Fringe 2008 - The 'Hey, Where'd Everybody Go?' Award

Don't get me wrong. There were a heck of a lot of applications this year for the 15th annual Minnesota Fringe Festival. 277 to be exact. For 150 slots. Almost twice what the festival could hold.

But the sublotteries surprised me a little this year. There were fewer of them this year, but that wasn't it.

The lottery has some special mini-lotteries within the larger overall lottery, just to insure plenty of diversity of artists and content. This year, in addition to the usual sublottery for the 75 minute slots (since they're all concentrated in one venue for scheduling sanity, and there can only be so many in any one place), there were sublotteries for national artists, international artists, kids shows, teen shows, and artists of color.

Plenty of applicants for 75 minute, national, and teen fringe.

But there'd been ten slots set aside for international acts and kids fringe, and 15 slots set aside for artists of color, and they didn't need to use them all.

There were only nine applicants for kids fringe, so they all got in - yay.

There were only twelve applicants for artists of color, so they all got in - yay.

There were only two international applicants, so they... both got in - yay?

The kids were the big surprise for me. I don't think that's happened before. They normally have a bunch of applicants and some of them have even ended up waiting on the wait list. No such issues this year. And they only came up one short there, so it's probably a fluke this year.

It's exciting that the teen applicants were so plentiful, and a number of them got in through the regular general lottery after that, so the next generation of fringers is well-represented. We're in for some adventurous theater there, as always.

The artists of color and international trends aren't new. They may have even had more artists of color in that group this year compared to previous ones. More outreach will doubtless continue. And it's really tough for international acts - the costs of travel, and the many hurdles of travel, for a Fringe show may just not make it worth it. Still, some of the most interesting stuff last year was from artists visiting from overseas. I'm glad we still keep getting a couple, but I wish it was more feasible for more of them. It'd be nice to see all ten slots and then some filled up some year. One can dream.

The upside to the unclaimed spots in the special lotteries was that it meant a dozen more open slots for the general lottery, so more artists had a chance locally and nationally to get in on a second try, and more of the teens had a shot of getting in.

It all balances out eventually.

I was thinking about cost the other day. A veteran Fringer I chatted with at the after-lottery party was quite proud of himself because he joked that every year, if he was lucky in the lottery, he'd think, "Great! I'm in! Oh wait, now I have to make sure I have the money to pay for the application fee!" This year, he planned ahead and set the money aside a bit at a time. So he had the money ready. And he ended up so far down the wait list, there was no chance he'd slip in this year. So, hey, now he has an extra $400 sitting in his bank account to help him mount his next show.

That silver lining keeps shining through.

So $400. If I was caught short this year but really wanted to be involved next year, that's 52 weeks to plan ahead. That's about $7.69 a week. Most people spend more than that on... well, pretty much anything in a given week. Make it an even $8 or $10 and it adds up quicker. Even if there are special venue things you want to put in for and there are added fees, they don't add up to *that* much. It's not nearly as out of reach as it might seem when you look at a $400 fee all in one lump.

And of course, the benefits are ample.

Hmmm... Everyone always asks me if I've got a show in the Fringe. Maybe I should start setting some cash aside this week...

Cross posted to www.myspace.com/matthewaeverett and archived on my site www.matthewaeverett.com

Fringe 2008 - The Red Badge of Courage Award

goes to...

Kamikaze Action Group

the very last ping pong ball to be drawn for the wait list at night's end for the Fringe lottery this year

The Fringe show we're unlikely to see this year...

May

"Young versus old, joy versus gloom and life versus death in this classic Hungarian play set during WWII"

Bummer. Sounds kind of cool.

Cross posted to www.myspace.com/matthewaeverett and archived on my site www.matthewaeverett.com

Fringe 2008 - The Not Long To Wait Award

goes to...

Baby In The Box

(the first ping pong ball to be drawn for the waiting list for this year's Fringe - come on, you know *someone's* gonna drop out. Several someones. But at the very list one...)

and their aptly titled...

Squirrels in My Roof

"A pregnant mother battles the squirrels in her roof."

Cross posted to www.myspace.com/matthewaeverett and archived on my site www.matthewaeverett.com

Fringe 2008 - The Squeaker Award

goes to...

Urban Samurai Productions

the very last ping pong ball to be drawn for the general lottery before they had to start the wait list (phew!)

Their initial notice...

Musical the Musical!

"A musical parody of musicals. Each song more hysterical than the last as the lyrics and choreography continually comment on themselves."

The Samurai, too, have a production coming up in advance of the Fringe, in April.

American Apathy

"Despite their Fiber Boost Juicer 5000 and 28 passenger SUV, Ron and Judy are sensing a void in their lives. The TV assures them that it’s nothing their credit cards can’t handle, but when imminent bankruptcy looms large they may be forced to wake up from their 'blissful' American Dream. Don’t miss this new comedy by acclaimed local playwright Aaron Christopher."

(They aren't kidding about the acclaimed part. Check out
their previous reviews of past productions. The critics are liking them.)

American Apathy is playing at Fringe venue the playwrights center.

Details at www.urbansamuraipro.com

I've been missing their productions, though they've increasingly caught my eye. So I'm looking forward to rectifying this blank spot in my theatergoing - sooner rather than later...

Cross posted to www.myspace.com/matthewaeverett and archived on my site www.matthewaeverett.com

Fringe 2008 - The 'Damn, That Was Easy' Award

goes to...

Young Artists Council

and their show

Reefer Madness

"A musical based on the 1936 anti-marijuana propaganda film of the same name. It's a tongue-in-cheek comedy about the perils of drugs, sex and general moral turpitude."

They were the first ping pong ball of the night drawn, as part of the 75 minute slots' special lottery.

So the suspense was out of the way pretty quick for them.

Plenty of time to nip outside for a smoke...

Oh...

They were probably pretty mellow anyway.

This award also goes out to the guys at

No Refunds Theatre Co.

(who were the first ping pong ball drawn in the general lottery after the special lotteries were dispensed with)

and their hilarious and topical adaptation of

Sun Tzu's, The Art of War

"The 3,000 year old manual on war's practice and philosophy adapted by Charlie Bethel with Matt Dawson. Used throughout history by generals and businessmen with ruthlessly effective results, ignored by countless politicians with ruthlessly not-so-effective results. Now on stage! And funny! There will also be a mambo."

I saw their original outing with this one, and it's perfect Fringe fare. 5 stars, in fact.

I was rightly chastised by a fellow theatergoer for leaving out the mambo in my review. It's a highlight in a show full of them.

I'm happy I get to share it again with Mom this time.

They just opened a new show - a graphic novel for the stage called What's Done In the Dark - which I'm happy to say I get to see this weekend.

After partaking of Sun Tzu's, The Art of War
, I can recommend this one sight unseen. Don't wait til the Fringe to catch No Refunds in action.

But when Fringe rolls around, they should be on your list for sure. More on them in the near future.

Learn more about them and their theatrical creations at www.norefundstheatre.com

Cross posted to www.myspace.com/matthewaeverett and archived on my site www.matthewaeverett.com

Fringe 2008 - The 'It Doesn't Matter When You Apply' Award

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the number each Fringe hopeful gets on the ping pong ball is assigned by the Fringe in the order in which the applications are received...

(Anecdotal evidence suggests this is true, since it was mentioned onstage the night of the lottery that Maximum Verbosity's application was the first received, the day after applications were being taken, and they had ping pong ball #1.

Tangentially - really? No one got it in the very first day? Nobody downloaded the application, filled it out, and walked it down to the Fringe office? Really? Guess Fringers aren't as obsessive as I thought they were...)

This wonky little observation goes out to those who bemoan the laws of chance.

Out of ping pong balls 1 through 10 - six got in - over half.

Out of ping pong balls 268 through 277 (the last ten applications received) - six got in - over half.

Out of ping pong balls 134 through 143 (let's call them the middle ten, right in the center of the list) - five got in - half.

So it really doesn't matter when you apply, so long as you do.

I'm not arguing for everyone to wait til the last minute, far from it.

But since the lottery's been instituted - obsessive compulsives and procrastinators alike get an even playing field.

Nice.

Cross posted to www.myspace.com/matthewaeverett and archived on my site www.matthewaeverett.com

Fringe 2008 - The 4th Annual Ping Pong Ball Awards

I cannot express just how much I was aching to blog the last couple of days.

Seems like the Fringe Lottery was forever ago already - well, it's been almost a month, which is forever in Fringe time.

Right after the lottery, I was out the door and headed back east to help my Dad celebrate his 80th birthday.

Sick there, I returned sick, and was out of commission for several days.

Then I was off again to help Mom celebrate her 70th birthday and retirement.

Back again in Minnesota, I was determined not to let the lure of the blog keep me from getting some real writing done - as I'm overdue to get some serious page counts created on three playscript projects.

So I held off til after my writing group meeting tonight, and now, dear blog, here you are.

I'm a little bummed I didn't get more than four pages and some change done on the script I was working on, but I've only been back in town two days, and I was starting from scratch. A few pages a day every day over the next two weeks means I'll have more to show the group next time. The ideas are churning, and the characters are feeling chatty, so that's a good sign.

Meanwhile, I'll allow myself a bit of blogging to break up the routine and get the juices flowing.

Much to dissect and ruminate over in this year's lottery like always, so the fourth annual tongue-in-cheek Ping Pong Balls awards shall now commence.

Completely random, totally subjective, just things that caught my eye, really.

Take 'em for what they're worth. There's a world of change between now and then and if I know the Fringe, it's probably already underway...

Cross posted to www.myspace.com/matthewaeverett and archived on my site www.matthewaeverett.com

Review - The Piano Lesson - Penumbra Theatre - 5 stars

“To understand that piano, you have to go back to the time of slavery...”

Having read and seen on stage several of the other plays in August Wilson’s cycle of scripts touching on each decade of the African-American experience in the 20th century, and knowing that “The Piano Lesson” netted Wilson his second Pulitzer Prize, I went to Penumbra Theatre’s production Thursday night expecting a powerful drama, but not entirely sure what else to expect. Not knowing anything other than the barest bones of the plot, I certainly didn’t expect it to be as funny as it was. Nor did I expect a ghost story. Oh there was drama, and lots of it. But I was reminded again by “The Piano Lesson” what a remarkable storyteller August Wilson was - and continues to be through the plays which outlive him. He uses all the storyteller’s tools - humor, music, romance, spirituality, the list goes on - and uses them all to great effect. Penumbra’s production of “The Piano Lesson” is a stellar showcase for a brilliant story.

In many ways, “The Piano Lesson” is the quintessential August Wilson play. It embodies nearly everything he was saying in all his other plays, all the key elements and subject matter - family and history both central among them. Here the story revolves around the conflict between a brother and sister who view the value of their family’s history very differently. In 1930s Pittsburgh, Berneice (Greta Oglesby) is raising her young daughter Maretha (Natalia Gaston) alone after the death of her husband, living under the same roof with her uncle Doaker (James Craven). Berneice’s brother Boy Willie (Ansa Akyea) returns home loudly at the crack of dawn one morning, after several years’ absence, with his friend Lymon (Thomas Ashford) in tow. Boy Willie has plans in motion to raise money so he can go back down south and buy land of his own to farm - land which used to belong to the family who held his ancestors as slaves. Central to these plans is selling off the family piano in the Pittsburgh house - a piano carved with faces and images from their family’s past. Long ago, the piano was first bought in exchange for two slaves, family members whose faces now adorn the front of the piano. Berneice has no intention of selling the piano, of which she owns half, and has no intention of allowing Boy Willie to sell his half either. The battle lines are drawn early, and brother and sister face off throughout the play. Guns, knives and even frying pans are raised on either side of the squabble. The fact that a gun never goes off is something of a miracle, and a source of constant tension.

But the piano is more than just a musical instrument, or a visual reminder of the family’s past as slaves. The piano is the focus of some potent supernatural energy, both positive and negative. A strange red light emanates from the piano, the regular lights flicker, and a low rumble shudders through the entire house in times of conflict centered around the instrument. It could just be the train going past on the tracks nearby, but nobody on or offstage fully believes that explanation. The silent prologue to the play, in which cast members take on the roles of a previous generation of the family, ends with the piano playing by itself. The mysterious death of one of the descendants of the slave owners, a death which paves the way for Boy Willie to buy their farm land, is blamed on the Ghosts of the Yellow Dog - another tragedy tied to this family, and slavery, and this piano. The spirit of the recently dead landowner makes appearances to several different family members. Berneice refuses to play the piano, even for church, because she doesn’t want to rouse dark spirits. The climax of the play involves an attempt to exorcise those spirits. Ultimately, to drive out the dark spirits, someone has to take a seat at the keyboard and invoke the help of some better angels.

For all the conflict and dark undercurrents of the past, Penumbra’s production of “The Piano Lesson” - under Lou Bellamy’s assured direction - is also full of hearty good humor. The laughs are plentiful, and based largely on the network of family, friendly, and romantic relations which tie all the characters together. These people know how to push one another’s buttons, and they do, with loving and jovial frequency. In addition to the brother-sister-uncle-best friend shenanigans, also drawn into the fray are Doaker’s traveling musician brother Wining Boy (Dennis W. Spears); Berneice’s persistent suitor, the newly minted reverend Avery (T. Mychael Rambo); and Grace (Lerea Carter), a local young woman who has caught the eye of both Boy Willie and Lynton, and who gets off one of the bigger laugh lines of the evening walking into the middle of the exorcism action and proclaiming that “something is wrong with this house” before making a hasty exit.

The music, in all its forms and colors, which peppers the telling of this family tale is fantastic. It opens up these sometimes quiet characters and reveals new depths. It demonstrates the strength of their relationships to one another, and uncovers the pain they can’t bring themselves to speak directly. The music, like the poetry of the language of the script throughout, doesn’t slow down or derail the story. It drives it more surely and quickly toward its goal. The music allows the story to make leaps it would not otherwise be able to do. It is part of the blood and bone and muscle of this family, and is a large part of what helps them survive, and rise above their past.

The cast is excellent without exception. Special attention must be paid to Ansa Akyea as Boy Willie. From the moment he bursts onstage until the final moments of the play, Akyea raises both the energy and the decibel level of the entire production tenfold. He is a force of nature. One can understand how he has managed to charm and cajole, and sometimes forcefully push, his way through life. Only someone with the determination of Greta Oglesby as Berneice could stare this Boy Willie down, and she does. Her quiet reserves of strength are always evident. She raises her voice when necessary, but she doesn’t need to do so to make you realize you had better not mess with this woman. I am quickly coming to the conclusion that I could watch James Craven (Doaker) in anything. His no-nonsense style was one of the main joys of Penumbra’s production of “Red Shirts” earlier this season, and his turn here as Berneice and Boy Willie’s reluctant referee (and protector) is full of the same dry wit, intelligence, and world-weary charm. Dennis W. Spears makes Wining Boy an endearing old rascal. T. Mychael Rambo makes Avery’s newfound religion seem not only entirely believable but fully human, and quite moving. Thomas Ashford’s character Lymon may not be too bright, but in Ashford’s hands, you can’t help liking the poor guy. He also makes an unexpectedly suitable suitor for Berneice (nice to see the woman has options). And though the role of Maretha may be small, the reality Natalia Gaston brings to her is key to making the overall dynamic of the family work. There is another generation already in place that needs to be planned for, and protected, and all the characters are aware of that because of Maretha.

The design work is impeccable. Ken Evans scenic design has maximized the Penumbra stage space so that you truly feel the house extends beyond the limits we see - upstairs, down the hall, outside both front and back. It’s a great piece of design work, well-excuted by the Penumbra team of scenic artists. Steven Horstmann’s work as properties master fills in all the necessary details around the edges, making the world of this family’s home seem truly lived in. The lighting (Michelle Habeck), costume (Edward Summers), and sound (Malo Adams) designs all do their part as well to create the feeling of stepping completely into another world, another time.

The ensemble of “The Piano Lesson” received a well-deserved standing ovation on opening night. Their work is powerful, funny, and extremely moving. If this is the way Penumbra kicks off their five-year project staging all ten plays in Wilson’s “20th Century Cycle,” I can’t wait to see what’s next. (We won’t have long to wait - “The Gem of the Ocean” takes the McGuire Proscenium Stage at the new Guthrie Theater complex starting April 22nd this year). But whatever you do, do not miss “The Piano Lesson.” It’s one of the best marriages of script and theater company that I’ve seen in a very long time.

Very Highly Recommended

“The Piano Lesson” runs through March 16, 2008 at Penumbra Theatre (270 North Kent Street in St. Paul). For tickets and more information, call 651-224-3180 or visit www.penumbratheatre.org

Cross posted to www.myspace.com/matthewaeverett and archived on my site www.matthewaeverett.com

Review - The Sign In Sidney Brustein’s Window - Starting Gate Productions - 3 stars

“There are two kinds of loneliness in this world - with a man, and without one. I picked. And let’s face it, I can’t type.”

This is a tough one.

So, three sisters walk into a bar, er... a Greenwich Village apartment in 1960s New York - a housewife, an actress/waitress, and a whore. Guess which one has the best set of coping skills?

After seeing the Starting Gate production of Lorraine Hansberry’s play “The Sign In Sidney Brustein’s Window,” I don’t feel like I need to see this play again. I don’t believe I’m going to see it done better. Director Lynn Musgrave and her team take what could have been a very static, talky play and manage to keep the thing moving. Definitely an “A” for effort here. The problem is that the play itself is a trainwreck.

“Sidney Brustein” is both a product and a victim of its times. It is a deeply, and unrelentingly, cynical play - often jaw-droppingly racist and sexist. At the time it was originally produced in 1965, Hansberry herself was dying (taken to and from many rehearsals in a wheelchair). Though many great upheavals and disappointments of the decade were yet to come, JFK’s recent assassination and the escalation of the war in Vietnam would probably have gotten even the most dogged optimists a little down. Still, the crushing of nearly every character’s dreams and spirit in this play seems a bit much.

That doesn’t mean that the play is without its bright spots and humor - far from it. Hansberry, even here, has a great love of and way with words. They tumble out of her characters’ mouths in torrents. In fact, there are so many clever people on display that it is often a lot of fun just to watch them spar with each other.

Trickiest of all is the title character, and Rob Frankel as Sidney anchors the play and production in a way they both very much need. Sidney is a bastard. A clever bastard, sometimes sweet, often charming, but still a bastard. He is mean to family, friends and neighbors alike, but most of all to his long-suffering young wife Iris (Bethany Ford). The fact that Frankel makes Sidney watchable over the entire three hour span of the play is something of a miracle, and he deserves a tremendous amount of credit for helping hold the whole thing together. The one satisfying comeuppance Sidney gets by the play’s end is that each and every thing he thought he knew, even about the people closest to him, turns out to be completely wrong.

The biggest applause, however, has to go to Jean Salo as Sidney’s sister-in-law, Mavis. Hansberry obviously loved this character because Mavis gets nearly all the best lines in the play. Salo takes full advantage of each and every one of them. Mavis at first appears to be an object of mockery, the safe little housewife in her suburban existence, trying to force her taste and standards on everyone around her. As the play goes on and Mavis’ life is revealed to be anything but what it seems, Salo’s performance takes on unexpected depth and even nobility. The chief joy of her appearances, however, is watching her lay out the hypocrisies of the supposedly caring and compassionate left wing nut jobs she’s inherited from her sister’s marriage. Mavis is also hypocritical, and outrageously racist about almost everything and everybody, but in Salo’s hands, she becomes a character we deeply miss when she vanishes from the play for the final act.

There’s a lot of vanishing and sudden resurgences going on, in fact. It’s one of the many things that makes the play so structurally baffling to watch. Iris’ other sister, Gloria, the much-whispered-about whore, doesn’t appear until the final act and never crosses paths with either of her sisters, or the man she supposedly loves and plans to marry. Rachel Finch as Gloria is wonderful. She has a lot to live up to after all that build up in the previous two acts, and Finch delivers. She also makes us regret the many missed dramatic and comic opportunities her character might have had, were the play different. As she made her final exit into the dark, I found myself thinking, “What a waste of a perfectly good whore.”

Oddly dominant in the play’s closing scenes was Wally O’Hara (Dale Pfeilsticker) as the dark horse candidate for election who Sidney backs to unexpected victory. More Trojan Horse than dark horse after all, Wally is supposed to become the embodiment of “the system” at the end. But the political windmills that Sidney is tilting at are always so vague in the script, and Wally has been so largely absent for the bulk of the play, that it’s hard to work up any sadness or indignance at “the man” stealing back the power from the people right under their noses. Pfeilsticker does his best to inject good-natured Wally with some menace at the end, but the play doesn’t give him a lot with which to work.

Just passing through for reasons unclear in the text - hippy artist Max (Tom Emmott), who Sidney’s wife rightly pegs as self-consciously arty; and gay playwright next door David (Clarence Wethern), a confused and confusing closeted character with his pre-Stonewall, pre-Boys In The Band love interest kept conspicuously offstage.

The person with the toughest mountain to climb is Bethany Ford as Iris, and she succeeds as much as the play will let her. Ford is saddled with so much contradictory exposition and so many wild mood swings, it almost makes you forget that Iris is not just the worst, but also the very best, actress Sidney has ever known. Onstage, Iris’ talents are meager, but in real life, she pulls off the biggest masquerade of any of the characters, fooling the smug Sidney completely. It is an irony that the play and production don’t get enough of a chance to explore and appreciate fully. The dated nature of the play is never more apparent than in Iris’ agonies over her sham of a career, as she has been forced to lower herself to doing commercials. Oh no! Paid work as an actor in commercials?! The horror! I know a dozen actor friends off the top of my head that would gladly take Iris’ work opportunities off her hands for her.

Another character you wish would return rather than vanish for the final act is Alton Scales - activist, journalist, and would-be Prince Charming for Gloria the whore. Alton is also African-American. Though light-skinned, he’s also pretty thin-skinned about racial issues. As portrayed with a lot of easy-going charm by Santino Craven, Alton is sometimes so laid back, the audience can forget how deeply he feels things. One of the biggest opportunities the play fails to capitalize on is the romance between Alton and Gloria. The courtship takes place completely offstage. We are told, rather than shown, everything. Alton discovers Gloria’s unsavory career offstage - from who, we never know, even though every other character in the play but Alton seems to be aware of it - including minor characters like the gay playwright next door. Both sides of the big break-up take place in isolation - Alton gives Sidney a letter which is then turned over to Gloria later. It is only because Santino Craven and Rachel Finch individually convey their anguish so heartbreakingly - to Sidney (?!) - that we understand how much the loss of the unseen relationship means to them both. A lot of credit needs to go to Craven and Finch for delivering what the play fails to - emotional investment in characters that makes you want to see more of them - you know, onstage, as a couple. Another head-scratcher of a missed opportunity. But again, the play’s fault, not the production’s.

The expansive set by Michael Hoover gives the characters a lot of room to roam, and Musgrave and company put it to good use. It’s a little rough around the edges, but I was never able to make up my mind whether or not that was a deliberate choice. Gregory Johnson’s props filled out the world of the play nicely without overwhelming it in random “stuff.” The costumes from Mandi Johnson were great. Mark Webb pulled off another lighting design challege in the Mounds Theatre quite handily. The sound design, by director Musgrave, was good, but had me more than a little confused at the one point in the play where fantasy and reality were at cross purposes. Under the circmstances, I’m willing to lay more of the blame at the play’s feet, however.

“The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window” was a bold choice by Starting Gate - the last major play from an important theatrical voice silenced too soon. It’s unfortunate that all the characters and multiple plot threads here didn’t add up to anything in the end, despite a lot of artists’ significant efforts on its behalf.

Starting Gate’s production of “The Sign In Sidney Brustein’s Window” runs through March 16, 2008 at the Mounds Theatre (1029 Hudson Road in St. Paul). For tickets and further information, call 651-645-3503 or visit www.startinggate.org

Cross posted to www.myspace.com/matthewaeverett and archived on my site www.matthewaeverett.com

Review - The Underpants - Workhouse Theatre Co. - 3-1/2 stars

I’ve been having a hard time wrapping my brain around the Workhouse Theatre Co.’s production of “The Underpants.” (And no, I don’t think it’s because I have to keep constructing sentences with the word “underpants” in them due to the title. A play called “Moist Panties” maybe, but just underpants, not so much.)

Let’s start with the basics. It’s a comedy. Is it funny? Very much so.

The script is comedian/playwright Steve Martin’s adaptation of the 1910 social satire by German playwright Carl Sternheim. In the play, unhappily married wife Louise Maske (Lindsay Timmington) has just had the misfortune of having her underpants fall down about her ankles in public just as the King’s procession is parading by. Her boorish husband Theo (Dan Peltzman) is convinced his own reputation will be ruined.

Instead, the room the Maske’s have for rent in their home gets its own parade of would-be renters, most of whom just want to get a little closer to the infamous woman of the moment. There is Frank Versati, the poet (Dan Hylton); Benjamin Cohen, the closeted Jew (Jason Vogen); and Klinglehoff, the bewildered man who just wants a room and has no idea what the heck is going on. Even the King (Jeremy Motz) makes a last minute deus ex machina appearance. Louise’s upstairs neighbor and partner in crime Gertrude (Shana Eisenberg) is more than happy to encourage Louise in plotting an affair - or two.

So what’s my hesitation? Probably just one of expectation. While this is a script by Steve Martin, writer of such plays as “Wasp” and “Picasso at the Lapin Agile,” (both of which I liked quite a lot), “The Underpants” isn’t the same kind of play. Rather than being a Martin original, this is instead Steve Martin’s interpretation of Carl Sternheim’s play. It’s clearly a good match of source material and adapter. It’s easy to see why Martin was drawn to it. One can see Martin’s style, intelligence, and signature brand of humor peaking through all over the place. But while the play takes swipes at things like objectification and oppression of women, and the overall hypocrisy of the system of gender roles, “The Underpants” is essentially a bedroom farce. Though a lot of the issues addressed are just as relevant today as in 1910 when it was first presented in Germany, it’s not the usual Steve Martin play of ideas masquerading as entertainment. It’s simply entertainment. Does it succeed on that level? Most definitely.

Workhouse Theatre Co. is settling nicely into their new home at The Warren. In a former garage bookended on either side by a photography studio and an art gallery, Workhouse’s small triangular stage tucked in the corner utilizes the space remarkably well. The set design by Sarah J. Leigh makes the most of a snug situation. A set with walls and three frequently used doors wedges into a space I wouldn’t have thought possible. The architectural logic of the set sometimes made me scratch my head a little, but the use of those three doors was consistent, and extremely funny. Suspension of disbelief applies to buildings, too. The props in such a tight space need to be well-chosen and not too numerous. Norma Peterson and Jane O’Brien’s work with prop design added just the right accents to help define but not overwhelm the space, or slow the action between scenes.

In a comedy as broad and bawdy as this, the supporting players wind up with a lot of the flashier scene-stealing moments. Shana Eisenberg as the naughty instigator Gertrude is a lot of fun to watch in action. Gertrude cares for her friend and wants Louise to stand up for herself, but that doesn’t mean she can’t have a good time living vicariously through her friend’s sudden glut of romantic options. Dan Hylton as Versati the poet is delightfully over-the-top with his persistent wooing of Louise. Benjamin Cohen is one of the worst liars ever, but Jason Vogen makes you believe that he somehow pulls off his masquerade in spite of himself through sheer determination. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the people he’s trying to fool aren’t all that bright themselves. Robert Larsen gets a wonderful supporting role in Klingelhoff. He gets to walk in and reap the benefits of all the lunacy that has gone before, and Larsen works it for all its worth, nearly stealing the show in its closing minutes.

It is sometimes a thankless task to be placed in the center of such a whirlwind of silliness. Every story needs a character to act as an anchor, but that role isn’t always quite as fun to perform. Lindsay Timmington does a good job of eliciting sympathy for the put-upon Louise. Timmington’s portrayal of a woman slowly coming to grips with her newfound status as the town’s unwitting sex symbol - and all the opportunities it presents - is amusing to see unfold. It is at the very end, however, when Louise is putting one over on the befuddled Klingelhoff, that Timmington really comes into her own. Using her assigned place in society - as the meek little woman - to throw a potentially troubling tenant off guard and take the upper hand in the situation, is a nice payoff to Louise’s journey. As Louise’s insufferable husband Theo, Dan Peltzman is unrelenting in his portrait of one of the most selfish husbands ever. The only good thing you can say about the man is that he doesn’t beat his wife - physically anyway. While he doesn’t get the full comeuppance one might like to see onstage, it is satisfying to know that his world is nothing like he actually believes it to be in his head.

Director Chris McGahan really puts his cast through their paces. A production like this succeeds or fails based on whether or not it can keep moving at a brisk clip. McGahan and his crew wisely keep the action going almost non-stop, with just the briefest of pauses between scenes. Having a small space to fill with a half dozen characters works to the production’s advantage. Everyone is always just moments away from being caught - well, with their pants down, sometimes quite literally. One wrong move and the whole thing could come undone. It is most entertaining watching them all walk the tightrope together and try not to fall off. The preshow music of the soundtrack from old cartoons is especially apt. “The Underpants” is a solid production of a very funny play.

Highly recommended.

“The Underpants” and Workhouse Theatre are well worth the trip. And really, it’s not much of trip outside the usual downtown theatrical haunts. I tend to get lost at the drop of a hat, and I found The Warren with no trouble at all. A quick hop on and off 94W, and you’re practically there. The Warren is on the corner of 44th and Osseo (4400 Osseo, Minneapolis). The production continues through February 23, 2008. Evening shows Thursday through Saturday this week (2/14-16) and Friday and Saturday next week (2/22 & 23) at 7:30pm. For reservations and more information, call 612-386-5763, or visit www.workhousetheatre.org

Cross posted to www.myspace.com/matthewaeverett and archived on my site www.matthewaeverett.com

See You Tonight!

Where? Why here, of course, silly.

Ridiculous Amounts of Theater This Weekend...

Man, my February is just not conducive to theatergoing at all. Which is a darn shame, because there's tons of it, particularly kicking off this weekend and stretching out for weeks beyond...

For instance, you ask?

Well, how about the first annual Chekhov Festival over at the Bryant Lake Bowl? If you want to see a whole bunch of great theater people doing a whole lot of different things with our favorite Russian playwright and short story writer - comedy, cartoons, drama, faithful productions and completely random adaptations - it's all here baby. Check out their website - www.chekhovfestival.com- and get all the lovely details for yourself. You could fill a month of weekends just with that - and they'd certainly like you to do so. (Plus, who doesn't like food and drink during the show? And bowling and a bar just outside when you're done? Ideal.)

There's also a well-regarded and popular Fringe show, Same Difference, being remounted at the Illusion for a two week run.

Fringe vets Walking Shadow offer up the regional premiere of Naomi Iizuka's 36 Views.

Scrappy new theater group Workhouse brings us the area premiere of Steve Martin's comedy The Underpants

And a bunch of familiar faces can be found involved in the production of Theater In The Round's Henry V - including beloved Fringe favorite Craig Johnson in the director's chair

And really, that's just for starters. If none of those strike your fancy, there's at least one more new production starting, five more productions heading into their final weekends, and nine or so continuing their runs.

Links for all those and more can be found about halfway down the front page of my website - www.matthewaeverett.com - in the Theater Recommendations section.

I will likely be looking on longingly from afar for most of it. Next weekend I head out of town to join the family back east celebrating my father's 80th birthday. And last weekend of the month I'm back east again celebrating not only mom's 70th, but her well-deserved retirement party after thirty years on the job at a place she loves. Plus grandma's turning 95 next month, so we'll get in some celebrating for her as well. But it means I'm not going to be around much, and the time I am, well, I kind of need to work my two jobs so I can afford the trips home. Thus the Guthrie box office will be the lion's share of my theater-related contact for February.

So break a leg, everyone.

And those not in shows, by all means, see what everyone else is up to. It's the usual embarrassment of riches. Whatever your choice, you're bound to be happy.

Pong Pong Ball Party Time

Just got an email from the Fringe, and they've updated the front page of the website thusly...

"The applications are in.

The ping pong balls are in their cage.

Coco Fondue is readying her best fake eyelashes.

It's time for the Fringe lottery.

Reunite with your Fringe family for the first taste of the 2008 Minnesota Fringe

Witness the majesty of Coco Fondue and the Fringe staff as they randomly draw ping pong balls to determine the 2008 Minnesota Fringe lineup!

WHO'S IN? WHO'S ON THE WAIT LIST? COME TO THE WEST BANK TO FIND OUT!"

(Blogger's note - OK, I'm coming. No need to shout :)

"2008 LOTTERY

7 p.m. at Mixed Blood Theatre

1501 South 4th Street, Minneapolis

AFTER-LOTTERY PARTY

9 p.m. at Bedlam Theatre

1501 South 6th Street, Minneapolis

Drink specials at Bedlam + free pizza for early birds from Pizza Lucé

And if that isn't reason enough to come hang out, we don't know what could be.

Monday, February 11 Lottery at 7, party at 9

Woot!"

(Blogger's note - Woot, indeed :)

And so, my obsessive-compulsive disorder reasserts itself - six months early.

Sigh.

Vote (er... Caucus, er... State Your Preference...)

Heck if I know, I never caucused before.

But for a change, the whole thing isn't decided long before they get around to asking us in Minnesota.

So I've found out where my polling place (er... caucusing place) is, and off I go tonight.

It's a tiny window of opportunity - 6:30pm or 7pm until 8pm, depending on which party you want to influence - but worthwhile.

So, Democrat, Republican, Independent, doesn't matter. Get out there and vote, my friends.

For the first time in a while, they actually care what we think. Might as well tell them, huh?

It always kind of blows my mind that people fought and bled and died so I'd have the right to stroll down the street to an elementary school and help decide who the next leader of the free world's going to be.

It's all so damn civilized.

You can get information here, here and here - plus all the major candidates seem to have caucus finders on their websites as well, so it's ridiculously easy to find the place you need to be.

Let 'em hear it.

Happy Super Tuesday, everyone.

See you next Super Monday for the Fringe Lottery

(The lottery will take place at Mixed Blood Theatre (just like last year) - 1501 South Fourth Street, Minneapolis, MN - on Monday, Feb 11, 2008 at 7:00pm.)

Review - Looking For Normal - ARTisphere Theatre - 4-1/2 stars

This show is one I very highly recommend, but if you're looking for still other options, you can find links here or here...

I've been accused recently of loving everything I see. To which I reply, really? Look at this, this, this, this, or this. For starters.

That said, let's get onto something I enjoyed...

Review - Looking For Normal - ARTisphere Theatre - 4-1/2 stars

“All this so my grandson can go to the grocery store wearing a dress, and not be killed.”

If it’s possible for a theater production to be 100 percent heart, ARTisphere’s “Looking For Normal” would come darn close. It’s not that it doesn’t also have a brain, and a very active and challenging one at that, but the sheer volume of emotion is almost overwhelming. That doesn’t mean “Looking For Normal” is overly sentimental. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. The emotion is so honest, and genuine, it’s breathtaking.

Given its history in getting to the stage, this shouldn’t have surprised me. The whole production is a labor of love, and it shows. “Looking For Normal” is a script that husband and wife team Frederick Wagner and Sally Ann Wright have been hanging onto for several years now. The desire to tell the story, and play the characters of Roy and Irma, was so great, they teamed up with director Terry Lynn Carlson and company manager Elizabeth M. Desotelle to start a brand new theater company in order to help make it happen. Partnering with Torch Theater was the final piece in the puzzle to get ARTisphere Theatre and “Looking For Normal” on stage and in front of an audience.

What’s so compelling about this story? Looking at it on paper, it might have been a trainwreck. After twenty-five years of blue collar marriage in Ohio, John Deere quality control manager Roy (Wagner) confides in Reverend Muncie (Garry Geiken) that he is convinced he was born in the wrong body. Roy intends to get a sex change operation and live the remainder of his life as a woman. Right after he tells his wife Irma (Wright).

As a drama, this idea could have been hopelessly earnest and preachy (especially with a pastor in the cast of characters). As a comedy, it could have been all cheap shots and easy laughs. What makes “Looking For Normal” work is that it treads that middle ground between the two, and ARTisphere’s production plays to that strength for all it’s worth. The laughs are plentiful, but they come from character and situation, not one-liners, and most importantly, not at any one person’s expense. Jane Anderson’s script shines a light on everyone’s failings and foibles equally. Everyone’s discomfort, including the audience’s, is acknowledged, but not coddled. The play turns the status quo inside out without being disrespectful.

Roy’s choice means a great deal of adjustment for all those around him - his elderly parents Em and Roy Sr. (Anita O’Sullivan and Larry Roupe), wife Irma, teenage daughter Patty Ann (Taylor Bolstad), grown son Wayne (Randy Schmeling), boss Frank (John Middleton), and his church, led by Reverend Muncie. In fact, the only one in his life who might understand, is his long-dead grandmother Ruth (Mo Perry), who appears throughout the proceedings to prove that gender-bending and unconventional couplings have run in the family for a great many years.

Ruth, for all her insights, felt she had to run away to live her life fully. Roy’s challenge, and ultimate salvation, is that he wants to continue living where he is, surrounded by the people he loves. However, this isn’t easy for anyone, Roy included. One of the reasons Irma won’t believe in Roy’s female identity is because, “Only a man could be this selfish.”

Denying his identity has led Roy to the brink of suicide, more than once. It is only after seeing this for herself that Irma realizes Roy can’t go it alone. She lets him move back home, and struggles to come to terms with what their family is becoming. Even has her husband is trying to turn himself into a woman, Irma’s tomboyish daughter Patty Ann is trying with all her might not to turn into a young woman herself. Bolstad’s work as Patty Ann is delightful, verging on scene-stealing. Her presentations on a woman’s menstrual cycle and her father’s impending gender reassignment surgery are hilarious, and practically show-stoppers. The bonding that occurs between Patty Ann and her ever more female father figure, built upon a barrage of questions which opens the second act, is funny and heartwarming in equal measure. But at the same time, the audience sees the toll this shift in the home dynamic is taking on Irma.

This double edge to a scene or relationship is something which the script sets up time and again, and the production delivers on - all the laughter, all the good feeling, has behind it a foundation of reality, and that reality is hard, even painful, for the other people watching someone find a little happiness. There are trade-offs. For everything gained, something is lost.

Geiken’s minister struggles mightily to understand and help Roy. At first, he tries to push Roy, and even Irma, back toward what he considers normal, what he truly believes would make them most happy. The reverend isn’t judging them. He has faith that if he can guide them back toward the life they’ve always lived, things will sort themselves out - despite all evidence to the contrary. Later, because other members of his congregation are uncomfortable, just as he is, he retreats from these two people who have done so much for his church. Though there is no face-to-face reconciliation between Muncie, Roy and Irma, the pastor’s final sermon shared with the audience, deeply conflicted over a complex issue of faith, shows that his search for a new normal continues. Where it ends, for anybody, we don’t know. But the intelligent grappling with faith as well as sex and love and family, is a welcome added layer that most plays don’t touch.

Roy’s father, abandoned by his own mother Ruth, and stung by his son’s refusal to take over the family farm, is kept in the dark about that son’s transformation. Wife Em feels this is for his own good, since Roy Sr.’s condition is deteriorating. He himself is transforming into something no one else recognizes. When father and new daughter are finally able to meet, a great deal has been lost. Thanks to Anita O’Sullivan and Larry Roupe, two characters who started out almost as comedy stereotypes end up being very, very human.

John Middleton, as Roy’s supportive boss Frank, and Randy Schmeling, as Roy’s son Wayne, each serve up a different slice of what it’s like to be a man in the 21st century with its suddenly fluid notions of gender. Frank is drawn to Irma’s sanity, a quality he doesn’t find in his own wife, who keeps leaving him and returning. His hopes of becoming Irma’s new husband when Roy makes his transformation are dashed in ever more awkward and amusing ways as Irma’s true feelings slowly make themselves known. Wayne is almost more disturbed by his father’s newfound sensitivity and emotional openness than the fact Roy is wearing women’s clothing and makeup. Sometimes a good fist fight is the quickest way to clear the air. Middleton and Schmeling take what could have been louts and turn them into hapless souls we come to care for, in all their confusion and bungled attempts to make a connection with others.

As a gender warrior ahead of her time, you could say grandmother Ruth gets a lot of the play’s best material, but that would be giving short shrift to a play chock full of good material. Mo Perry, however, makes it tempting to make such pronouncements. Each time she takes the stage as Ruth, Perry acts not only as connective tissue between scenes, but as a solid foundation for the other characters and themes of the play to build upon. Her performance of Ruth’s ode to the various people she has loved in her travels around the globe throughout her life is a beautiful evocation of the idea that love often doesn’t care what the person looks like. We are more than the sum of our imperfect body parts.

This central tenet of the play is given fullest life in the peculiar romance of Roy and Irma. After a quarter-century of life together, they are only just now beginning to appreciate each other fully. All of this at the same time the traditional roles of husband and wife are being turned on their head.

Frederick Wagner as Roy has the flashier of the two roles, and the one in which an actor could probably get in the most trouble. Wagner has to tread a very fine line as his character evolves into a woman over the full span of the play. At rise, he’s a “regular guy.” By the end, visiting his parents, he is a woman in appearance and behavior, just waiting for the final surgery to complete the process. There is a lot of ground to cover in between, sometimes in increments, sometimes in great leaps. Just as Roy always felt like a woman inside, there is always a man inside the woman that he becomes. Wagner himself is an imposing presence onstage. Getting an audience to buy into this transformation without it seeming like an awkward drag act is a big task, but Wagner pulls it off. The script helps by allowing the audience to see the missteps along the way, as Roy learns what this new body and way of life are all about, and the adjustments they will require of him. Wagner’s portrayal of a human being on a journey from tormented soul to joyful new life is fascinating to watch.

Just as tricky, in a much quieter way, is the journey Sally Ann Wright must take as Irma. It often seems as if for everything her husband Roy gains on his quest, Irma loses something equally important. Wright does a wonderful job of taking the material the script gives her and creating a fully human portrait of a woman who sees her whole life being torn apart, forcing her to find the strength to build a new one. Irma is the one who holds the family together. Irma is the one with equally big decisions to make. Everyone around Irma is giving her permission to move on. She could cut ties, leave her husband of 25 years or kick him out, and no one would blame her. At first, that’s exactly what she does. But just as Roy still carries a tremendous love for his wife, Irma also can’t shake Roy out of her heart. Wright shows us that, even though it is costing Irma a great deal in terms of her own personal dignity and the loss of a life she loved, she cares deeply for this man. He is lost. He is in pain. She loves him, and wants to help. It is far from easy, for either of them, but the struggle also includes a lot of laughter, and a lot of heart. In Wright’s hands, Irma’s final words which close the play not only make this strange journey understandable, they are also quite moving.

The only thing that keeps this production from being damn near perfect is the pacing. While the individual performances and scenes are all wonderful, getting from one part of the story to the next often seems needlessly labored. This is perplexing, since the script presents a structure which could easily flow from one scene to the next. The set, designed by Erik Paulson, who also designed the lights, seems ready to reinforce the smooth flow of the journey. There are multiple platforms, plus the space across the front of the stage, all of which are used well. There are multiple doors across the back wall of the set, which is a cornfield and sky all painted on scrim which, depending on the light, one can see through. This trick of the light could have gotten more use, but that’s not the main issue. Even with other actors on stage, ready to go, or others who could easily bound into view and keep the action going, the production feels compelled to give the audience unnecessary blackouts and sound and music cues. This has the unfortunate effect of killing any overall momentum the production might have. Scene. Stop. Scene. Stop. Actors are allowed to speak while walking in from offstage. They are allowed to walk onstage or across the stage while the lights are shifting. They are even allowed to walk out of one scene into another. It’s a pity this production didn’t allow them to do so.

However, the script is so good and the performances so winning, the audience is willing to forgive the production any clumsiness. After seeing this production, I find myself wanting to seek out the movie version as well. While it certainly won’t be exactly like the play, the experience of ARTisphere’s “Looking For Normal” makes me want to spend more time with these characters. When you see it, and you should, you’ll want to do the same.

Very highly recommended.

There are still two weekends of “Looking For Normal” left, including this one. The production runs Thursday, Friday and Saturdays at 7:30pm and Sundays at 3pm, now through February 3, 2008. Performances are at the Minneapolis Theater Garage, 711 West Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis (just off the corner of Franklin and Lyndale). For reservations and further information, call 612-788-3639.

Looking for theater this weekend...?

You're in luck. As usual, there's tons of it. It's kind of heartbreaking - after all, how do you hit it all? Still, a nice problem to have...

Something you won't want to miss - review to follow - is Looking For Normal from ARTisphere and Torch Theaters at the Minneapolis Theater Garage. This one was a really welcome surprise for me. I'd heard really good things, and knew the cast was great, but I wasn't prepared for how much I was going to like it. The script is really great, and the production mines its strengths - not preachy, full of laughs, very even-handed, often poetic, and the emotions run very deep. For a play about a man's decision to get gender reassignment surgery, and its ripple effect on his family and larger community, it's remarkably... well, normal. Don't take my word for it. Go see it yourself. Even in a town with this much theater, we don't get to see productions like this nearly enough. Two more weekends. Info here and by calling 612-788-3639.

Several shows are wrapping up this weekend as well - the latest barrage of new work from The Lighthouse Group at the Illusion, including Fringe fave Noah Bremer of Live Action Set fame; the end of the holidays for Brave New Workshop; a final bow for an intriguing production of "Blue Door" from Emigrant Theater; and an area premiere for a comedy over at Theater In The Round Players.

And of course I'm torn because there are three other productions looking ahead to their closing next weekend from Pendulum, Mu and Cromulent, plus the Walker's Out There series.

And four interesting shows starting up this weekend to boot at Bedlam, History Theater, Youth Performance Company, and Workhaus (not to be confused with Workhouse - which is yet to come)

And, as if that weren't enough, about a half dozen more shows that are in the midst of their runs, not quite the beginning, not quite the end. Check the links on the front page of my website for more (the theater recommendations stuff is about half way down)

Me, I'm getting ready for a road trip starting tomorrow, down to Baton Rouge to see a little play of my own being done. Enjoy it all in my absense, folks.

Looking for Something To See This Weekend? I Suggest...

If you're going to see one thing this weekend, it should be this, because it only plays this weekend, and it'd be a shame to miss it...

Who knew dance could be so funny?

Last night I saw the first performance of an evening of dance from choreographer Cade Holmseth (who dances with Stuart Pimsler, Jeffrey Peterson, Vanessa Voskuil, and, for the Fringe-ophiles among is, could be classed as Live Action Set-adjacent - all of which, very promising markers.) Cade and his fellow dancer/performers deliver on this promise and then some. Cade, along with Brian Evans, Bryan Gerber, and Mark Ruark, could not be more different physically, and yet their bodies and styles blend together beautifully to create some remarkable scenes of movement. Part slapstick, part romance, part streetfight. It's tremendously entertaining and engaging.

What is it? "Le Regard Feminin - Quatro Uomi" (or, for the French-impaired like myself - "The Feminine Gaze - Four Men"). Seriously, though, don't let the French in the title or the gender studies vocabulary of the subject matter scare you off.

I went to see good dance (and, let's be honest, nice-looking men dancing together is never a minus in my theatergoing book). I got so much more than the expected eye candy. I'll go on about it at length shortly, but since the run is likely to expire before a full review is posted, I felt the need to get a little blurb posted right away.

Anybody who reads this blog knows I have a limited vocabulary where dance is concerned anyway. Frankly, the good stuff always leaves me stunned at the kind of beautiful things the human body is capable of doing, both alone and in combination with others, onstage in the world of dance.

This is the good stuff. It's funny. It's sweet. It's gorgeous. It's thought-provoking. It's just a really great evening of sitting in the dark, drinking in one person's vision. Something you can let roll around in your head for a good long while.

It had a nice crowd last night when I was there. But something this good deserves to pack the joint.

So, go.

The remaining performances are tonight, Friday 1/8 and Saturday 1/19, both at 7:30pm, and a Sunday matinee closing peformance 1/20 at 2pm.

It performs at Red Eye - 15 West 14th Street, Minneapolis

There's also a slew of other stuff going on, and you can find numerous links to it all on the front page of my website - www.matthewaeverett.com

Just didn't want you to blink a miss this one. Good performances are better when shared.

Oh - addendum - I forgot because it always strikes me as a little silly we have to warn each other about nudity (the human body! how terrifying!). That said, though there is a lot of skin throughout the evening, there is one brief, tasteful moment of nudity that pulls off the neat trick of being both sexy as hell and simultaneously kind of hilarious. Enjoy.

Logorrhea - The Most of Maximum Verbosity - 4 stars

Would it be easy to misunderstand the intentions of a production which features a female priest dragging a cross on stage and later repeatedly stabbing the baby Jesus?

Would it be easy to misunderstand the intentions of performers who portray a virgin suggestively stroking, and later fellating, the golden horn of a unicorn?

Would it be easy to misunderstand the intentions of a theater company that spotlights a man making out with, then humping, a small pink My Little Pony stuffed animal?

Uh... sure.

For the full review, go here or here

Review - Anton In Show Business - Starting Gate - 4-1/2 stars

It's Pay What You Can Night tonight! Their special Monday performance. A great chance to see a great show. Enjoy!

"So, a production which on the surface I should have disliked, I loved. A production that I expected to find tedious, engaged me instead and just flew by. Theater is a very confusing thing sometimes..."

Full review of Anton In Show Business can be found here or here...

Review - The Home Place - Guthrie - 5 Stars

The final weekend of performances is straight ahead, so there's still time to catch what I think is the best piece of work the Guthrie's done since it moved to its new building about a year and a half ago. Full review can be found here or here...

Four Good Shows Closing This Weekend - Catch 'Em While You Can

Four things closing this weekend you really should see...

(two of the best things I've seen this year...)

War With The Newts

and

Frankenstein Incarnate - The Passions of Mary Shelley

plus the latest from 3 Sticks...

Melancholy Play

and the play I just reviewed -
The Young Lady's Consent - review here

Theater Review - The Young Lady's Consent (final weekend)

Commedia Beauregard has had a most unusual and varied renaissance this year – which continues with their current production The Young Lady's Consent - now in its final weekend - full review here...

And so, Fringe Encore weekend begins...

All the details can be found here, here, or here...

Get out there and enjoy a little Fringe, and a whole lot of other great theater before winter and the holiday shows truly descend upon us all!

Looking for theater this weekend? You don't have to look far...

Check out the handy suggestions and links here and here. Enjoy!

Weekend Chock Full of Theater

Tons o' handy links to great theater to be had here and here. Enjoy!

Review - Sun Tzu's The Art of War - No Refunds Theatre Co. - 5 stars

Looking for something fun to see this weekend? Try this...

Saturday Theater Options - Fringe-wise and otherwise

Check for the details here...

Friday End O' The Week Fringe-ing Opportunities - Good Theater All Around

Check out the details here...

Thursday of the Long Fringe Weekend - One Nighters and Longer Runs Abound...

Check out all the details here...

In Case You Were Wondering - Fringe Encore...

The results of the lottery for the official Fringe Encore in Hopkins this November...

Autumn Roses - The Gun

Was it Chekhov who said, "If you introduce a gun in the first act, by the third act the gun must go off"?

Sunday Not A Day Of Rest For Fringe - The Last Measures, Graveyard, plus a Giant Cow, & more...

An afternoon and night full of funky, innovative theater - check the details here...

Saturday Night Full of Fringe - Lotteries & 365 Plays & Swans & Babies & Women Standup & more...

For a night full of Fringe-related goodness, check the details here...

Friday Night Fringey Goodness - Another Pregnant Cow Double Feature, and more...

The weekend's heating up - lots of great theater to catch - check it out, and then see some!...

Autumn Roses - Challenge 1

Sometimes a random sunflower reference really helps...

Thursday Night Fringey Goodness - Pregnant Cows, Graveyards, Nuns, and more...

For Fringe-friendly theater suggestions playing tonight, check out this post...

Autumn Roses - Naming

Characters don't seem real, or come out of hiding, until you start giving them names...

Autumn Roses - Source Material

I never thought I'd say this, but Shakespeare is easy...

Sunday Afternoon Fringey Goodness - Blue Double Feature

First, think about giving the Fringe a helping hand...

Then if you're suffering Fringe withdrawal, the Fringe hits revival continues this afternoon over at the Actors Theater of Minnesota in St. Paul.

There are shows all weekend, this weekend, and the next several into October.

If you missed these shows the first time around, now's your chance to catch 'em.

And if you did see 'em, well, you know they're good, why not go back and bring friends?

Be adventurous. Cross the river. Discover a new little theater space.

Today it's an afternoon of theater, two back-to-back performances of

the much beloved one-woman show

Blue Collar Diaries

from Michelle Myers at 1pm and 2:30pm

After feeling stalked by the long shadows of her blue collar upbringing in St. Paul, Michelle does an about face and gratefully acknowledges the remarkable people who cast them. Eight characters of different gender, race and age reveal a community of people who truly understood that a persons' testimony was not in their uniform alone.

(The preview I saw I was quite impressed with. The link will take you to numerous glowing audience reviews from its Fringe run. Other Fringe bloggers had this to say...)

"I've been complaining a lot about how static most of the one-man previews have been, and this was a good counter-example of a speech that was physically dynamic in a way that underscored what was being said." - Phillip Low

I loved this preview. She was powerful and funny, and this three minutes is still intact in my memory. I'm very excited to see more; I predict a hit. -- Caitlin Gilmet

"Michelle Myers with "Blue Collar Diaries" was my first major discovery for this year. This was a dead-on solo performance depicting a hard-working woman past her own transitory youthful bloom and now dealing with life in the real world as exemplified by her hubby, that idiot, and the neighborhood kids to boot. How to fill three minutes so they seem timeless, evoking a much larger scenario and yet complete in themselves." -- John Munger

Next offerings will be on

Thursday, September 27th,

with a returning laugh-filled double feature from...

the always hilarious Joshua Scrimshaw and Shanan Wexler and their show From Here To Maternity at 7pm

followed by

Take A Left At The Giant Cow - A Beginner's Guide to North Dakota - from Fringe spoken word artists Curt Lund and Laura Bidgood at 8:30pm (my four star review of the show is here)

And if you missed this week's other artists...

Buckets and Tap Shoes

and

Allegra Lingo's I Hate Kenny G (my five star review of the show is here)

they shall return - but don't wait too long - the event ends October 14, and artists are rotating in and out

From Here To Maternity will conclude their run in the mix this coming weekend.

More updates to follow.

The space is the great new little black box, the Lowry Lab - 350 St. Peter Street in downtown Saint Paul (not to be confused for bingo central, it's around the corner in the same neighborhood)

All tickets are $12 and available at the door or by reservation (at no extra cost).

*Receive a $1 discount with a 2007 Fringe button*

To reserve your tickets for a performance, please call the Actors Theater box office at 651-290-2290 anytime Monday-Friday 9am-5pm.

Complete schedule and show summaries can be found on the Actors Theater website at www.actorstheaterofminnesota.org

If you're not into any of that, there's always theater in a graveyard after dark - featuring some familiar Fringe faces...

or you can click on the multiple link in the Theater Recommendations section on the front page of my website - www.matthewaeverett.com - to dig up something you like.

See theater - there's tons of it.

Enjoy!

Friday Night Fringey Goodness - Pregnant Buckets, and more...

First, think about giving the Fringe a helping hand...

Then if you're suffering Fringe withdrawal, the Fringe hits revival continues tonight over at the Actors Theater of Minnesota in St. Paul.

There are shows all weekend, this weekend, and the next several into October.

If you missed these shows the first time around, now's your chance to catch 'em.

And if you did see 'em, well, you know they're good, why not go back and bring friends?

Be adventurous. Cross the river. Discover a new little theater space.

Laughs, music and dance abound tonight with a double feature of

From Here To Maternity from the always hilarious Joshua Scrimshaw and Shanan Wexler at 7pm (I saw a couple of preview bits of this and it's a hoot. If you need a laugh to close our your work week, this is the place.)

Notable local critics who've seen the whole thing say...

“...clever and inventive voices in comedy theater...”

-- Graydon Royce, Star Tribune

“As a duo, they are intellectually and comedically agile.”

-- Dominic Papatola, Pioneer Press

“Two remarkable performers tackle a topic that is perfect for comedy.”

-- Chris Kidder, TC Theater by the Numbers

“I’ve already seen the entire “From Here to Maternity” show with Joshua Scrimshaw and Shanan Wexler. Trust me, it is really really funny on an intelligent and skillful level. It’s really hard to do over-the-top comedy and still steer clear of mere gags, delivering true humor instead. They do it. Go thou and see it.”

-- John Munger, Choreographer and Fringe Blogger

followed by

Buckets and Tap Shoes at 8:30pm (they'll give you an end of the week energy boost to send you into the weekend - great music and dance)

Those more articulate about music and dance say...

Feeling down, blue, traumatized? This show'll fix you right up. It 's the new tap generation, and it's funky, fantastically fast, a little bit Zen, and lots of happy. Since Buckets and Tap Shoes debuted at the 2004 Fringe, the Ausland brothers (Rick and Andy) have tightened and brightened their routines. Gone is the wild novelty of their earlier iteration. Now they're downright professional, but still totally fun. Along with the Auslands, the carefree Kaleena Miller and flat-out amazing Ricci Milan twirl like ballerinas, suspend themselves on their toes in tap freezes, pitter patter both melody and rhythm with quicksilver speed, and suddenly fold flung out arms, legs and feet into a meditation position. Om!

-- Camille Lefevre, Star Tribune

"Stomp on steroids reaches new heights." by David Trudeau
...
Not only are these musicians and dancers incredibly talented, but they are so dedicated to giving their high energy to us, that they have obligatory changes to dry clothing half way through. The four-in-unison tap routines are knock-em-dead and they just don't stop, piling one on another. These artists should be decorated for their huge efforts to go beyond the call of performance, drumming and dancing themselves into a lather, while we, the audience with mouths agape just can't quite believe they can do what they do so well. And they just keep on going, never missing a beat. See this!

Tomorrow night's Saturday night double feature will be...

7pm - more Buckets and Tap Shoes

8:30pm - the much beloved one-woman show Blue Collar Diaries from Michelle Myers

with more to follow on Sunday afternoon

And don't forget that

I Hate Kenny G - from Allegra Lingo and Commedia Beauregard (my five star review of the show is here)

and

Take A Left At The Giant Cow - A Beginner's Guide to North Dakota - from Fringe spoken word artists Curt Lund and Laura Bidgood (my four star review of the show is here)

will be back again next weekend, too.

More updates to follow.

The space is the great new little black box, the Lowry Lab - 350 St. Peter Street in downtown Saint Paul (not to be confused for bingo central, it's around the corner in the same neighborhood)

All tickets are $12 and available at the door or by reservation (at no extra cost).

*Receive a $1 discount with a 2007 Fringe button*

To reserve your tickets for a performance, please call the Actors Theater box office at 651-290-2290 anytime Monday-Friday 9am-5pm.

Complete schedule and show summaries can be found on the Actors Theater website at www.actorstheaterofminnesota.org

If you're not into any of that, there's always theater in a graveyard after dark - featuring some familiar Fringe faces...

or you can click on the multiple link in the Theater Recommendations section on the front page of my website - www.matthewaeverett.com - to dig up something you like.

See theater - there's tons of it.

Enjoy!

Thursday Night Fringey Goodness from Kenny G, A Giant Cow, and more...

Not that I want you to forget the equally great current production of Measure for Measure from Nightpath Theater that performs this evening as well, but I'd be remiss (and already have been last week) not to mention here on my Fringe blog of all places that a number of Fringe hits are being revived over at the Actors Theater of Minnesota in St. Paul.

The space is the great new little black box, the Lowry Lab - 350 St. Peter Street in downtown Saint Paul(not to be confused for bingo central, it's around the corner in the same neighborhood)

All tickets are $12 and available at the door or by reservation (at no extra cost).

*Receive a $1 discount with a 2007 Fringe button*

To reserve your tickets for a performance, please call the Actors Theater box office at
651-290-2290 anytime Monday-Friday 9am-5pm.

There are shows all weekend, this weekend, and the next several into October.

If you missed these shows the first time around, now's your chance to catch 'em.

And if you did see 'em, well, you know they're good, why not go back and bring friends?

Be adventurous. Cross the river. Discover a new little theater space.

Laughs aplenty to be had this weekend, starting tonight with a double feature of

I Hate Kenny G - from Allegra Lingo and Commedia Beauregard at 7pm (my five star review of the show is here)

followed by

Take A Left At The Giant Cow - A Beginner's Guide to North Dakota - from Fringe spoken word artists Curt Lund and Laura Bidgood at 8:30pm (my four star review of the show is here)

Tomorrow night's Friday Fringe double feature is...

7pm - From Here To Maternity from Joshua Scrimshaw and Shanan Wexler

8:30pm - Buckets and Tap Shoes

with more to follow on Saturday and Sunday

More updates to follow.

Complete schedule and show summaries can be found on the Actors Theater website at www.actorstheaterofminnesota.org

If you're not into any of that, there's always theater in a graveyard after dark - featuring some familiar Fringe faces...

or you can click on the multiple link in the Theater Recommendations section on the front page of my website - www.matthewaeverett.com - to dig up something you like.

See theater - there's tons of it.

Enjoy!

Review - Measure for Measure - Nightpath Theatre - 5 stars

"Quick - what's the first word that comes into your head when I mention the concept of producing Shakespeare's comedy-drama "Measure for Measure" onstage as a group of actors pretending to perform a radio play version, all doing multiple roles, complete with sound effects, set in the Old West of Vienna, California?

Brilliant.

Not the word you were thinking? Trust me, neither was I. But after seeing Nightpath Theatre Co.'s production of "Measure for Measure," brilliant is exactly the word that springs to mind. Shakespeare purists may recoil in horror at the very idea, but anyone who loves great theater should enjoy themselves enormously. I can't recommend this show highly enough..."

For the rest of the review, click here

And see this thing if you can, it's great.

Fringe 2007 - Mom's Schedule, part 1

So, based on the fact I want Mom to see both I Never Slept With Helen Keller and the limitation of sight, and she's only in town for opening weekend, Thursday through Sunday, that helps focus the schedule a little.

I want to go to the opening for the limitation of sight, which is Saturday 8/4 at 4pm.

That blocks out the 4pm and 5:30pm slot, since it's a 75 minute show at the Bryant Lake Bowl.

I Never Slept With Helen Keller has two perfs on opening weekend, one of which falls on Saturday 8/4 at 5:30pm, which I just knocked out.

The other time is Friday, 8/3 at 7pm, so that's when we'll be checking that one out - which also happens to be its opening.

Mom's Schedule Thus Far

Thursday 8/2 - still wide open

Friday 8/3 - 7pm - I Never Slept With Helen Keller - opening perf

Saturday 8/4 - 4pm - the limitation of sight - opening perf

Sunday 8/5 - still wide open

On to more shows I'm fond of, to make scheduling difficult.

Fringe 2007 - Official? Unofficial? Who Cares? Not Me.

I feel a little bad for the folks who have to deal with it, because you kinda can't win either way you go...

Fringe 2007 - Top 10 - Top 20 - Past and Present...

Catching up on this week's postings - reviewing the returning artists from my pre-Fringe Top 10 and Top 20 lists of 2006, 2005, 2004 and 2003, and starting up the Top 10 and Top 20 lists for this year's Fringe...

The one returnee from my original pre-Fringe Top 10 List back in 2003, the Ministry of Cultural Warfare with The Tyranny of God's Love...

The latest schedule for Fringers on TV...

A strangely interconnected trio of Starr, Scott & Bill (and their three shows)...

Fringe 2007 - Dangerous Waters...

Collaboration ain't always easy, particularly in the Fringe pressure cooker...

Fringe 2007 - Do You Have A Show In The Fringe This Year?

We'll know more in 72 hours...

Fringers On Stage This Week

If I wasn't juggling two jobs and pulling the report together for the State Arts Board on my own script besides, here's a handful of things by Fringers (or Fringe-esque, and Fringe-adjacent, folks) I'd be going to see. Follow the handy links for more info...

This week only

The final deadly sin Envy takes Sin Cities 7 out with a bang at the Bryant Lake Bowl (Friday/Saturday July 7th and 8th, 10pm)

Closing this week...

Recently lauded by City Pages as Best Independent Theater, and one committed to new plays and playwrights, Emigrant Theater, presents Sheri Wilner's Hunger (thru 7/7)

Opening this week...

Girl Friday Productions gathers a great cast and inventive approach (no stage manager character - the whole town takes turns being narrator) to offer up their own special take on the classic Our Town (thru 7/28)

Continuing on...

Illusion Theater kicks off their latest series of Fresh Ink new plays in development - first up Jeffrey Hatcher's latest - "Mrs. Mannerly" - written for the hilarious and unstoppable duo of Barbara June Patterson and Phyllis Wright (thru 7/21)

Penumbra serves up its latest musical offering Get Ready (now extended thru 7/22)

The Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona - featuring Macbeth and As You Like It running in rep (thru 7/29)

An open-ended run for the ever-evolving and always amusing Adventures In Mating

Plus, an ever-changing and diverse roster of good stuff on hand at venues such as Bedlam, the Center for Independent Artists, Dreamland Arts, Patrick's Cabaret, the Southern Theater, Improv-A-Go-Go, the new Monday Night Improv, Balls, Brave New Workshop, the Ritz, Old Arizona, and the Bryant Lake Bowl - in addition to the open mic travels of award-winning local comic and Fringer Ben Sandel, and a whole lot more...

Fringe 2007 - My pre-Fringe Top 10 - If You Held A Gun To My Head...

Time to start trotting out my pre-Fringe Top 10...

Autumn Roses - The Vanya Project - First Buds

One script closes, another opens

Love's Prick - One Week Out

After the final curtain falls on the performances, the other work that remains to do on the script, and the larger project of the workshop, continues on...

Fringe 2007 - Fringe TV is on the air

The pairings of guests in each episode, and the beginnings of the broadcast schedule, can be found here...

Fringe 2007 - OCD Alert - Fringe Schedule Is Up

The losing battle not to let the Fringe totally take over my life enters a new phase...

Fringe 2007 - Fringe-For-All - Night 2

All the good, the bad and the ugly from last Tuesday night all in one place...

Fringe 2007 - Fringe-For-All - Night 1

All the good, the bad and the ugly from last Monday night all in one place...