Fiesta Cinco de Mayo!

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The Lowrider car and bicycle show is justifiably, one of the highlights of the Cinco de Mayo West Side Saint Paul Fiesta. The fiesta draws crowds of people along the closed off blocks of Cesar Chavez Street, drinking out of fresh pineapples, browsing the vendor goods, and checking out the lines of Lowriders that showed up for the event. Not being a car person of any sort, I felt immediately out of my depth. Several of the car and bicycle owners kindly answered my surely very ignorant questions, patiently nodding when I asked what was clearly a no-brainer. While the Lowrider show brings out people to ogle over cars and bikes, the Cinco de Mayo Fiesta is also about celebrating one of the Twin Cities oldest Latino neighborhoods. Continue Reading

Art in Bloom: Timeless art and fresh flowers at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

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Last weekend, April 30 – May 3, spring sprouted inside and out at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA) 32nd annual Art in Bloom where florists create arrangements that match, balance, mirror or somehow bounce off 150 works of art around the museum. We visited twice and I still feel like we weren’t able to take it all in but we enjoyed trying! The first treat were the flower arrangements by Steven Ward of Arts and Flowers Design Studio around the Chinese Guardian Lions that are as sentries for the 24th Street entrance. It was also part of the MIA 52 birthday surprises. The 24th Street entrance usually feels like the gorgeous forgotten sister but for one weekend it got all dressed up in bold red and orange colors making it both welcoming and majestic. Continue Reading

“Jersey Boys” by the numbers

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Jersey Boys has 33 songs in its score, drawing off a song catalog that sold 175 million records worldwide and several cover songs from the Four Seasons’s early years. Many of the show’s other numbers are quite impressive. Number of People in the Company: 52

Actors: 19
Musicians: 10
Crew: 14

Largest Number of Roles Played by an Actor: 18 (Leslie Rochette)
Number of Distinct Costumes and Looks: 196

Pairs of Shoes Worn per Performance: 87
Most costume changes for a lead character: 15 (for Frankie Valli)

Valli’s quick changes: 12
Valli’s shortest quick change: 15 seconds

Fastest costume change overall: 9 seconds (“My Eyes Adored You”

Lighting

609 lighting cues
401 fixed lights + 96 PAR lamps for concert lighting
77 moving lights

©2015 Basil Considine Continue Reading

THEATER REVIEW | “Jersey Boys” shines at the Orpheum Theatre

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November 6 of this year will mark the 10th anniversary of Jersey Boys’ opening on Broadway. For a show that starts with “Oh, what a night!” this means an awful lot of nights of rocking the charts 60s-style. So what does it mean when this show tour – still running after nine years on the road – touches down on Hennepin Ave? Is the magic still there? The answer to the second question is, “Yes.” The answer to the first is, “If you haven’t seen it already, buy your tickets for a ride on an amazing musical rollercoaster.” The show production is a tightly paced, comedic yet affectingly serious journey through a profoundly varied song catalog of hits. Continue Reading

Minneapolis ralliers send positivity to Baltimore

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About a thousand people marched peacefully through the streets of downtown Minneapolis on Wednesday evening to send positivity to protesters in Baltimore. The event, organized by Black Lives Matter, came two days after riots erupted in Baltimore following the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray — a man who died of a spinal cord injury while in police custody earlier this month. Some University of Minnesota students joined swaths of people across the nation calling for an end to police abuse and oppression. “It’s not just an issue of Freddie Gray,” said Christopher Getowicz, a member of Students for a Democratic Society. “There’s a lot of social and economic issues that go into it. Continue Reading

Judge denies Gag Order in Black Lives Matter case

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Judge Peter A.  Cahill denied a motion for a pre-trial gag order at a hearing Friday for the defendants in the case about the Christmas protest at the Mall of America. The hearing set the dates for the upcoming pre-trials and trials of the individuals charged with a range of misdemeanors that include trespassing, unlawful assembly, etc. Around 30 total defendants set dates for either their trials or pre-trials, to take place next fall (with one exception, where a defendant requested a speedy trial, set for July). They were charged after a protest that occurred in December of last year, over police treatment of people of color, held at the Mall of America. “The defendants have first amendment rights,” Cahill said. Continue Reading

THEATER REVIEW | Minnesota Opera’s “Carmen” heats up the Ordway

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The opera Carmen needs little introduction, but much can be said about how Minnesota Opera’s current production does things well. This classic femme fatale story is presented in Spain in the 1970s, when the Sexual Revolution first began to erode the edges of a conservative Catholicism previously enforced – sometimes brutally – by the repressive fascist regime of Generalissimo Franco. (The modern stereotype of sleazy Spanish men comes from just after this period.) This decision by director Michael Cavanagh heightens many tensions within the source material, and is a splendid excuse for a retrofabulous costume excursion. The music may be the same as normal, but the updated setting makes the characters much more relatable and heightens the already elevated emotional stakes. Note: This review discusses the Vargas cast of MN Opera’s Carmen, performing May 8 and 9; Check back later for our review of the Sourouzian cast, performing May 7 and 10. Continue Reading

Not Ready to Die

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The creative life of young Iranian-born Swedish pop singer, Laleh Pourkarim is revealed in candid interviews with Laleh, people who’ve worked with her and performance footage in “Not Ready to Die.” Born in underground Iran, she and her parents who opposed the Islamic regime in Tehran, fled to other cities in Russia and Germany before settling in Sweden when she was 12. A consummate musician, she learned to play guitar as a teen, and later taught herself percussion and saxophone while attending music school in Gothenburg. At age 12, she lost her father, watching him drown while trying to save a woman. Death has often been a theme in her music, there is sadness and yet positivity in her music such as her renowned single, “Some Die Young.”
While working on her self-titled debut, Laleh found she couldn’t concentrate with other producers and writers around, so she requested of Warner Sweden she have her own studio. They agreed, sending an entire studio to her home piece by piece. Continue Reading

THEATER REVIEW | “Detroit ’67” at Penumbra Theatre: A look back at the future with a great soundtrack

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The Penumbra Theater brings to life segments of history that many of us didn’t read in our textbooks. Detroit ’67 is an inside look at the race riots from the view of a basement in Detroit near the epicenter of the riots. Main characters Chelle and Lank have inherited the house from their parents. They host house parties in the basement to make money; the work is more regular and profitable than factory jobs. The house parties feature Motown music that punctuates the action throughout. An interesting tangent in the play is the change over from records (45’s) to 8 track tapes – a movement that represents a leap into the future. Continue Reading

THEATER REVIEW | “Fruit Fly The Musical”: Fringe show buzzes back at Illusion Theater

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This is the season of Minnesota Fringe Festival show planning. Lottery numbers were drawn in late February, venue assignments and showtimes went out to producers last week, and Minnesota Playlist is sprouting Fringe-related casting notices and other classifieds. For some teams, now is the time when the writers first begin to frantically craft material; for others, the scripts and scores were set in stone well before their applications went in. The clock is ticking: in less than four months’ time, the country’s largest unjuried theatre festival will have come and gone, bringing about 50,000 attendees – 10,000 more than Target Field’s maximum, and about 91% of the capacity of the old Metrodome – to Minneapolis stages.So what happens to a Fringe show once the festival has come and gone? For most shows, a quiet repose and a few playbill credits await. Continue Reading