Best Theater I Saw in 2016: For What It's Worth...

Normally I don’t get to tallying up all the theater I saw in a given year until well into tax season, but this year I’m a little ahead of the game on gathering information together so what the heck - for what it’s worth, looking at the list of what I saw, here’s the stuff that shakes out at the top.

Obviously, no ten best list is comprehensive.  There’s just too much theater in the Twin Cities for any one person to be able to see it all (though Scott Pakudaitis tries and gets closer than most of us).  For instance, right off the top of my head, I realize I saw nothing this year at either Penumbra or Pillsbury and that right there should be disqualifying to me.  The bulk of theater companies in town I only got to one presentation of theirs and that’s hardly representative of all the work they do.  Sometimes I got lucky, sometimes I didn’t.

Some of these shows I’ve already written about, some I haven’t.  If I got comps in exchange for writing a review, I did my duty (whether the company in question ended up being happy with the resulting review or not).  If I paid for my own ticket, a lot of times I didn’t weigh in.  It’s a time thing, more often than not.  I have my own plays to write, after all, that’s gotta happen sometime, too.

We’ll set aside the items on my schedule that had to do with plays I wrote.  We’ll just assume the time I spent in the rehearsal room or seeing the script on its feet were the happiest times of my year, which they were.  So, TV Boyfriend, and Discreet, Straight-Acting, Disease/Drug-Free, you know I love you.  (also, a shout-out to Off Book at HUGE Improv Theater, which used a scene from How To Date A Werewolf.)  But on that level, this list isn’t about me.

So, 74 shows seen outside the Minnesota Fringe Festival, 56 shows seen inside the Fringe, 6 play readings, 4 improv events (pitiful tally there), and 6 other random theater events like Theatre Unbound’s 24:00:00 Extreme Theater Smackdown, Fringe previews and the like.  Roughly a third of the evenings of my year spent in the dark watching someone tell me a story with live performers of one sort or another.  (So, my thanks to the following for engaging my brain: Arena Dances, Denzel Belin, Blue Water Theatre, Fearless Comedy, Four Humors, Freshwater Theatre, Gadfly Theater, History Theater, Live Action Set, Loudmouth Collective, Main Street School of Performing Arts, Mission Theatre, Mixed Blood, Nautilus Music Theater, Off Leash Area, Open Window, Park Square, Recovery Party, Sandbox Theatre, Savage Umbrella, Sheep Theater, Swandive Theatre, Theatre Coup d’Etat, Theatre Forever, Theater Latte Da, Theatre Novi Most, Theatre Pro Rata, 20% Theater Company and Workhaus Collective - but you’re not on the list this time around.)

It’s more like a Top 9 to 15 list, nine groups, 15 presentations that grabbed me:

1 - Jungle Theater - The Oldest Boy - Sara Ruhl makes everything okay (review)
2 - Walking Shadow - The Christians - Pardon me, I know it’s church but… damn (review)
3 - 7th House Theater - The Passage, or What Comes of Searching In The Dark - Makes me happy/sad as an audience member and artist (review)
4 - Underdog Theater - Baltimore Is Burning - Very last thing I saw this year, but probably the most urgent piece of new theater created in the Twin Cities.  A meeting between police and community representatives goes horribly wrong - but honestly, it could have gone worse.  There is both despair and hope pulsing through this play and production and it is riveting
5ish - Fire Drill, based at Fresh Oysters Performance Research (a place I am never bored) - Consequences Have Consequences, Semester: Lecture 1 (review), Boiling Point (review), plus Emily Gastineau curating artists at the Soap Factory
6ish - Guthrie - The Parchman Hour, Trouble In Mind, The Lion In Winter (see note below)
7ish - Skewed Visions - EX(remade) (review), Losing Kantor (review) - you have to watch closely and keep thinking the whole time because they’re not going to explain it to you in words
8 - Small Art - You Bring The Party (review) - low impact audience participation (review)
9 - Classical Actors Ensemble - Julius Caesar - oh, so THAT’s why this is a great play (review)

Biggest surprise (no offense intended, I know it’s kind of a backhanded compliment)? - the Guthrie Theater is on this list.  I work at the Guthrie box office, and we are encouraged to see all the mainstage shows so we can discuss them with people calling in for tickets (and if I could keep up with the flurry of things going on up in the black box space, I would).  Because it either looks like I’m sucking up to my employer (if I like the show) or biting the hand that feeds me (if I don’t), I don’t normally write reviews of Guthrie productions.  In general, the work at the Guthrie hasn’t really been my aesthetic.  It has tended to be overproduced, and at a bit of a remove from me as a spectator.  But something exciting is starting to happen at the Guthrie Theater.  Not that they didn’t do solid work before but under new artistic director Joe Haj, things are kind of blowing up.  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all three of these shows I tagged have an interracial cast, and a large percentage of non-white actors.  I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that two of the productions were directed by women of color, and two of them written by artists of color.  I think that’s a big part of what engaged me, and frankly blew my mind as an audience member.  This change is deliberate, long overdue, and so very, very welcome.  So I gotta be honest, they creeped into my top ten almost in spite of myself.

Trend? - I apparently have developed an artistic nerd crush on Kory LaQuess Pullam.  He wrote Baltimore is Burning.  He was in two of the improv presentations I managed to see (you need to see some Blackout Improv, if you haven’t yet).  He was in the cast of both The Christians and The Parchman Hour.  If you’re not following him around to see what he’s doing next, you probably should be.  Guess I will be, too.

Place I Am Never Bored - as previously stated, Fresh Oysters Performance Research, a makeshift performance space just a couple of doors down from Open Eye Figure Theater.  It’s the home base right now for Fire Drill (Emily Gastineau and Billy Mullaney), and Skewed Visions (Charles Campbell) - all of whom I already came into 2016 with an artistic nerd crush on and it apparently shows no signs of dissipating.  Throw Small Art’s You Bring The Party onto the pile and the place hasn’t presented a thing that I haven’t been fully engaged by this year.  You feel extremely necessary as an audience member here.  They are pushing the boundaries of what it means to be a spectator of live performance.  I am also, oddly, happiest when I am in this space.  So if you need happy, and different, and necessary, you should check them out.

As for the Minnesota Fringe Festival, if you held a gun to my head, these would be ten shows that engaged me, and stuck with me, the most:

1 - Write Me A Song - I saw it twice, so… (review)
2 - Oh Snap! My Alien Children Are Trying To Kill Me - best solo show I saw (review)
3 - Genesis/Revelations - late viewing in the festival, didn’t get to review in those final days as much, but some of the best dance performance I saw in the Fringe, orchestrated by gifted young choreographer Sydney Burch, keep an eye on SB Movement
4 - Of Something Human - always love me some Tamara Ober (review)
5 - The Not So Silent Planet - mind-boggling storytelling (review)
6 - It Is So Ordered - some much-needed words from our country’s better angels (review)
7 - The Disillusionist - rarely do I find someone’s disintegration this entertaining (review)
8 - Break Your Heart - another late viewing in the festival, didn’t review at the time, but a great piece of open, funny, vulnerable, painful, yet hopeful solo performance by Scot Moore
9 - Celebrity Exception - yay, pansexual romantic comedy (review)
10 - Suite Surrender - a genuine, hilarious surprise (review)

(And because I don’t want to seem ungrateful, a shout-out to the other shows that almost made this list (in the order I saw them): For Worse, Ball: A Tribute To My Lost Testicle, Sometimes There’s Wine, Happenstanced, The Abortion Chronicles, Caucasian Aggressive Pandas and other Mulatto Tales, The Gospel of Sherilyn Fenn, Fruit Flies Like A Banana: Alphabetical Disorder, Hostil Watching, The Adventures of Crazy Jane and Red Haired Annie, AfterLife, Know Your B-Movie Actors, Darlings, An Accidental Organist, and Twice (with special bat cameo)

So, for what it’s worth, there’s my 2016.

Good theater helps my heart, and makes me a better writer, so thanks to you all for giving me that gift.  Keep on doing what you’re doing, and hopefully we’ll cross paths sooner rather than later in 2017.  And if I thought good art seemed necessary last year, here comes a whole new world with the new year (yikes).

Things To Keep In Mind As The New Year Approaches - 9 of 20

--> (well, that last nine days just flew by me... back at it...)


9. Investigate. 

Figure things out for yourself. 

Spend more time with long articles. 

Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. 

Realize that some of what is on your screen is there to harm you. 

Bookmark PropOrNot or other sites that investigate foreign propaganda pushes.


Yale historian and Holocaust expert Timothy Snyder wrote: "Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so." 
Snyder's a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (which includes former Secretaries of State), and consults on political situations around the globe. He says: 

Above, #9 of twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today.

Things To Keep In Mind As The New Year Approaches - 8 of 20

8. Believe in truth. 

To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. 

If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. 

If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. 

The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.
 

Yale historian and Holocaust expert Timothy Snyder wrote: "Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so." 
Snyder's a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (which includes former Secretaries of State), and consults on political situations around the globe. He says: 

Above, #8 of twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today.

Writing Challenge 2016 #30 - Finality

NWC #30- "FINALITY" Dec 1st at 8am

OKAY! YOU MADE IT!

or you didn't and that's okay too

Tomorrow I'll send a final email with the official numbers. To get those, I'll look at whomever posts the final date and after 48 hours send you a Paypal link for your prize winnings!

If you did NOT finish the challenge but DID write a post on the final date, please email me so that I correctly calculate the winnings. So far it looks like we have 47 authors still in the running. Amazing!

The climax in movies can happen behind a character's eyes because we can ZOOM IN. A realization that they are in love. A sense of finality. An awakening, etc

These are terrible climaxes for theater.

Theater requires a physicalization of the action- especially if it's a climax!

So a realization that someone is in love would result in an ACTION of... tearing up the letter, running out the door, pulling the trigger, etc.

*CHALLENGE= write a climax that has a stage action so huge it takes down the stage, the curtain, the risers, and everything with it. *

Two large forces are coming together and there can be but one ending.

OR

Two very small forces cause a chain reaction that results in...

OR

Prove me wrong. Write a climactic action that DOES take place behind someone's eyes and then physicalize it through scenic, sound, lighting, and costume design. USE ALL FOUR!

Running dry?

Browse this list of Catch 22s from Reddit and see if it inspires you

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1ndah5/what_catch22s_have_you_encountered_in_real_life/

(Not with a bang, but still struggling to figure out how this last bus play works.  More grandma and goddaughter talk...)

BUS PLAY #4, part 3

(previously)

                          WOMAN

I'm light, but I'm strong.  There's a difference.  You don't live to be one hundred years, one month and one day if you're prone to fall apart when life bats you around.

                          GIRL

Did you know who I was?

                          WOMAN

It came and went.  I couldn't hold onto you in my head.  We had a picture of him holding you after your baptism ceremony.  You're both smiling.  Of course you're still an infant, just nine months old, more baby than the person you are now.  We had a picture on the lazy susan in the middle of the kitchen table.  The salt and pepper and sugar, a picture of President Obama smiling, I loved that picture, and then the picture of the two of you.  I kept forgetting you were his goddaughter and thinking you were his daughter, and I kept wondering why he didn't bring you with him whenever he visited.  Where you were.  I don't think I forgot he was gay, but I think I was confused where his partner was, where the other parent was, since he had a child.  If you hadn't been on the kitchen table where I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, I probably wouldn't have been as confused.  I'm glad I know you now.

                          GIRL

I'm glad I know you, too.

                          WOMAN

We're connected in his head, even if we never met.

                          GIRL

The women in his life.

                          WOMAN

Yes.

                          GIRL

I wonder if I'll remind him of you, when I'm older.

                          WOMAN

I'm sure he'll tell you stories.

                          GIRL

Will he forget me, do you think?

                          WOMAN

I didn't forget him.  I mean, I couldn't have told you who he was, but he obviously loved me, so I figured I must love him, too.  If he was taking care of me at the end, then I must have done something right.  But no, I don't think he'll forget you.  I don't think you'll let him.

                          GIRL

I wish I understood the brain.

                          WOMAN

Me, too.  We have everything for so short a time, though.  It's hardly worth worrying about, is it?  Just appreciate it because you know it doesn't last.

Things To Keep In Mind As The New Year Approaches - 7 of 20

 
7. Stand out. 

Someone has to. 

It is easy, in words and deeds, to follow along. 

It can feel strange to do or say something different. 

But without that unease, there is no freedom. 

And the moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.



Yale historian and Holocaust expert Timothy Snyder wrote: "Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so." 
Snyder's a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (which includes former Secretaries of State), and consults on political situations around the globe. He says: 

Above, #7 of twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today.

Writing Challenge 2016 #29 - No Fourth Wall

NWC #29- "No Fourth Wall" Nov 30th at 8am

Shakespeare didn't have a fourth wall. Moliere didn't either. The times when theater was the most popular, this concept didn't exist. Why deny your audience direct connection with the performers?

Why limit the actions you can have on stage to self-contained, justified, laborious interactions between full rounded characters?  Afraid it will be bad? You don't like this kind of theater? Maybe that's just because people like you don't write in this genre enough!

*CHALLENGE*- Agit Prop this sumbitch.

1. political (originally communist) propaganda, especially in art or literature. ("agitprop painters")

Take a well-known tale and use it for your own means. Goldilocks and the three candidates? Little Red Scare? The Wonderful World of School Board Meetings? Who is John from Accounting?

*Bonus*- Write in as many dialects and races and socio-economic backgrounds as you can. These characters are SUPPOSED to be flat comments on large groups of people.

*Bonus*- Interact with the audience PHYSICALLY not just verbally. Make them hold something or reveal something, or find something under their seats.

(Time for agitprop later, gotta get that next bus play done, or at least continued...

Point in the bus play's favor, there will be no stage, no fourth wall.  The plays will take place with other passengers all around)

BUS PLAY #4, part 2

A woman in her late 90s.

A girl of seven years old.

Sitting together, on a bus, on the ice in the middle of a lake.

(Last time...)

                          GIRL

You would be my great-grandmother.

                          WOMAN

Yes, I guess I would.  I never had any great-grandchildren.  That I met.

                          GIRL

The first time I play Scrabble with him, he's going to talk about you a lot.

                          WOMAN

Don't let him win.

                          GIRL

I won't.

                          WOMAN

I never did.

                          GIRL

You don't want to get stuck with the Q.

                          WOMAN

Or the J.

                          GIRL

Or the X.

                          WOMAN

Or the K.

                          GIRL

You hoard the blank tiles and at least one U.

                          WOMAN

You memorize the handful of words that don't need a U to go with a Q.

                          GIRL

You keep the scrabble dictionary nearby.

                          WOMAN

You do a lot of crossword puzzles.

                          GIRL

It's how you keep your mind sharp.

                          WOMAN

So many words.

                          GIRL

You go for the big words and the big scoring tiles.

                          WOMAN

Be careful, though.  You don't want to just come close and end up setting the other person up for a big score.

                          GIRL

But you have to risk it.

                          WOMAN

No, you play it safe.  Avoid the edges.  Make small words if you have to.  Deny the other person a foothold they can build on.

                          GIRL

But if you don't open up the board, the game gets too constricted, no one can play.

                          WOMAN

There's always a play.

Or you can skip a turn.

Don't make it easy for the other person to beat you.

                          GIRL

Doesn't the game stop being fun then?

                          WOMAN

Board games is one of the few places in life where you're allowed to be vicious.  It's encouraged.  Use your brain.  Show no mercy.

                          GIRL

What about cribbage?

                          WOMAN

Also fun.  More chance, though.  More rules.  I like Scrabble just a bit better.  Words and letters.  An orderly board.  Cribbage can be very random.

                          GIRL

He said you were good with a deck of cards.

                          WOMAN

Big family.  Lot of game playing over the years.

                          GIRL

Your hands seem bony.

                          WOMAN

Never did have much meat on me.  And when you're older, the skin sags.  You hollow out.  Blessed with good joints though.  My hands never fell victim to arthritis.

                          GIRL

You skin seems translucent, more blue than pink.

                          WOMAN

Everything gets a little grayer when you're older.  The blood retreats from the extremities.

                          GIRL

Are you fragile?

                          WOMAN

Are you?

                          GIRL

I'm small.

                          WOMAN

I'm light, but I'm strong.  There's a difference.  You don't live to be one hundred years, one month and one day if you're prone to fall apart when life bats you around.

(to be continued)

Things To Keep In Mind As The New Year Approaches - 6 of 20

6. Be kind to our language. 

Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. 

Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. 

(Don't use the internet before bed. Charge your gadgets away from your bedroom, and read.) 

What to read? 

Perhaps "The Power of the Powerless" by Václav Havel, 

1984 by George Orwell, 

The Captive Mind by Czesław Milosz, 

The Rebel by Albert Camus, 

The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, or 

Nothing is True and Everything is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev.


Yale historian and Holocaust expert Timothy Snyder wrote: "Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so." 
Snyder's a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (which includes former Secretaries of State), and consults on political situations around the globe. He says: 

Above, #6 of twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today.

Writing Challenge 2016 #28 - Hope and Cheese

NWC #28- "HOPE and CHEESE" Nov 29th at 8am

CHALLENGE- create a powerful image of coming together, of people helping people, of hope.

What if it's cheesy? *It'd better be!*

What if it's not cheesy enough?

*Add more cheese!*

Why do you keep bringing up cheese? *I'm really hungry!*

Do I really have to make people feel happy and hopeful and wonderful?* Yes.

Try it. You might like it.*

What if I start hating it and it becomes about the opposite of what it's supposed to be about and I can't help but destroy all things beautiful even as I create them?

*I don't know! You probably have something wrong with you.*

Can I make this children's theater?

*You can do whatever you want, but maybe try to make adults happy too? We all deserve to be happy.*

I don't know how to do this.* It's not really a question, but maybe the reason you don't is that it's a rare and scary thing to try to do well. We really punish artists for being happy and failing to make us happy. Why do we do that?*

(I slather on the cheese all the time, but I've been trying to push one more, possibly very sentimental, bus play idea out of my head and on to the page, so I'll try that...)

BUS PLAY #4

A woman in her late 90s sits on the bus, waiting.

A seven year old girl approaches.

                          GIRL

May I sit with you?

                          WOMAN

I would like that very much.

                          GIRL

I'm sorry we never got to meet.

                          WOMAN

By the time I was on my way out, you were still very young.

                          GIRL

I probably wouldn't have remembered you.

                          WOMAN

I probably wouldn't have remembered you either.

                          GIRL

My brain was still forming.

                          WOMAN

Mine was deteriorating.

                          GIRL

I'll remember you now.

                          WOMAN

And I you.

                          GIRL

It's good that he could tell me stories about you.

                          WOMAN

This is him remembering me when I was still in full control.

                          GIRL

Is it hard to start forgetting?

                          WOMAN

You know, I thought it would be, but I was remarkably OK with it.

                          GIRL

I'm still learning so many things.

                          WOMAN

There's a lot to learn.  It's a big world.

                          GIRL

Did you ever travel?

                          WOMAN

Not like you already have.  I'm not sure whether I even had a passport.  I certainly didn't need one.

                          GIRL

I was born in Montana.

                          WOMAN

I was born in Pennsylvania.

                          GIRL

We were both born in the states.

                          WOMAN

Something else we have in common.

                          GIRL

My little sister was born in Slovakia.

                          WOMAN

I can't imagine.

                          GIRL

It's not that different from here, really.

                          WOMAN

But it's so much older.

                          GIRL

Parts of it are older.  A lot of it is pretty new.

                          WOMAN

He went to visit you over there for the first time shortly after I died.

                          GIRL

He was sad.

                          WOMAN

I know.  I'm sorry about that.  You probably cheered him up quite a bit.

                          GIRL

Yes.

                          WOMAN

Was your little sister born yet?

                          GIRL

Just.  Five months.

                          WOMAN

Oh my.

                          GIRL

One morning, she spit up all over him.

                          WOMAN

Oh dear.

                          GIRL

It was mostly milk.

                          WOMAN

Of course.

                          GIRL

He laughed and laughed.

                          WOMAN

Really.

                          GIRL

We rushed around getting towels, and he stood there in a big white puddle in the middle of the floor.  Holding my sister, and smiling at her.

                          WOMAN

That sounds like him.

                          GIRL

Things are more crowded there.

                          WOMAN

Yes.

                          GIRL

There's so much space here.

                          WOMAN

Yes.

                          GIRL

It's a wonder anyone runs into anyone else at all sometimes.

                          WOMAN

I'm glad we ran into each other.

                          GIRL

I have three grandmas.

                          WOMAN

Goodness.

                          GIRL

You would be my great-grandmother.

                          WOMAN

Yes, I guess I would.  I never had any great-grandchildren.  That I met.

                          GIRL

The first time I play Scrabble with him, he's going to talk about you a lot.

                          WOMAN

Don't let him win.

                          GIRL

I won't.

                          WOMAN

I never did.

(to be continued)