Downtown East Neighborhood News and Events

Skyscrapers

Photo by Julie Fields

The Downtown neighborhood is the central business district of Minneapolis.

 

Venora HungVenora Hung is our neigh-borhood corres-pondent for Downtown  - and she wants to hear from you. Tell Venora about the garage sale, or the music festival -and  ask her how to register and get your profile on TC Daily Planet! Email Venora at venorahung [at] gmail [dot] com.

Venora Hung, a lawyer practicing in the Twin Cities,  volunteers on several boards and dabbles in cooking and writing. Most recently she started a company called Cupcake Goddess specializing in Asian inspired cupcakes. She also enjoys exploring the Twin Cities - particularly anything that has to do with healthy living, yoga and pilates.

As such, it is home to many Fortune 500 corporate headquarters, moderate and upscale retail shops, and luxury, boutique, family-friendly, and landmark office building conversion hotels.

Nicollet Mall—which is very active with restaurants and shopping—runs south from Washington Avenue. Hennepin Avenue, with its concentration of theaters and entertainment, runs south from the Mississippi River. (Description from livemsp.org)

For detailed demographic information, see the neighborhood profile from Minnesota Compass. 

THEATER REVIEW | "An Illiad" at the Guthrie Theater: Homer, up close and personal

By Dan Reiva, TC Daily Planet

Stephen Yoakam in An Illiad. Photo by Aaron Fenster, courtesy Guthrie Theater.

In Athens, Greece, circa 450 BCE, the blind poet Homer was bigger than the Beatles. His The Iliad and The Odyssey put him on the level of John, Paul, Luke, and Matthew in terms of laying the literary foundation of a civilization’s religious beliefs. Dramatizations of Homer’s work are always a challenge in the modern day and I can only imagine a theater approaching Homer with fear and trepidation. Director Benjamin McGovern rises to this challenge in the Guthrie Theater production of An Illiad.

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Theatre in the Round's "Treasure Island" and the power of imagination

By Jay Gabler, Front Row Seat

A 1911 Treasure Island illustration by N.C. Wyeth

I try not to let commenters bug me, but one who did succeed in getting my dander up was an anonymous (of course) commenter on my negative review of the Jungle Theater's Noises Off. In the review I said that people would be better off watching the 1992 film adaptation, and this commenter condescendingly sneered that comparing a theatrical production to a movie was patent evidence of my incompentence as a critic. "No critic worth anything would compare stage to screen. They're completely different mediums and completely different techniques are used to accomplish them. I'm amazed that someone with two masters degrees doesn't know that."

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THEATER REVIEW | The Moving Company's "Out of the Pan Into the Fire" is a fairy tale treat

By Rene Meyer-Grimberg, TC Daily Planet

Nathan Keepers, Steve Epp, and Christina Baldwin in Out of the Pan, Into the Fire. Photo courtesy the Moving Company.

“As every child knows, a fairytale is like giving candy to your imagination.”  - program notes

Out of the Pan Into the Fire, a new fairy tale directed by Dominique Serrand, which opened at the Southern Theater on Friday May 4 and plays until May 26, is a candy shop full of every individual’s favorite treats.

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Keefer Court Bakery & Cafe in Minneapolis: What the mahjong ladies order

By Jeremy Iggers, Iggers Digest
I try to be discreet about it, but I have this really bad habit of wandering around in Chinese restaurants to see what the other diners are eating—especi
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THEATER REVIEW | Theatre in the Round's "Treasure Island" is magical

By Madeline Salmon, TC Daily Planet

Jason Paul Andrews in Treasure Island. Photo © Act One, Too, Ltd., courtesy Theatre in the Round.

Should you choose to see Theatre in the Round’s production of Treasure Island, your evening may go something like this: an usher takes you to your seat, walking you across the treasure map painted on the stage, and the first thing you notice is the smell of wood and smoke. When you take your seat, you realize you never left the set at all, because rigging and seagulls and pirate paraphernalia adorn the walls around you. Then the lights come down, the waves roll, and the story begins. You join Billy Bones in singing “Dead Man’s Chest” in spite of yourself. Soon Jim and the pirates are dashing through the aisles beside you and perching in the balconies above you, and you wonder for a split second if you remembered to feed the cat before going in search of buried treasure.

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