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THEATER REVIEW | The Jungle Theater's "Deathtrap": A "who hasn’t done it" thriller

By Bev Wolfe, TC Daily Planet

Photo credit Michal Daniel

A washed-up playwright, a supportive wife, an aspiring young playwright who has written a top notch thriller, a secluded location and a wall decorated with death instruments. These are the key elements of Jungle Theater’s production of Deathtrap, each harboring a clue to a mystery. While parodying the thriller genre, the play also effectively surprises and shocks. It is virtually impossible to share more about the play without spoiling the suspense.  

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Dancing for justice: A profile of Ananya Chatterjea

By Jacob Wheeler, The Uptake

Ananya Dance Theatre’s performances are about more than entertainment. Their purpose is to make you think. To make you think about how oil companies are destroying the environment. To make you think about how environmental destruction hurts women around the world.

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The Penumbra does it again — Austeen Van shines in SPUNK

By Mel Reeves, Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder

Austene Van and T. Mychael Rambo share a dance, Javeeta Steele (background) sings in SPUNK playing now through April 14 at the Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul (Photo by Rich Ryan courtesy of the Penumbra Theatre)

The saying that “the more things change the more they remain the same,” can be aptly applied to the Penumbra, which can always be expected to put on top-notch theater. Its production of SPUNK is consistent with what folks have come to expect.

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Challenge America: National Endowment for the Arts offers a "Fast Track" for arts projects reaching underserved populations

By Jay Gabler, Front Row Seat

10th annual Hmong Arts and Music Festival at Western Sculpture Park, 2011. Photo by Mandy Dwyer.

If you're working for or with a small or mid-sized arts organization and you've been looking for funding to make your programming more accessible to underserved audiences, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) wants to hear from you.

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"Sex at Dawn" in bed with Bedlam Theatre's John Bueche

By Sheila Regan, Behind the Story

Chris Garza 

So I got a Facebook invitation, and the title of the invitation was "Sex at Dawn at Dawn."  Not knowing that there was a popular science book with that title, I read with curiosity the rest of what the invitation said.

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DANCE PREVIEW | Ragamala Dance premieres "1,001 Buddhas: Journey of the Gods" at the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts

By Sheila Regan, TC Daily Planet

Ranee and Aparna Ramaswamy. Photos by Sheila Regan.

It’s East meets West over at the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts this weekend as Ragamala Dance debut their newest performance, 1,001 Buddhas: Journey of the Gods. And by East means West, I mean both Western and Eastern Hemispheres as well as Western and Eastern sides of the Asian Continent. This show brings together musicians and dancers from the United States, India, and Japan in a show that looks at their shared cultural histories.

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Yellow Fever: A serious, but enjoyable, show at the Guthrie

By Mindy Rhiger, Proper Noun Blog

I grew up going to a lot of community theater. My mom loves theater, and she made sure we went to whatever community production we could find in our small suburb. Very occasionally we even went into the city for a real show at the Chicago Auditorium. All the shows we saw were fun, but the few professional shows we saw were really quite extraordinary.

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Proper Noun Blog

Bloomington Civic Theatre stages Moonlight and Magnolias

By Doris Rubenstein, American Jewish World

Bloomington Civic Theatre’s production of Moonlight and Magnolias features (l to r): Paul Rutledge (Victor Fleming), Bryan Grosso (David O. Selznick), David Dubin (Ben Hecht) and Kara Greshwalk (Miss Poppenghul). (Photo by Victoria Madsen)

Star Trek is often referred to as the first science fiction television show that was “Jewish,” since its stars, William Shatner (Captain Kirk), Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock) and Walter Koenig (Lt. Chekhov), were all Jews. If this is true, then can the same be said of the film version of Gone with the Wind, which was produced by David O. Selznick, starred Leslie Howard (Steiner) and was written in no small part by Ben Hecht?

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THEATER REVIEW | "Courting Harry" entertains and educates at History Theatre

By Bev Wolfe, TC Daily Planet

Photos credit Scott Pakudaitis

Although Justice Harry Blackmun is best known as the author of the Roe v. Wade decision that gave women the right to abortion on demand, he always stood out for me as the only U.S. Supreme Court justice whose hand I had the opportunity to shake. It occurred when I was attending an argument by a colleague at the Supreme Court in 1990. I was surprised when I saw Blackmun having lunch in the Court’s public lunchroom with his law clerks. He apparently was the only justice who made a practice of doing so. An acquaintance from the Solicitor General’s office volunteered to introduce me and I was struck by Blackmun’s graciousness when I interrupted his lunch. My colleague lost her case, but Blackuan dissented from the ruling. Similarly, when a case I worked on three years later resulted in a partial loss, Blackmun was also part of that dissent.

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Are the golden years of socially engaged art behind us?

By Sheila Regan, Behind the Story

A 1970 drawing by University of Minnesota faculty member Herman Somberg (from the collection of the Minnesota Historical Society).

It is simply amazing to me that in the most hippie neighborhood in Minneapolis—nay, Minnesota—there is not one single cooperative grocery store. I’m speaking, of course, of the Powderhorn neighborhood, home of In the Heart of the Beast’s MayDay Parade, the May Day Café, rain gardens galore, and impromptu backyard music festivals and puppet shows. While the Seward Co-Op isn’t too far away, it just feels wrong that there isn’t a co-op in the neighborhood proper.

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