THEATER REVIEW | “The Color Purple” inspires at the Park Square Theatre

By |

Park Square’s Theatre ambitious production of the musical The Color Purple creates an exuberant production that was well deserving of the standing ovation it was given on opening night. The musical is based on the Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize winning book of the same name. The book for the musical was written by Marsha Norman with music and lyrics by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray. In the regional premiere of the musical, Lewis E. Whitlock directs an exceptionally talented cast in a production that brings out both the humor and pathos of the story.The story revolves around 40 years in the life of Celie, a black woman living in Georgia between 1909 and 1949. Celie’s story is one of woe. Continue Reading

Opera in the color of Siena: A conversation with Siena Forest

By |

Minnesota Opera is nationally known not just for its flagship productions, but also its programs devoted to the future of opera. Its New Works Initiative is still riding high on the success of Silent Night, a commissioned opera that has been picked up by other opera companies both domestically and abroad, and has built considerable buzz about its upcoming Manchurian Candidate premiere. Among early-career opera professionals, however, the program that attracts the most interest is MN Opera’s Resident Artist program. Originally started by Dale Johnson to train singers, the program has since expanded to include professional training and apprentice roles for a conductor, a stage director, an artistic administrator, and two coach-accompanists – in addition to six singers.This article is Part 6 of the Daily Planet’s Opera Week coverage, a series of articles about opera in Minnesota leading up to the opening night of The Elixir of Love. Over the course of seven days, our coverage will examine some of the individuals and organizations that write opera, produce it, and perform in it in the North Star State. Continue Reading

THEATER REVIEW | “Snowflake” masters puppetry at Children’s Theatre Company

By |

There is a line in entertainment when something passes from the comedic to the profound, from the parody and sendup to the deeply moving. On the one hand are Charlie Chaplin’s silent comedies starting The Tramp, films like Gold Rush that speak with a humor that knows no language barriers. Then, on the other, is the same filmmaker-actor’s The Great Dictator. Both are greatly amusing, but with one comes a slow realization of the undergirding – that some of the laughs add up to something terrible or tragic. To do this without words is something genius.A similar parallel might be drawn between The Red Balloon, which played last season at the Children’s Theatre Company, and Snowflake, which plays there now. Continue Reading

THEATER REVIEW | “I Love Lucy: Live on Stage” a classic at the State Theatre

By |

Minneapolis’s State Theatre took the time machine back to the early 1950s for a live studio recording in Los Angeles for back-to-back episodes of the classic CBS hit sitcom I Love Lucy.Actress Thea Brooks and actor Euriamis Losada are a smashing resemblance of America’s favorite television couple Lucy and Ricky Ricardo in I Love Lucy: Live on Stage. Their nationwide tour stopped by the State Theatre in Minneapolis from Jan. 20 to Jan. 25. The theater experience in I Love Lucy: Live on Stage was unparalleled to any other play production as the show’s host, played by Mark Christopher Tracy, introduced the audience to a live recording of two episodes of I Love Lucy as they performed “The Benefit” from season one and “Lucy Has Her Eyes Examined” from season three. The host took viewers inside the colorful set decorated by scenic designer Aaron Henderson and joked that viewers can finally see Lucy’s red head in color. Continue Reading

Opera minus the high costs and testosterone

By |

The French playwright and actor Molière (1622-1673) once remarked, “Of all the sounds known to man, opera is the most expensive.” A glance at the budget of the Opéra National de Paris today does little to dispel this perception: annual expenditures exceeding 200 million euros (approximately $225 million), a professional orchestra of 170 players, a chorus of 110 singers, and a ballet corps of 150 singers – to say nothing of the administrators and backstage staff required to support this flagship operation. This is opera in one of its grandest forms.This article is Part 5 of the Daily Planet’s Opera Week coverage, a series of articles about opera in Minnesota leading up to the opening night of The Elixir of Love. Over the course of seven days, our coverage will examine some of the individuals and organizations that write opera, produce it, and perform in it in the North Star State. You can read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 online.“Large” is difficult for many people to separate from opera, especially with lingering but outdated stereotypes involving fat women in horned helmets, but the genre’s origins are much smaller. The earliest operas were small and compact works, designed for performance in a salon or small theatre, not an expansive space like the Paris Opera’s flagship 2,700-seat Opéra Bastille theatre. Continue Reading

THEATER REVIEW | “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” charms Theatre in the Round

By |

Theatre in the Round’s staging of Jay Presson Allen’s play The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a rare treat. Dann Peterson directs a well-paced production with some excellent performances. Allen’s play is based upon Muriel Spark’s novel with the same title. The story revolves around a Scottish school teacher in the 1930s named Jean Brodie. Brodie is a charismatic woman who lives in an idealized romantic world where she admires the fascist leaders of the era: Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco. She challenges the traditional social mores of the time by choosing not to marry while engaging in sexual relationships with two different men who teach at her school. Continue Reading

Minneapolis Musical Theatre’s “Calvin Berger”: Embarrassing moments. Bad lunches. Friendships. Crushes. High school.

By |

Calvin Berger is a new and hilarious musical by Barry Wyner that follows four high school seniors trying to survive their last year. Calvin, the class brainiac, has a huge crush on the prettiest girl at school, Rosanna . She falls for the cute new kid, Matt, who feels the same way but can’t find the words to tell her. Calvin, convinced that his big nose is the one thing standing in the way of his chance with Rosanna, finds a different and not-so-successful way to confess his love. Brilliant at writing, he gives Matt romantic poems to memorize and recite to Rosanna, making her fall in love with the words… and Matt. While this unfolds, Calvin’s cute and quirky best friend Bret watches from the sidelines, hoping that Calvin will notice her feelings for him. Continue Reading

The varied life of an opera house: Mantorville edition

By |

If you don’t know history, Mantorville, Minnesota seems an unlikely place to have an opera house. This small town of roughly 1,200 people is located about 70 minutes’ drive south of the Minnesota State Capitol and 25 minutes west of Rochester. It is the seat of Dodge County (estimated population, 20,200), whose largest city, Kasson, today claims about 6,000 inhabitants. Given the proximity of Rochester – then, as now, a much larger city – what would have lead a small town like Mantorville to fund an opera house in 1918, when its population hovered around just 400 residents?This article is Part 4 of the Daily Planet’s Opera Week coverage, a series of articles about opera in Minnesota leading up to the opening night of The Elixir of Love. Over the course of seven days, our coverage will examine some of the individuals and organizations that write opera, produce it, and perform in it in the North Star State. Continue Reading

Meet Minnesota Opera’s new General Director Nina Archabal

By |

Nina Archabal is the General Director of Minnesota Opera, a position that she assumed just before Thanksgiving in 2014. Although she holds three degrees in music and has long been involved in the Schubert Club’s leadership, her appointment to head Minnesota’s largest opera company surprised many residents more familiar with her work at the Minnesota Historical Society. This confusion is in some ways natural, as Dr. Archabal worked at the Society from 1977-2011, spending more than three decades as its Director. Her accomplishments in that post include leading the organization through a transformative period of expansion, organizing the funding and building of the iconic History Center in St. Paul, the Mille Lacs Indian Museum and Trading Post, and the Mill City Museum.This article is Part 3 of the Daily Planet’s Opera Week coverage, a series of articles about opera in Minnesota leading up to the opening night of The Elixir of Love. Continue Reading

Twin Cities home to many opera gangs

By |

Opera is an art form just over four hundred years old. It was originally created in an attempt to recreate the elaborate stage dramas of Greek antiquity, but very quickly evolved into a diverse and multi-faceted art form of its own. The first opera performances took place in the private salons and elaborate gardens of Italian nobles, but this was only the beginning. By the mid-17th century, opera was one of northern Italy’s most popular forms of entertainment in Italy, with elaborate public performances offered for the Venetian and Roman Carnival seasons. A century later, enterprising entrepreneurs had erected opera houses across Western Europe. Continue Reading