Peggy Sue Dunigan

Perhaps as composer Gioachino Rossini believed, at certain times, life might resemble a comic opera. For opera aficionados in the Twin Cities area, MN Opera at the Ordway Center presents a beloved classic by Rossini--The Barber of Seville. In this story about a rapscallion, yet well to do  barber named Figaro created by the 18th century playwright known as Beaumarchais, Rossini added a compelling score to Beaumarchais' play to complement Cesare Sterbini's libretto that brings Figaro to operatic life. The fun loving, well loved barber in Seville features into several popular operas to become some of Rossini's favorites  MN Opera transforms the already comic opera into a tour de force production by combining extraordinary singing with a sublime cartoon framework in the tradition of the commedia dell'arte, where masks used by the actors often underscore the action.

Do descendants inherit any familial traits or do they assimilate them from their childhood environment? Lyric Arts poses a poignant production of David Auburn's 2000 multiple award winning play, Proof, that deftly tackles this question along with other relevant themes convening mental health. Through the story of Robert, a brilliant mathematician who achieved great fame in his field before age 25, and his two daughters, Catherine and Claire, the answers to the questions the play poses become more blurred than clear to the audience's benefit.

The Minnesota Opera (MN OPERA) christened their new season at St. Paul's Ordway Center with Richard Strauss' 1909 score of ELEKTRA combined with a libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. After a century, Strauss' Elektra, a tragic Greek myth, confronts the wrath of God on men, and the revenge of families on their own parents and siblings to disastrous results. A stellar creative team, which inhabits all the MN Opera productions, provides a modern twist to the ancient myth, where the action has been forwarded to the early 1900's. At that time, Austrian filmmaker and producer, Fritz Lang (1890-1976), made history directing silent film noira?"when melodramas were a consistent source of entertainment. 

a?oeLips as red as blood. Hair as black as tree bark. Heart as pure as driven snow.a?? These vivid characteristics describe the famous princess Snow White. In an innovative retelling of Snow White from Children's Theatre Company (CTC) adapted and directed by Britian's Greg Banks, this Snow White follows more closely the original Grimm Brothers version as opposed to the Walt Disney animated story people have known, or grown to know from film.. a?oeSnow White and the Seven Dwarfsa?? became the company's first animated film in 1937, a huge accomplishment. How has the culture and social fiber changed since the 1930's and what does CTC's fairy tale Snow White say to audiences today?

Wow! When two brothers from East Africa dream their childhood dreams they imagine an Abyssinian circus. The Tesfamarian brothers, Bichu and Bibi, magical, marvelous circus arrives at the Minneapolis Children's Theatre Company (CTC) by way of Ethiopian culture, a country previously titled Abyssinia. In a traveling production performed worldwide, CTC Artistic Director Peter C. Ambrosius arranged for Circus Abyssinia: Ethopian Dreams to dazzle the Twin Cities. Created and produced by the two Tesamarian brothers, the circus also collaborates with Writer Cal MC Crystal and Choreographer Kate Smith to transfix the audience on the amazing 19 member cast.

An arresting artistic light shines over Lyric Arts in September, 2019. To begin their fall season,  Anoka's enterprising theater company produces on the Main Stage Theater, Bright Star--- a 2016 award winning musical by the creative genius of Steve Martin and Edie Brickell. These two talents captured an interpretation of their Grammy Award winning album 'Love Has Come For You'  in their engaging production set in North Carolina through flashbacks beginning in 1945 that returns to  the early1920's. Lively compositions featuring bluegrass melodies enrapture the audience, while the musical's Southern ambiance and characters bring this uniquely American musical genre to stage life in one memorable and mesmerizing evening.

On the anniversary the film's debut (July 13, 2001) Lyric Arts at the Main Stage Theater stages a charming production of Legally Blonde: The Musical  This flirty, fun and fabulous production that debuted in 2007 gives the audience Woods, (comma) Elle, a college coed who loves pink and aspires to attend Harvard Law School in the pursuit of true love. For those fans of Elle, Amanda Brown's original novel was actually submitted on pink paper, and the theme continues throughout the show. With music and lyrics by Laurence O'Keefe and Neil Benjamin accompanied by Heather Hach's book, the score features numerous Delta Nu sorority sisters, a Greek chorus, a hair dresser confidante and Ellle's famous pooch, Bruiser Woods, housed in a shocking pink carry all. 

ake a trip back to the 50's on these summer nights and days at Interact Theater's beguiling Hot Dog Daze. Minneapolis's unique theater company offers 'radical inclusivity' for the 40 plus cast members alone with familiar nods to past MDA (Muscular Dystrophy Association) telethons, bomb shelters and beat poetry. If these themes appear radically unlikely. or strange 'script fellows,' Directors James Lekatz and Heather Bunch working at the The Lab Theater present fifty fun minutes of melodies and merriment complete with a live band comprised of four talented musicians.

Poet Langston Hughes questions in 1951 through his poem "Harlem;" What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" The legendary poem inspired Lorraine Hansbury to write the award winning drama A Raisin in the Sun eight years later. In 1959, Hansberry became the first African American women to have her play produced at New York's Barrymore Broadway theater in an era when women in general, regardless of ethnicity, were published. Opening in '59 with a primarily African American cast, the play heralded a dramatic change for theater audience in years to come. At Anoka's Main Stage Theater, Lyric Arts presents an outstanding revised thirteenth anniversary production of the play directed by Austene Van, which features a stellar cast, two tiered set designed by Peter Lerohl and lighting designed by Matt McNabb.

Might children appear to be called maggots or miracles? What type of question could that possibly be? The famous British young adult author, Roald Dahl, fills his pages with chill and thrill inducing scenes that empower children to take themselves seriously and asks that very question of his readers. On the first May weekend, Minneapolis' Children's Theatre Company (CTC) opened a production that began in London and then travelled to Broadway in their opening of Matilda the Musical, an adaptation of Roald Dahl's famous 1988 young adult novel.

Opening on the past Saturday night at the Ordway Center, MN Opera staged a magnificent production of Giuseppe Verdi's 1853 Opera La Traviata. Verdi's breathtaking love and death opera accompanied by Francesco Maria Piave's libretto was adapted after Alexander Dumas' 'Lady of the Camellias' or 'La Dame aux Camelias. In Verdi's reimagining of the Dumas novel, his music showcases the prodigious talents and voice of the protagonist, Violetta. For the company's opening night, Nicole Cabel masterfully sang the challenging operatic role.

Was Eva Peron a saint or sinner, or perhaps merely an incredibly determined woman who changed the face of Argentinian politics? In an elegant stage presentation of the award winning Evita, Lyric Arts on the Main Street Stage delivered a theatrical jewel to their audiences this past weekend. Andrew Lloyd Webber's music and Tim Rice's book and lyrics garnered Drama Desk and Tony Awards to became the first British musical to win the prestigious award of Best Musical in 1979. Inspiration for the production came from Mary Martin's biography 'Evita: The Women with the Whip' and forged the basis for the Webber/Rice collaboration with contemporary themes that resonate in the 21st century. Political upheaval in South America and other world regimes rock the globe in current news headlines, where revisiting Evita gives audiences a forum to contemplate these cultural concerns.

Accept an invitation to a grand adventure when Children's Theatre Company (CTC) of Minneapolis produces a condensed, world premiere version of J.R.R, Tolkien's "The Hobbit." The popular novel, which happens to be a best selling children's book of all time, has remained in print since being published in 1937. This classic, literary legend will be transformed by British actor, director and playwright Greg Banks, who travelled from his home in the Cotswolds, England, just north of Bath, to frigid and then spring-like Minnesota so he could direct the production. From his cozy, Cotswolds environment, Banks' renown hails from rewriting literary classics into a condensed version where the story shines, especially in theater for young audiences.

On a middle of the month March weekend, Children's Theatre Company (CTC) of Minneapolis on the United Health Group Stage, offered their audiences a Middle Earth journey when they presented the World Premiere The Hobbit.  Based on one of J.R.R. Tolkien's bestselling novels, the British actor, director and playwright Greg Banks adapted and then directed the production, which featured an original musical score by fellow Brit Tom Johnson. The classic story of Middle Earth Dwarves reclaiming their culture and treasure stolen form them by a fire breathing creature imagines adventure and exhilaration galore, enough to last an entire evening and long after the actors leave the stage.

This past weekend at the Ordway Center, MN Opera unveiled their World Premiere The Fix in tribute to the All-American sport and spirt of baseball. The story created through the company's New Works Initiative by Eric Simonson, who wrote the libretto and also directed the production, was accompanied by composer Joel Puckett. With glowing nostalgia, the 1919 White Sox under Charles Comiskey's ownership and headed by baseball great Shoeless Joe Jackson, sought to 'fix' the 1919 World Series, which disappointed baseball fans across America.

Anoka's Lyric Arts in the Main Stage Theater reprises a 200 year old tradition when the company stages Jane Austen's famous bestselling novel Sense & Sensibility--For the company's recent production, which opened on a February weekend, Director Natalie Novacek choose an adaptation by actor/playwright Kate Hamill, whom the Wall Street Journal awarded  Playwright of the Year in 2017. Known for her contemporary takes on classical novels, Hamill channels Austin's spirit by incorporating forty percent of her original text, and invokes sixty percent of Hamill's innovation to create the hybrid script. This method abridges the lengthy literary novel  and allows for immense interpretation where audiences will ultimately benefit and enjoy.

Deep into the Minneapolis midwinter ice and snow, book a ticket for the Guthrie's As You Like It on the Wurtele Thrust Stage and travel to the forest. William Shakespeare's tribute to the delights and folly of love. Set in the Forest of Ardenne, the evening promises a brief respite to city life in this playful and complex comedy set in contemporary times under the debut Guthrie direction of Lavina Jadhwani.

Riding a bicycle into the  theater, similar to a charming pied piper, Autumn Ness, rings a bell to call the tiny tot audience into the Gargill Studio at Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis. In CTC'S production,The Biggest Little House in the Forest, a play adapted from the picture book by Dijemma Bider, Ness invites her audience in while saying 'Winter's outside, but it's spring in the theatre.'

The Guthrie''s Proscenium Stage recently opened a production of The Great Leap, where playwright Lauren Yee envisions two basketball games between the United States and China through two university teams: San Francisco University (SFU) and Beijing University. One of the play's premises asserts that the SFU coach, Saul, claimed to the Beijing coach Wen Chang at the first 1971 game: "No Chinese team will ever beat a US. basketball team." 

n the midst of a polar vortex this winter, MN Opera sends an early valentine filled with warmth to the Twin Cities in their production The Italian Straw Hat at the Ordway Center's Orchestra Hall. This comic Italian opera set in 1950's Paris plays similar to a French farce while sung in Italian and accompanied with English subtitles. Composed and written by Nino Rota and his wife Ernesta, the composer earned accolades for his film scores written for Federico Fellini, and "The Godfather," both the first and second versions. In this opera, Rota's mid-century comedy, a groom's horse eats an expensive straw hat on the morning of his wedding day while his father in law's patent leather shoes fit too tight. Sound extraordinary? Yes, all is wondrous mayhem as this Parisian wedding spins out of control and delightful events happen on stage throughout this enchanting opera.