Review: Oliver! @ The Pantages Theater
When Hennepin Theatre Trust and Theatre Latte Da first announced their “Broadway Re-Imagined” series two years ago, the idea was—as the name suggests—to re-imagine some of Broadway’s greatest hits in...
View ArticleHumor: Fifty Shades at Home
For Valentine’s Day, my wife and I went to see Fifty Shades of Grey, mostly to find out what all the fuss was about. But unlike so many of the snobby critics who claim to have been bored by the sex...
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The Habsburgs at MIA is a Must-See
Every once in a while, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts presents an exhibit so off-the-hook amazing that you have to see it to believe it. The Habsburgs: Rarely Seen Masterpieces from Europe’s...
View ArticleReview: The Crucible at The Guthrie
Arthur Miller famously wrote The Crucible as an allegorical response to the Communist fishing expedition led by Sen. Joe McCarthy under the guise of the House Un-American Activities Committee—a...
View ArticleConcert Review: Joe Bonamassa
Halfway through guitarist Joe Bonamassa’s blistering show at the Orpheum on Saturday night (the second of two concerts here), it occurred to me that I wasn’t just watching a guitar virtuoso...
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St. Paul: Twin Cities Jazz Fest and More
This past weekend was a great one for the city of St. Paul. A lot of work by a lot of people is now starting to pay off big time in terms of the city’s cultural footprint. For years, whenever St. Paul...
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First Look: Go Set a Watchman
Imagine if Harry Potter started using his invisibility cloak to become a master thief, or if Laura Ingalls Wilder grew up to run a brothel. That’s the sort of blasphemy that devotees of To Kill A...
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MN State Fair Fine Art Awards
Believe it or not, food and livestock aren’t the only reasons to go to the Minnesota State Fair. The biggest attraction at the fair is really the Fine Arts show. In fact, the reason the Fine Arts...
View ArticleReview: To Kill A Mockingbird
Let me reassure readers up front: If you are hesitant about seeing The Guthrie’s To Kill a Mockingbird because you’re afraid the power and immediacy of live theater will sully your recollection of the...
View ArticleHippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia @ Walker Art Center
So-called “hippies” are often dismissed as a bunch of stoned-out losers with an aggressively floral fashion sense. Often lost amid the derision is the fact that the counterculture movement of the...
View ArticleHolidazzle Village: The Search for a Tradition Continues
Manufacturing traditions isn’t easy. Changing them is even harder. In 1992, the city of Minneapolis came up with a gimmick to lure potential shoppers downtown between Thanksgiving and Christmas at an...
View ArticleReview: Pericles @ The Guthrie
Whatever doubts Twin Citians had about Guthrie artistic director Joe Haj’s ability to direct a play can be laid to rest now that his lovely, epic production of Pericles is up and running. A...
View ArticleThe U of M’s Corpse Flower: In Search of Some Serious Stink
Over the past few days, like so many of my fellow Minnesotans, I have been captivated by the drama of University of Minnesota’s so-called “corpse flower,” a plant that, when it blooms, emits an odor...
View ArticleThe Two Gentlemen of Verona @ The Jungle
The opening last weekend of Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona—incoming artistic director Sarah Rasmussen’s first full production after taking over from Jungle Theater founder Bain...
View ArticleState of the Art: Discovering American Art Now @ Mia
It is an inescapable fact that most artists in this country toil in relative anonymity, never getting the respect or attention they deserve. A few years ago, curators from the Crystal Bridges Museum...
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Ordinary Pictures @ Walker Art Center
Kodak Three Point Relection Guide, Christopher Williams The core idea behind the Walker Art Center’s new exhibit, Ordinary Pictures, couldn’t be more relevant. We live in a world saturated by images,...
View ArticleTheater Latte Da’s “C.” is a Charmer
Theater Latte Da is one of only a handful of arts organizations in the past 30 years that has made the leap from small, itinerant theater company on shoestring to established, mid-size theater with a...
View ArticleHating on the Vikings New Stadium
Now that our shiny new football arena is almost complete, hating on it has instantly become a favorite community sport. “It looks like the Death Star,” is a common observation—or a mountainous lump of...
View ArticleMinnesota Opera’s The Shining Has Yet to Gleam
On paper, Minnesota Opera’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining sounds like a lot of fun. And the public has responded. All four performances of The Shining are sold out, bought by folks eager to...
View ArticleMaria Bamford’s Lady Dynamite Ignites
Instead of fleeing up to the lake cabin I don’t have or sipping cocktails on someone else’s veranda, I spent this past weekend’s sultry evenings in my air-conditioned living room binge-watching Lady...
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