"Glory" at Theatre in the Round

Similar to The Wolves or Flex, Glory is a play about a women's hockey team that's about so much more than hockey. These athletes are referred to as hockey dolls, sportscasters talk about how they look in their uniforms, when they're strong and tough and powerful people say they must be men, they get paid less and have less access to the things they need than male athletes, and people in power claim women are soft and weak and therefore aren't qualified to do hard things like play hockey (or serve in combat). Was this the 1930s or last week? The answer is both, which is perhaps why the cast and creative team of Theatre in the Round's production of this beautiful play made me cry about hockey, I sport I've never watched and care nothing about. This play (based on a true story and premiering in 2018) deals with sexism, anti-Semitism, war, poverty, and discrimination in a way that's unfortunately still incredibly relevant today. Go see Glory at the oldest theater in Minneapolis, continuing weekends through February 9.

"Little Women" at Lyric Arts

NYC-based playwright and actor Kate Hamill is known for her modern, feminist adaptations of classics, several of which have been seen on #TCTheater stages in recent years. The Guthrie will premiere her adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma later this month, but first: Lyric Arts' production of her adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's beloved novel Little Women, commissioned by the Jungle Theater a few years ago. This quote from Kate's website very much applies to this play: "She is deeply passionate about creating new feminist, female-centered classics, both in new plays and in adaptation: stories that center around complicated women. Her work as a playwright celebrates theatricality, often features absurdity, and closely examines social and gender issues - as well as the timeless struggle to reconcile conscience / identity with social pressures." This, as they say, is not your grandmother's Little Women. While staying fairly true to the events of the novel, the play sees the characters and situations through a modern lens, and veers more towards comedy, at times broad and absurd, than the quiet drama of the original. But at its heart, it's still about the love between four very different sisters, each finding her own identity and path through life (click here for info and tickets).

"The Hollow" by Trademark Theater at the Tek Box

New #TCTheater company Trademark Theater's newest creation The Hollow defies categorization, defies description really. They call it "a concept album, performed live on stage, combined with movement," but that doesn't quite capture it. It's a dreamlike mesmerizing journey of music, dance, emotion. The 75 minutes fly by as you're swept up in this thoughtfully created piece. The music, the dance, the lighting, the costumes, the performances, all beautifully combine in this lovely, unique, and moving work of art.

"Jefferson Township Sparkling Junior Talent Pageant" at Park Square Theatre

This summer, Park Square Theatre is all about supporting new works of music-theater created right here in #TCTheater. Last weekend saw the closing of one remount of a locally created new original musical (the gorgeous and moving dance musical about the Bosnian War, Heaven) and the opening of another remount of a locally created new original musical. More than a remount, this iteration of Jefferson Township Sparkling Junior Talent Pageant is an expanded version of the 2017 Fringe hit that has been doubled in length, fun, and emotion. Created by uber-talented young composer/lyricist/playwright Keith Hovis, Jefferson Township is a darkly hilarious and surprisingly poignant look at a group of millennials turning 30, as seen through a super creepy small town Minnesota youth pageant. It's extremely clever, very funny, and the super talented well-balanced quartet of actors are having so much fun that it's impossible for the audience not to have fun too. Jefferson Township Sparkling Junior Talent Pageant is the perfect fun summer musical.

"Velvet Swing" by the Umbrella Collective at Bryant Lake Bowl

Now it's the
Crime of the century
Crime of the century
Giving the world a thrill

Harry's in trouble
And Stanny's in heaven
And Evelyn is in Vaudeville

So go the lyrics of the song "Crime of the Century" in the musical Ragtime, based on the E.L. Doctorow novel about life in early 20th Century America. But of course, there's more to the story of Evelyn Nesbit than that. Who lives, who dies, who tells your story? In the new play Velvet Swing by the Umbrella Collective, Evelyn tells her own story, as brought to life by five actors. This 100+ year old story rings eerily true today - a young woman taken advantage of by older men she trusted and who helped her in her career, a fascination with celebrity, a true crime story that was the talk of the town. Umbrella Collective sheds a new and modern light on this all too familiar story.

"Antigone" at Park Square Theatre

"Who lives, who dies, who tells your story." In Sophocles' classic Greek play Antigone (the third of a de facto trilogy which begins with the tragedy of Oedipus, Antigone's father), pretty much everyone dies, including the title character. But in Park Square Theatre's basement stage, a group of talented women are telling her story. MJ (Meagan) Kedrowski adapted and directed the story for Theatre Coup d'Etat a few years ago, which Park Square's recently retired Artistic Director Richard Cook saw and asked her to remount for Park Square. Much of the cast and creative team return, along with some new artists, to rework the piece. One of the biggest changes is that this production features an all-female cast, and a mostly female creative and technical team. It's a powerful story of a strong and resilient woman who does what she believes is right for her family, despite the consequences she will face, powerfully told by this team of women in an engrossing and affecting way. Brave the cold and snow to visit the tumultuous world of Thebes in downtown St. Paul.

"Once" by Theater Latte Da at Ritz Theater

Ever since it became available for regional productions a few years ago, I've been (im)patiently waiting for a #TCTheater company to do Once, the eight-time Tony winning musical based on the Irish indie film that won an Oscar for best song. My (im)patience has finally been rewarded with a production by my favorite company of theater musically that is, in a word, grand. Theater Latte Da used to have a series called "Broadway Re-imagined," but the cool thing about Once is that the original production on Broadway was already re-imagined, at least in terms of what you usually see on a Broadway stage. It's a small intimate story lacking the traditional (clichéd) happy ending; it features folk-rock music; and there is no separate orchestra, rather the ensemble also functions as the band in one cohesive celebration of music, love, joy, and pain. So very Irish. Still, Latte Da has managed to put their own unique spin on it and cast 13 multi-talented local performers to create something truly special that will make your heart ache in the best possible way.

"Moby Dick" by Theatre Coup d'Etat at Fallout Arts Initiative Co-op Studio 3

"Call me Ishmael." Even thought I've never read Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick, one of the most well known and well respected American novels, this line that opens the book was familiar to me. And so it was a certain kind of thrill to hear the line spoken Monday night in a small art studio space in South Minneapolis, my first experience with this epic tale. Theatre Coup d'Etat's Artistic Director James Napoleon Stone adapted the novel into a two and a half hour play and directs this production, with a terrific 13-person cast, a cool found space, interesting movement, and lovely musical accompaniment. The result is an epic yet intimate telling of this classic American story.

"Antigone" by Theatre Coup d'Etat at SpringHouse Ministry Center

Sitting in the lounge at SpringHouse Ministry Center (a venue I was familiar with from this year's Fringe), waiting to see Theatre Coup d'Etat's new adaptation of Sophocles' Antigone, I read the Wikipedia plot summary, as I often do before I see a really old play. The story of the sister who is condemned to death for giving her brother a proper burial started to sound familiar to me, and I realized I had seen it before, only it was called Burial at Thebes, and it was a sort of gospel retelling by Irish poet Seamus Haeney. Sophocles' trilogy of this ancient doomed family begins with Oedipus the King (you know Oedipus, the guy who was cursed by the gods to kill his father and marry his mother), continues with Oedipus at Colonus (which also has a gospel retelling called Gospel of Colonus), and ends with the story of Antigone, Oedipus' daughter. Also related is Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes, which tells the story of Antigone's two brothers who fought over control of Thebes after their father's death (which I experienced as a "hip-hop musical comedy-tragedy in Ten Thousand Things' The Seven). All of this preamble is just to say I was more familiar with the world of Antigone than I thought, and felt comfortable jumping right into this intense 90-minute adaptation. It's a story, or rather a piece of a story, that's been told many many times over the last few millennia. But a story that's still worth hearing, especially this version, which focuses on a strong female heroine standing up for her family and doing what she believes is right, no matter the consequences.