.

DQ’s latest brush with Pinter was the Jungle Theatre’s production of The Birthday Party. The argument erupted just prior to the performance, when a close friend, a woman with real theater chops, annouced the two things she hates intensely: plays by Pinter and sushi. While she allowed that the latter may be a curable condition, her disdain for Pinter was not.

The Birthday Party, one of Pinter’s early works, bombed on stage in London, his hometown, and among critics – except for one devout supporter. The play became associated with the disparaging dub by literary types that something was “Pinteresque.” It meant being characterized by minimal plot, menace, long pauses, and featuring characters that are self-absorbed, somewhat dull people who lead narrow lives and are convinced they’re being pursued.

Not surprisingly, Pinter’s plays provide great fodder for parody, which has happened often and hilariously.

DQ suspects somewhere in Pinter’s bio there is an explanation for his obsessions. The playwright had a nervous childhood due to the WWII Blitz. As a student, he tried to be an actor, playwright and director. As an adult, he continued to keep his hand in all things theatrical while adding the role of philandering husband, one who married twice to gorgeous, successful women.

Although his works are certainly controversial, Drama Queen thinks they’re still worth trying to understand, precisely because they excite such criticism. Among her circle, however, Pinter’s plays usually do not inspire lavish praise. In fact, she doubts many among them are likely to seek opportunities to change their opinion of his work.

+ Faith Christine (a.k.a. “the Drama Queen”) blogs every week for METRO. See more of her work here.

All The World's A Stage

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:48:47 -0400

By Faith Christine

As a child, Drama Queen learned to be wary of strangers and to avoid conversations with people she didn’t know. She also developed a dislike for being singled out in a crowd, which is why audience participation shows make her nervous.

So when the folks behind Swandive Theater’s “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare” promised the audience would “not be passive viewers, but true participants,” her nerve-endings started to twitch.

Her fears were further fanned when an oddly attired young man sat down beside her and immediately began a dialogue about her. Knowing that “cowards die many times before their deaths; (while) the valiant never taste of death but once,” she politely disclosed as little personal information as she could.

It proved to be a smart choice, as the odd young man was a cast member, one of three depicting a rollickingly audacious compendium of the bard’s 37 works.

The show plays out in 97 minutes of hyperkinetic performances in which Shakespeare’s words are hilariously bastardized, depicting tragic figures as ridiculous and dropping malapropisms like cheap tricks – all of this in attempt to make Shakespeare appealing to those “intellectually flaccid” who had been “systematically sodomized by soap operas.”

Performers also sought to make the work engaging by drawing willing audience members into Shakespearean banter. When the limelight inevitably turned to Drama Queen, the odd young man, now attired in a platinum blonde wig, introduced her to the audience as a theater junkie, who… ” DQ flinched. She had been made into a “true participant” in the bard’s classic works.

Her partner-for-life, not about to be left out of this literary crime gushed: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one woman plays many parts.”

+ Faith Christine (a.k.a. “the Drama Queen”) blogs every week for METRO. See more of her work here.

The Real World

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 17:04:04 -0400

By Faith Christine

Sometimes Drama Queen gets so drawn into a story she forgets she’s actually watching a play. That happened recently as she watched a preview performance of the Guthrie’s “Time Stands Still.” Gradually the line between her life and the characters on stage became more nebulous as she found herself recognizing people, especially journalists, she knew in a previous life.

In the play, a war correspondent photographer named Sara returns home to recover from her injuries after being seriously wounded in a roadside bomb explosion. Like many of the women DQ worked with, she is smart, courageous, and utterly passionate in her commitment to her work. The kind of woman who reminded her of iconic women journalists like Mary Hemingway, Sylvia Poggioli, and Marie Colvin, women of great accomplishment.

Yet while DQ greatly admired these women, she never aspired to become like them. Their zealous pursuit of their work, bringing the cold realities of war into our living rooms, put them in personal danger, risking their lives. It cost them physically and psychologically, as well as wreaking havoc on their personal relationships. This was too great a price for a timid soul like DQ.

The character of Sara also paid for her career choice. Upon returning home, she and the war reporter she lived with for eight years, find themselves dealing with things they had never before faced in their long association. He is mentally fragile and recovering from a breakdown brought on by too much close-up carnage. She struggles with her physical wounds and her guilt over photographing people in pain – “getting blood on her camera lens.”

They impulsively decide to get married, but soon discover it does not bring them any closer. Sara’s brush with death hasn’t diminished her journalistic zeal, but her war-weary husband finds he prefers the quietude and comfort of normal living. Just like people DQ has known who have grown apart, they go their separate ways. Sara heads off to her next assignment and hubby finds comfort in the arms of another woman, one who offers the promise of domesticity and family.

Their split also reminded DQ’s partner-for-life of other break-ups. As he wistfully remarked, it was “Another perfectly good friendship ruined by marriage.”

+ Faith Christine (a.k.a. “the Drama Queen”) blogs every week for METRO. See more of her work here.

Live and Learn

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 17:49:51 -0400

By Faith Christine

Even though spring is still in its infancy, Drama Queen has already dubbed 2012 as a thespian baby boom. Since January, she has seen three area premieres, including two never-before-seen productions, and she anticipates several more before the end of the year.

The explosion of new works has swept her up with such fervor that she’s already fighting urges to plant tomatoes outdoors.

The most recent premier Drama Queen took in wasAmerican Family, playwright Carlyle Brown’s work that is just finishing up on the Park Square stage.

Brown, a recognized talent in his field, was inspired by a mostly-forgotten movie called One Potato, Two Potato, in which a white divorcee marries an African-American man. Her child is then taken away by a vindictive ex-husband who has her declared unfit as a mother because of her marriage to a black man.

Brown was further influenced by the John Lennon song “Working Class Hero,” a song about how life tarnishes the purity of a newborn’s soul yielding damaged adults.

The play, told from the daughter’s perspective, follows the thread of a child’s feelings over being abandoned to a young woman’s sadness and emptiness, when it’s too late. The angry child in her had coped with feelings of rejection by projecting that ire back upon her mother. Years later she recovers some of the mother she lost by reading her letters.

DQ, always willing to extrapolate to ridiculous extremes, saw a karmic metaphor for the life of a new play.

Like an infant, it comes out slippery and hollering, but time and outside influences cause it to change. It can become damaged from exposure to the elements – or evolve like a rough-edged rock into a beautifully polished stone.

She expects this year’s harvest of new works to yield some of each.

+ Faith Christine (a.k.a. “the Drama Queen”) blogs every week for METRO. See more of her work here.

Too Much, Too Soon

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:29:00 -0400

By Faith Christine

Drama Queen has always been conflicted over whether it’s better to confront young children with the cruel realities of life so they’re prepared or to indulge their ignorance, at least until they are teenagers and a little bad news may actually serve as a potent motivator.

That was her quandary with Children’s Theatre Company’s production of Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy. The story is about a Maine town, Phippsburg, and its abysmal treatment of African-American outcasts who occupied the island of Malaga, just off its coast. It was the late 1800’s and, despite being forced to live in the ostracized and isolated community, a young inhabitant named Lizzie Bright thrived. She was one of those irrepressibly optimistic children who saw all that life hands them as one big opportunity.

One day while on a clamming expedition to the mainland, Lizzie struck up a relationship with the new kid in town, the sullen, geeky son of the recently arrived preacher. Soon their inter-racial friendship is discovered and the town is scandalized, bringing the preacher’s morals into question and putting his job at risk.

Phippsburg’s leading citizens then hatch a plan to develop the island. The first step calls for evicting all of the island’s current inhabitants, who not surprisingly are unable to prove any “legal” claim to their island. Events unfold predictably, ending sadly for the residents of Malaga and shamefully for the town.

It’s the utter sorrow of this historical account that made DQ think it was too heavy for young kids. This isn’t just supposition, either. During her viewing, one young audience member, a girl who bore an uncanny resemblance to Lizzie Bright, was overwhelmed with sadness and burst into tears.

Although the playwright did inject some levity via the character of Mrs. Cobb, a pious, shrill widow, who is obsessed over getting her last words right, the play was for the most part a heartbreaking statement about racism. Not even the unexpected and sardonically funny twist at the end could raise the spirits of the tearful girl sitting behind DQ.

For a young audience, it may have been too much, too soon.

+ Faith Christine (a.k.a. “the Drama Queen”) blogs every week for METRO. See more of her work here.

Sally Turns 20

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 16:58:06 -0400

Ivey attended Sally’s 20^th awards event at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts on Monday, March 26 and was charmed equally by the eloquent acceptance remarks and benevolent introductions.

While almost all words spoken were artistic in and of themselves, the biggest audience chuckle came when Rick Jacobson compared his trophy to a roll-on deodorant tube, then attributed the comparison to T. Mychael Rambo. Because Ivey trophy comparison comments abound, Ivey knows that Rick’s comments are terms of endearment.

The winners and the categories in which they received recognition are as follows:

ARTS ACCESS: Rick Jacobson

EDUCATION: Ross Sutter

COMMITMENT: Kevin Smith

VISION: Ta-Coumba T. Aiken

INITIATIVE: TU Dance

Wonderful awards, wonderful recipients!

Heads or Tails

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 17:20:00 -0400

By Faith Christine

It’s been a few years since Drama Queen marked her thirteenth year of life, but a recent birthday gift compelled her to reflect upon that period of adolescence.

It was a book called Through No Fault of My Own, the diary of a 13-year-old girl named Clotilde “Coco” Irvine who recorded her thoughts in 1927 while residing in what is now the governor’s mansion on Summit Avenue. Irvine’s life was one of wealth and privilege, yet the girl reflected in the diary’s pages was not a spoiled brat. She sounded instead like a bright, precocious young person with surprisingly modern views and concerns.

Her recollections are the basis of the History Theatre’s current play Coco’s Diary, about a pubescent girl who is actually quite likable. The diary revealed a curious, inventive, and refreshingly balanced young woman, much in contrast with DQ’s own memories of that age. Unlike Coco’s recorded life, hers was a time of pain and angst when raging hormones alternately fueled a roller coaster ride of childish tantrums and seductive urges.

That’s not to say Coco’s life was stress-free or without sexual tension. Her allowance wasn’t enough and she acknowledged a strong preoccupation with boys. Yet she always seemed to maintain her confidence that He really did like her, and she never mentioned uncontrollable emotions or a body that seemed to not be her own.

But in spite of its potential as a stage play, DQ knew it would be almost impossible to get her partner-for-life to join her at the show. She so wanted to avoid the likely torrent of pathetic whining about being made to sit through another play about uninteresting people that she never even tried to persuade him. Instead, Drama Queen has settled for hearsay reports from others.

Perhaps somebody will let her know if the joke Coco told at her family’s dinner table – the one that so upset her parents – made it to the stage.

The joke was: “A dog went across the railroad track and a train ran over his tail. He looked back to see where his tail was and a train came the other way and cut off his head. Moral: Don’t lose your head over a little piece of tail.”

+ Faith Christine (a.k.a. “the Drama Queen”) blogs every week for METRO. See more of her work here.

Lessons Unlearned

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 16:55:00 -0400

By Faith Christine

There have been times in Drama Queen’s life when she felt like she was the only person who didn’t get a message, leaving her clueless while everybody else understood perfectly what something was about. The meaning of The Sorcerer’s Apprenticeprovided another one of those moments. In spite of her best efforts, she never figured out what it meant.

The story is hardly unfamiliar. Written in the late 1700s by Goethe, it has been told by parents to their children for hundreds of years, been turned into a play, and seen several iterations on the silver screen – once with Mickey Mouse as the Apprentice, once as a Hitchcock film, and most recently as a movie featuring the spooky, crazy Nicholas Cage.

Yet even after viewing the visually magnificent puppet version by Open Eye Theater (which closed on March 11), DQ was still unable to reduce it down to a concise aphorism. So she resorted to Wikipedia for answers.

The site explained why this morality tale has been so popular with parents who want to scare their children into behaving, especially while their backs are turned. The message: bad things happen to mischievous kids who don’t listen to those in charge. The more child-friendly version of the tale ends with the fatherly Sorcerer saving the naughty apprentice from the mayhem he’s created. But in less nice versions, the kid is rebuked by a stern, angry Sorcerer, and probably sent to bed without his gruel.

With the missing message finally revealed, DQ pondered whether her lack of comprehension was because something was missing in her brain. She concluded there was a void, but also realized there was a good reason for why some people don’t seem to get it. Sometimes a person just doesn’t have the skills to detect certain things, because those muscles have never been used. If a message doesn’t apply, it isn’t always perceived.

This revelation made clear why DQ had struggled with the mysteries of meaning and morality for so many years. It was her childhood. Having been a well-behaved and unimaginative child with parents who saw no reason to terrorize her into behaving, she was not mentally equipped to deal with scare tactics. It also explained why she, a sensitive child, had not been exposed to so many children’s bedtime stories.

+ Faith Christine (a.k.a. “the Drama Queen”) blogs every week for METRO. See more of her work here.

No Mixed Feelings

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 21:22:00 -0400

By Faith Christine

Drama Queen’s out-of-character good spirits have surprisingly continued for another week. But as she reveled in endorphin-fueled feelings of salubriousness, she wondered why she was experiencing such unseasonal giddiness.

Could it be temperatures in the 50’s or the upcoming grand re-opening of her favorite Menards? Perhaps, but after considering the possibilities, she determined the most likely cause was those ongoing bouts of inexplicable, spontaneous chortling she has been experiencing ever since seeing her first world premiere of the year: Mixed Blood Theatre’s ‘Crashing the Party.’

The hilariously brilliant play about a lovably, crazy, and dysfunctional family has reaped countless accolades from local theater glitterati, and will undoubtedly receive even more prestigious recognition if DQ has anything to say about it. This new work, besides feeding the ravenous appetites of the Twin Cities play-going community, is an exquisite example of how a husband and wife team can work together to create a theatrical masterpiece.

How such duos manage the creative tension has been an ongoing source of mystery and wonder to DQ, who still bears the scars of collaborative home-improvement projects. Imagine being a playwright like Josh Tobiessen and allowing a director to mold his offspring into a show – or a director like Sarah Rasmussen who must navigate the precarious landscape between those not bound by practicalities and those who must execute.

Perhaps it was the special chemistry between the recently wedded pair that made this particular production so seamlessly polished. Or an appreciation of the creative values and challenges inherent in their respective roles that comes with years of working together.

Whatever the secret to their success, the result of their collaborative effort was something much greater than the mere sum of two people’s jobs. Drama Queen would like to applaud their willingness to weather the difficulties – and ask those who caution against the dangers of playwrights and directors crossing into each other’s creative territories to sit back down.

+ Faith Christine (a.k.a. “the Drama Queen”) blogs every week for METRO. See more of her work here.

After Starving, a Theatre Feast

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 20:18:00 -0500

By Faith Christine

In spite of being snowbound and unable to purchase a leap year lottery ticket this week (no power at the store), Drama Queen was not put out. Instead, she found herself happily cooking duck cassoulet while savoring the satisfying aftertaste of being fully sated – theatrically speaking. After whining for the better part of two months about the dismal state of theater, she now finds herself awash in an abundance of thespian riches.

Unsure if the cause of her current delight was pent-up hunger from her near-starvation holiday diet or a drunken stupor brought on by her good fortune, she thought it would be good to make sure it wasn’t just her own personal illusion. So she tallied up the number of theaters putting out good stuff since the start of the New Year. By her count eighteen Twin Cities theaters have staged – or will soon launch – performances that qualify as the real thing by DQ’s standards.

In January there was Torch Theater’s Dangerous Liaisons and the Guthrie’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. In February, she saw Urban Samurai’s regional premiere of Slasher, Mixed Blood’s world premiere of Crashing the Party, and Minnesota Jewish Theater’s My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding. All were edifying productions of the kind DQ has grown to expect from the Twin Cities theater community. Like somebody with a serious habit, she gets cranky and has tantrums when she can’t get enough.

She hopes to maintain her good humor by filling her March and April dance cards with more tantalizing fare. The menu for the rest of the pre-Easter stretch holds several palate-pleasing entrees, including Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Open Eye Theater), American Family (Park Square),Coco’s Diary (History Theater), Buzzer (Pillsbury House), and T-Bone & Weasel (Pro Rate at Gremlin).

And no, she isn’t worried about over-consuming. Good theater is the sustenance that keeps Twin Citians normal. This is a town where theater-goers hunger for quality, innovation, and creativity. They take their theater with hot sauce, while sitting on the stage, and they can handle the rich diet. In fact, DQ can take more!

+ Faith Christine (a.k.a. “the Drama Queen”) blogs every week for METRO. See more of her work here.

A New View

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 16:07:00 -0500

By Faith Christine

Emily, 7, provided simple and innocent logic at a recent showing of “The Mousetrap.”

While visiting her family in Hawaii recently, Drama Queen took in yet another production of The Mousetrap. The first time she saw this show was long-ago, when her friend had a role. The second time was the famously long-running production at St. Martin’s Theater in London’s West End. And the most recent viewing was a staging by the Kihei ProArts Playhouse, where she was by joined a 7-year-old girl named Emily.

The classic Agatha Christie play is about a group of people stranded at an English countryside guesthouse during a blizzard. As guests blow in, we hear a radio-news broadcast reporting the grizzly murder of a woman in a neighboring village. Police are looking for a male suspect wearing a dark coat, light scarf, and felt hat. A detective arrives and begins to conduct an inquiry. Then one of the guests, an unlikable woman named Mrs. Boyle, is murdered just before the intermission.

Although Emily was the only family member seeing The Mousetrap for the first time, Drama Queen felt a certain simpatico with her. Since she had forgotten the ending, she needed to process the clues all over again to figure out “whodunit.” Emily, unencumbered by the mental flotsam of older minds, had no problem parsing the evidence. She proclaimed Miss Casewell, a rather high-strung, somewhat masculine character, was the murderer, because “she smokes and she dresses like a man.”

The simplicity and innocence of Emily’s logic intrigued DQ. Given her age, it made perfect sense. First, it’s not surprising that a post-Big Tobacco settlement child would see smoking as a reckless pursuit, something a murderer might do. She has been inundated with messages about the unhealthiness of smoking since she was born. As for the masculine attire, well, dressing like a man made it possible for Miss Casewell to be mistaken for a man, like the suspected killer.

Even though the lady-who-smokes did not turn out to be guilty, Emily’s reasoning yielded a very plausible conclusion. As such, it occurred to Drama Queen that a rewritten version of The Mousetrap, one that explores the possibility of a different culprit, might be more appealing to kids who have grown up interactively influencing outcomes. It may be the sort of theatrical evolution needed for Emily’s generation.

+ Faith Christine (a.k.a. “the Drama Queen”) blogs every week for METRO. See more of her work here.

More than Meets the Eye

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 14:34:00 -0500

Ivey is struck by how often we only know one dimension of a person, when in reality so many of us are surrounded by rich, multi-dimensional lives of people whom we interact with on a daily basis. Today was the memorial service of Robert Hammel, who volunteered to help produce the Ivey’s for several years. Those of us on the production team valued his technical skills and friendly, easy-going, generous, personality, but not all of us knew of his tremendous, full life: actor, director, father, husband, mischief-maker, traveler, and a guy who looked great in hats.

Both people and video told the story today of a man who enjoyed life and gave it back in spades. Ivey only wishes the time would’ve been taken to not only appreciate what was on the surface of this great individual, but all that was below as well.

Scary Stimulation

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:54:00 -0500

By Faith Christine

Urban Samurai’s most recent dramatic offering, a regional premiere of Slasher that runs through Feb. 18, is more evidence that this passionate little theater company is worthy of Drama Queen’s continued admiration and support.

The show by local playwright Allison Moore was a campy, fun, spoof on the B-horror genre of film making. Always ones to search out new things and push the envelope, Samurai’s rendition planted the audience right in the midst of the action by seating them on-stage for the 90-minute, no-intermission performance.

The story, a funny yet somewhat caustic satire, featured Sheena, a buxom, blond, wiser-than-her-years heroine. Tired of always living on the verge of having the gas turned off because her pill-addled mother had spent the money, she negotiates her way into the starring role of a low-budget slasher movie. Mom, a frustrated feminist, who has been wheelchair-bound for 15 years with faked chronic fatigue syndrome, is horrified by her daughter’s selling out to a misogynist creep and vows to save her from this terrible fate.

The fast-paced script is chock full of thunder claps, explosions, darkness, and blood curdling screams, in addition to hilarious innuendo and bitingly funny dialog. Fake blood and cheesy acting abound in the horror show within a horror show, reminding Drama Queen of the time she came away from a production of Sweeney Todd wearing red splatters, a souvenir from one of the throat-slashing scenes.

Morrison’s witty Slasher script proved a perfect match for the wacky aspirations and talents of Samurai’s risk-taking artistic staff and they clearly had a merry time bringing it to the stage.

Once again they demonstrated that its groups like Samurai, always willing to try new things and test their audiences, that keeps audiences engaged and the Twin Cities theater community vibrant and evolving. It’s why DQ can’t ever leave for too long. Where else could she find such accessible, stimulating theatrical action?

+ Faith Christine (a.k.a. “the Drama Queen”) blogs every week for METRO. See more of her work here.

Character Connection

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:30:00 -0500

By Faith Christine

The Guthrie Theater’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof has been garnering lots of accolades and favorable media attention since launching in mid-January (including this review from METRO). Most of Drama Queen’s thespian friends have already seen it. Everybody was nattering on about how hot actor Peter Christian Hanson looked in a bath towel, what the real reason was behind why Maggie and Brick were not sleeping together – and just why Brick needed to keep drinking until he heard a click in his head.

DQ didn’t have much else to add to that conversation, so she was intrigued when she read in the playbill that Tennessee Williams called Cathis best work. It certainly wasn’t an opinion entirely shared by her friends. Furthermore, they had mixed feelings about the playwright’s assertion that the family patriarch, Big Daddy, was his best creation.

DQ could appreciate that Daddy was Williams’ proudest invention, however. He was also perhaps the best casting of this production. She thought Daddy had all the attributes of somebody she’d actually enjoy being with, sitting together in rockers admiring his plantation while sipping Kentucky bourbon. He was a man nearing the end of a life in which he had succeeded financially, but not with family relationships. He saw himself surrounded by mendacity, a word he most often used to describe his family. It was painfully clear to him how crazy and damaged they were.

His wife, Big Mama, had been driven to babbling on so much that she drove everybody around her crazy. His favorite son, Brick, a drunken ex-athlete, couldn’t get past the suicide of his best friend, Skipper. Meanwhile his scrumptiously seductive daughter-in-law, Maggie, was desperate to get their cut of the inheritance. And Daddy’s oldest, and appropriately named, son, Gooper, had grown up to become a slick lawyer with an extraordinarily fertile and devious wife.

Yet in spite of Big Daddy’s failures as a father and a husband, DQ couldn’t help but like him. He was smart, raw, and flawed, his most obvious fault being an inability to sugarcoat his words. He embodied the type of men in Williams experienced during his life. It wasn’t hard for DQ to see why he had such a soft spot for him.

+ Faith Christine (a.k.a. “the Drama Queen”) blogs every week for METRO. See more of her work here.