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Seeing as I'm going to a lot of this weekend.
I spent my formative years in NYC, taking in performances like Julie Christie as Mary Todd Lincoln in The Last of Mrs. Lincoln and Raoul Julia as Prospero in The Tempest and productions like Dracula, with the original Edward Gorey sets. I got to go on class trips to hear Danny Kaye explain the joys of opera at Lincoln Center. One of the wonderful things about NYC in the 1970s and 1980s was the belief that as many people as possible should get to experience live theater and performances. If you planned ahead, there were some amazing opportunities to be had in terms of discounted tickets and free performances and we took advantage of them.
After I moved away from New York and entered my perambulating years (St. Louis to archeological digs around the country to Iowa City to upstate New York back to Iowa City), I still took in the occasional play or performance. I remember seeing an excellent one woman show on Zora Neale Hurston by Adilah Barnes, a reinterpretation of Macbeth from Lady Macbeth's point of view and a really great Che Guevara in a church basement community production of Evita as well some really interesting shows at the University of Iowa Theater Department. Through it all, I loved a good show. I didn't want to be on stage, but I loved watching other people give it their all. There's something about losing yourself in someone else's performance that's like reading a really good book or watching a movie.
Now I live in Minneapolis-St. Paul, generally held to have one of the most vibrant theater scenes in the U.S. On any given night, there are several plays or performances going on all over town. And a higher percentage of these than not are good to just plain amazing. Part of the fun of going to see things in smaller theaters is that the productions are more intimate, the performances less dependent on having a theater the size of the Guthrie's costume or set budget. I don't mention the Guthrie here in part because I don't go there often; between the lack of commitment to diversity and the failure to take much in the way of risks (I love Shakespeare too, just not an uninterrupted diet thereof) and the expense, I'd rather spend my theater-going dollars elsewhere.
A quick overview of some of the best things I've been to since moving here in 1997: Ruth MacKenzie and cast in The Kalevala: Dream of the Salmon Maiden, Theater Unbound's productions of Murderess and Frankenstein Incarnate: The Passions of Mary Shelley, Frank Theater's production of Vinegar Tom, Megan Well's one woman production of Dracula, Hardcover Theater's London After Midnight and Steampunk Delusions/The Diamond Lens, Craig Johnson in The Diary of Samuel Pepys, The Jungle Theater's production of Irma Vep and Twelfth Night at the Theatre de Jeune Lune. And then there's the MN Fringe, one of the largest Fringe fests in the world, where I've seen everything from Walking Shadow Theater's The Lives of the Most Notorious Highwaymen to a rock opera about Persephone and Demeter (Hades runs a temp agency in Minneapolis and Demeter has a family farm) to an incredible production by Chaos Theater of Caryl Churchill's The Skriker.
This list doesn't include some perfectly fine shows as well as the occasional flop by these and other companies. This weekend, we took in Theatre Pro Rata's Lovers and Executioners, which had definite moments, though it wasn't clicking for the company last night (but may tonight. That's the beauty and the pain of live theater). But they're doing a show on Emilie du Chatelet (mathematical, scientific and scholarly genius, who took Voltaire as her lover) next year, which I'm wildly excited about and will be going to. And this afternoon, we're off to Theater Unbound's The Good Fight. I feel like I haven't scratched the surface of what's out there - I've never been to the Pillsbury House Theater or Penumbra Theater or 20%Theater and I haven't been to Illusion or Mixed Blood or the Playwright's Center in ages, for example. I'd like to check out more original plays by locals than I do as well as more plays by/about/staged by women, playwrights of color and LGBTQ playwrights and performers. The wonderful thing is that here I can see those kinds of works and more. Clearly the answer is more theater!
I spent my formative years in NYC, taking in performances like Julie Christie as Mary Todd Lincoln in The Last of Mrs. Lincoln and Raoul Julia as Prospero in The Tempest and productions like Dracula, with the original Edward Gorey sets. I got to go on class trips to hear Danny Kaye explain the joys of opera at Lincoln Center. One of the wonderful things about NYC in the 1970s and 1980s was the belief that as many people as possible should get to experience live theater and performances. If you planned ahead, there were some amazing opportunities to be had in terms of discounted tickets and free performances and we took advantage of them.
After I moved away from New York and entered my perambulating years (St. Louis to archeological digs around the country to Iowa City to upstate New York back to Iowa City), I still took in the occasional play or performance. I remember seeing an excellent one woman show on Zora Neale Hurston by Adilah Barnes, a reinterpretation of Macbeth from Lady Macbeth's point of view and a really great Che Guevara in a church basement community production of Evita as well some really interesting shows at the University of Iowa Theater Department. Through it all, I loved a good show. I didn't want to be on stage, but I loved watching other people give it their all. There's something about losing yourself in someone else's performance that's like reading a really good book or watching a movie.
Now I live in Minneapolis-St. Paul, generally held to have one of the most vibrant theater scenes in the U.S. On any given night, there are several plays or performances going on all over town. And a higher percentage of these than not are good to just plain amazing. Part of the fun of going to see things in smaller theaters is that the productions are more intimate, the performances less dependent on having a theater the size of the Guthrie's costume or set budget. I don't mention the Guthrie here in part because I don't go there often; between the lack of commitment to diversity and the failure to take much in the way of risks (I love Shakespeare too, just not an uninterrupted diet thereof) and the expense, I'd rather spend my theater-going dollars elsewhere.
A quick overview of some of the best things I've been to since moving here in 1997: Ruth MacKenzie and cast in The Kalevala: Dream of the Salmon Maiden, Theater Unbound's productions of Murderess and Frankenstein Incarnate: The Passions of Mary Shelley, Frank Theater's production of Vinegar Tom, Megan Well's one woman production of Dracula, Hardcover Theater's London After Midnight and Steampunk Delusions/The Diamond Lens, Craig Johnson in The Diary of Samuel Pepys, The Jungle Theater's production of Irma Vep and Twelfth Night at the Theatre de Jeune Lune. And then there's the MN Fringe, one of the largest Fringe fests in the world, where I've seen everything from Walking Shadow Theater's The Lives of the Most Notorious Highwaymen to a rock opera about Persephone and Demeter (Hades runs a temp agency in Minneapolis and Demeter has a family farm) to an incredible production by Chaos Theater of Caryl Churchill's The Skriker.
This list doesn't include some perfectly fine shows as well as the occasional flop by these and other companies. This weekend, we took in Theatre Pro Rata's Lovers and Executioners, which had definite moments, though it wasn't clicking for the company last night (but may tonight. That's the beauty and the pain of live theater). But they're doing a show on Emilie du Chatelet (mathematical, scientific and scholarly genius, who took Voltaire as her lover) next year, which I'm wildly excited about and will be going to. And this afternoon, we're off to Theater Unbound's The Good Fight. I feel like I haven't scratched the surface of what's out there - I've never been to the Pillsbury House Theater or Penumbra Theater or 20%Theater and I haven't been to Illusion or Mixed Blood or the Playwright's Center in ages, for example. I'd like to check out more original plays by locals than I do as well as more plays by/about/staged by women, playwrights of color and LGBTQ playwrights and performers. The wonderful thing is that here I can see those kinds of works and more. Clearly the answer is more theater!