Downtown Neighborhood News and Events
Downtown St. Paul is not only an arts, entertainment, and business hub, but is also home to over 8,000 residents who enjoy living in close proximity to the Mississippi River, Rice and Mears Parks, and the community festivals that inhabit those parks every season. One of St. Paul’s fastest-growing neighborhoods, Lowertown boasts historic buildings, a vibrant arts community, and the popular St. Paul Farmers’ Market. All downtown residents are within minutes of every part of the Twin Cities with easy access provided by I-94 and 35-E as well as most of the bus lines serving the region (and Light Rail Transit coming soon). The neighborhoods are also connected by the skyway system allowing convenient access to restaurants, retail stores, nightlife, theaters, and more. (Description from livemsp.org)
THURSDAY PICK | At RetroRama, the personal is political
Is there any key to the mysteries of history that's more accessible than fashion? Turn back the clock just ten years, and you can see yourself wearing something that you'd never wear today...but of course, everyone was wearing it back then. In the past. The past(s) is (are) where the Minnesota Historical Society makes its business to dwell, and each year the MHS celebrates fashions past with a "RetroRama" event featuring looks from a selected moment in time. This time around, though, the designers' mandate is thematic rather than periodic: the fashions on display will all be somehow related to politics. Also on tap are custom cocktails, music by the Southside Aces, and "Blingo" with Ellie Blades.MORE »
SUNDAY PICK | Folk Baroque: String fusion at the Baroque Room
I was nonplussed at the Portland Cello Project, but just to prove that I don't hate the entire concept of classical fusion, I'm going to go ahead and give a shout-out to Folk Baroque, an ensemble who explore the full range of the violin/fiddle repertoire. Folk and classical music have been elegantly wed many a time, from Dvořák's New World symphony to the stylings of Minnesota's own Orange Mighty Trio, and Folk Baroque's May 27 performance at the Baroque Room looks likely to please a varied crowd.MORE »
THEATER REVIEW | Blank Slate Theatre's "Analyzing the Bully" looks at peer abuse from the bully's perspective
I am not a bully. Despite my stint in fifth grade of pushing fourth-graders into snowdrifts and calling them stupid, I have never been, nor could I ever be, a bully.
At least that’s what the doctors from blank slate theatre’s original production of Analyzing the Bully told me. Bullies, to them, can only be males under the age of 20 who are athletes, bigots and homophobes. Bullies always use force, wear torn jeans and black shirts, and have no reason for their “random” acts of violence.MORE »
Union reaches tentative agreement with The Saint Paul Hotel
After six months of unusually bitter contract negotiations, union workers at The Saint Paul Hotel will vote May 17 on a tentative agreement with the company on a new three-year contract. Leaders of UNITE HERE Local 17, the union that represents about 170 workers at the downtown hotel, are recommending members vote to accept the tentative agreement.MORE »
THEATER REVIEW | "The Addams Family" musical: La cage de la mort
In The Addams Family musical, the famously morbid tribe must welcome into their Gothic mansion a family who are distressingly lively and bright. But there's a larger problem that they're not allowed, except for one sly aside about word-of-mouth, to realize: they're in a Broadway musical, a genre as antithetical to unhappy endings as country music is to flag-burning. A successful Addams Family musical would steer into that skid, would deploy the contrarian Addamses to tear down the walls of a genre that's desperately in need of renovation. Instead, the characters inhabit this by-the-numbers show like the brand they are, answering to their names but not their natures.MORE »
