"They Wear Teal Ribbons Around Their Tongues" by Full Circle Theater Company at Gremlin Theatre

In the new play They Wear Teal Ribbons Around Their Tongues by #TCTheater artist Siddeeqah Shabazz, a family therapy session turns into a '90s sitcom. But the cheesy laughs soon give way to some heavy drama, as painful secrets are revealed. Produced by Full Circle Theater Company, the play walks the fine line between comedy and drama, as does the talented cast. Come for the funny and comforting sitcom tropes, stay for the emotional truth of this dysfunctional but loving family. They Wear Teal Ribbons Around Their Tongues continues this weekend and next at Gremlin Theatre.

"Wine in the Wilderness" at Penumbra Theatre

Last weekend, I saw four plays written by women. The first three were by living playwrights (Grace McLean's musical In the Green, Lauren Gunderson's Silent Sky, and Keiko Green's world premiere Hells Canyon), and the fourth was by Alice Childress, one of the most prolific Black female playwrights of the 20th Century, who had her Broadway play debut just a few years ago - Trouble in Mind (which the Guthrie produced a few years earlier). Her plays seem to be having a resurgence in recent years, and it's about time. In 2017 Penumbra Theatre Company produced the gorgeous and devastating Wedding Band, and now they're presenting Wine in the Wilderness, about an artist painting Black women in 1960s Harlem. It's a thoughtful and thought-provoking exploration of the intersection of race and gender, as always beautifully done by Penumbra.

"The Humans" at Park Square Theatre

To open their exciting new season, Park Square Theatre is presenting the regional premiere of the 2016 Tony-winning best play The Humans by Stephen Karem (whose Sons of the Prophet they produced a few years ago). This play about a typical family Thanksgiving dinner is devastating in its specificity, in its relatability, in its raw truth, and in the way it lays bare what it is to be human and part of a family. And therein lies its beauty. I saw the Broadway tour, as well as the recent movie adaptation, so I knew we were in for a treat. The stunning design and excellent cast lived up to my expectations; the show cuts deep and is hard to shake upon leaving the theater. If you're a human, you will be able to relate to The Humans - the good, the bad, and the ugly of it. See it in the historic Hamm building in downtown St. Paul through October 9 (#bringtissues).

"Parks: A Portrait of a Young Artist" at History Theatre

When I saw a reading of the then-titled The Gordon Parks Play Project three years ago, I wrote: "Friends, this is one of those experiences that transcended theater." When the reading is that good, and the playwright is one of #TCTheater's most talented and prolific, Harrison David Rivers, adding in acclaimed director Talvin Wilks, you know the finished product is going to be something special. Parks: A Portrait of a Young Artist, which has finally opened at History Theatre, is just that. Beautifully written, directed, and acted, with evocative images, well-chosen period songs, and an almost constant underscoring of music, Parks traces the origin of photographer, musician, and filmmaker Gordon Parks during his decade or so living in St. Paul as a youth. Once again his great-niece Robin P. Hickman-Winfield, a collaborator on the piece, was in attendance and spoke before the performance I attended, and it's clear that Gordon's legacy of Black artistry lives on in her, the students at Gordon Parks High School in St. Paul, and any other Black youth who picks up a camera, or a paintbrush, or a pen as their weapon against racism and injustice.

"Sherwood" at Yellow Tree Theatre

The last play seen on the Yellow Tree Theatre stage was the powerful drama Skeleton Key in February of 2020, a co-production with New Dawn Theatre Company. Their next scheduled show, the new Robin Hood comedy Sherwood, was cancelled due to the pandemic, and now, almost a year and a half later, it's finally onstage at Yellow Tree. But things have changed since then, in the world and in theater. Audiences have to show proof of vaccination (or negative COVID-19 test) and wear masks, and New Dawn Artistic Director Austene Van, who directed Skeleton Key, is the new Artistic Director of Yellow Tree (following the departure of co-founders Jessica and Jason Peterson to the North). But what hasn't changed is that this cozy little theater in a strip mall in Osseo is a warm and welcoming place with wonderful theater that entertains and challenges audiences. The super fun and playful Sherwood is an excellent start to this new chapter of life, theater, and Yellow Tree.

"What to Send Up When It Goes Down" at Pillsbury House Theatre (outdoors)

Pillsbury House Theater returns to live theater with the play What to Send Up When It Goes Down by playwright Aleshea Harris (who also wrote the powerful revenge fantasy Is God Is produced by Mixed Blood Theatre a few years ago). Though written in 2019, this play could not be more relevant to this time and place. The time: coming out of a tumultuous year-plus that saw a devastating global pandemic, the continued murder of Black people by police that led to a racial reckoning, and an attempted violent overthrow of our government by white supremacists. The place: the parking lot outside Pillsbury House Theatre in south Minneapolis, just a few blocks from where George Floyd was murdered just over a year ago. This play was created by Black people for Black people as a safe space to gather, release, mourn, and celebrate the experience of being Black in America. Described as "part ritual and part theatrical experience," it's one of those rare plays that transcends theater to become an experience of real connection and communion with each other and what's going on in the world around us. This is the kind of profound, relevant, truly meaningful theater that I expected to come out of this last year, and I hope it continues.

"Aubergine" at Park Square Theatre

Food is life. Literally, we need it to survive. But food also sustains us in other ways. It's a way to express love, it's ever present at family and community gatherings, it's intrinsically linked to our memories, we commune with our fellow human beings over a shared meal. Playwright Julia Cho (whose work was last seen at Park Square in 2015's The Language Archive) has taken this universal human theme and written a beautiful play that tells the specific story of a Korean American chef and his dying father. For Aubergine (another world for eggplant) is not just about food (life), it's also about death. You can't have one without the other, something this play understands very well, and something the characters learn to understand. In his second season as Park Square's Artistic Director, Flordelino Lagundino makes his directing debut here, creating a piece of theater that engenders the full scale of emotion from the audience, from laughter to tears. It's a beautifully and devastatingly human experience.

"Dry Powder" by Dark and Stormy Productions at Grain Belt Warehouse

After two pretty dark and devastating plays about suicide ('Night, Mother) and child abuse/kidnapping (Blackbird), Dark and Stormy returns to comedy with the regional premiere of the new play Dry Powder. It's still dark, and not exactly light-hearted since it features some pretty horrible people working in the cutthroat world of finance, but it is funny. I didn't understand a lot of the terms and acronyms being thrown around, but I am familiar with layoffs and buyouts. Either way it's less about the business world than it is about how these four characters function within this world. As always with Dark and Stormy, there are great performances by a terrific small cast, seen up close and personal in their small studio space, with tight and clear direction (here by Michaela Johnson). It's not so much a forget your troubles kind of comedy, more of a laugh at the troubles of the world because if you don't you'll cry.

"Benevolence" at Penumbra Theatre

Five years after producing The Ballad of Emmett Till, Penumbra Theatre returns to the 1955 horrific murder that became a catalyst in the Civil Rights movement with the second installment in playwright Ifa Bayeza's trilogy - Benevolence. While Ballad was about Emmett himself - his life, family, and community as well as his tragic death, Benevolence explores the lives of two couples involved in his story. The first act focuses on the white woman who accused Emmett of assaulting her, and her husband, one of his murderers who was acquitted and then later confessed. The second act focuses on a black couple whose lives were touched by violence in the wake of the trial. The playbill notes, "like the land in its time, the play is segregated." It almost feels like watching two different plays, or two one acts around the same theme. Both are, like the first part of the trilogy, devastating and engrossing, and shed more light on this important historical event and the people involved. This world premiere play continues at Penumbra through March 10.

"The Highwaymen" at History Theatre and "The Whipping Man" Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company

Yesterday, when most of the world was watching some sporting event on TV, I saw two plays in St. Paul that spoke to the African American experience. When I sat down to write about one or the other today, I found that I couldn't separate the two. Maybe it's just because I saw them on the same day, but it seems like the two plays really speak to each other. History Theatre's world premiere of The Highwaymen and Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company production of The Whipping Man ("one of the most widely produced new American plays of the last several seasons") essentially tell the same story, 90 years apart, one in St. Paul, Minnesota and one in Richmond, Virginia. A story that continues to occur today in cities and small towns across the country. A story of black people being sent to the whipping man, of being sold South, of having their homes bulldozed to make way for "progress," of being imprisoned at a disproportional rate, of being denied education, of being shot by the police for walking down the wrong street. Both of these plays are really excellent productions, not always easy to watch, that shed light on one of the most important issues of our time.

"Jitney" at Penumbra Theatre

Jitney is the first play in the so-called "Century Cycle" that August Wilson wrote, but, set in the '70s, it's the 8th in the series chronologically. Each of the ten plays speaks to the African American experience (which I've learned at Penumbra Theatre is really the American experience) in one decade in the 20th Century. This is only the third Century play I've seen, after Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (set in the '20s) and Two Trains Running (the '60s) in 2011. I seem to recall that Penumbra planned to produce one of these plays every year, or maybe every other, but plans were derailed during their financial setback of 2012. I'm happy that they've returned to August Wilson's work during this, their 40th anniversary season. Penumbra has a long history with August Wilson, having produced his first professional play and more of his plays that any other theater. We are privileged to have Penumbra in our community, and I hope that they continue to do the Century plays until I've seen them all. August Wilson wrote such rich characters and specific experiences that speak to the universal truths of friends and family, love and heartbreak. And Penumbra's troupe of actors is experienced and quite brilliant in bringing these stories to life, as they do in Jitney.

"Choir Boy" at the Guthrie Theater

What do you get when you combine a talented young playwright, an excellent cast that includes five up-and-coming actors and two beloved veterans of local stages, stirring a capella gospel music arranged by a local musical legend, and the Twin Cities' best director of "theater musically?" You get Choir Boy, a lovely and affecting play about a young gay man coming of age in an African American boarding school. The playwright is Tarell Alvin McCraney of the excellent Brother/Sister trilogy that Pillsbury House Theatre has produced in its entirety in the last several years. While those plays have an epic, mythical quality, Choir Boy is more grounded in reality, but just as beautifully written. Add in musical direction and arrangement by Sanford Moore and direction by Peter Rothstein, an expert at using music in the best possibly way to enhance the theatrical storytelling, and you have something quite special going on in the Guthrie's Dowling Studio.

Choir Boy centers around five young men at Drew Prep School, a fictional African American boarding school (of which, the playbill tells us, only four exist). We witness their lives over the course of a school year, beginning with graduation at which Pharus (John-Michael Lyles) proudly leads the choir in the school song, until distracted by some homophobic heckling by his classmate Bobby (Darrick Mosley), who happens to be the nephew of the Headmaster (James Craven). This causes some tension in the choir room when the boys return to school in the fall, and newly appointed choir leader Pharus kicks Bobby off the choir, while allowing his sidekick Junior (Kory LaQuess Pullam) to stay. Pharus has a sweet friendship with his roommate AJ (Ryan Colbert), and some unspoken history with David (Nathan Barlow). A new (white) teacher (Robert Dorfman) comes in and tries to shake things up, challenging the boys to think about things in a new way. As graduation rolls around again, these five young men are in a different place in their lives, a bit older, a bit wiser, a bit more lost or a bit more found. It's really a slice of life kind of play, where you can imagine these characters' lives existing before the actions of the play, and continuing after the actions of the play, in a direction that's not clearly spelled out. We don't know the full stories of their lives, but getting to watch a year of their lives over the course of 90 minutes is a fulfilling and rewarding experience.

This play truly depicts the universal struggle of being a teenager and trying to figure out who you are and what your place is in this world, when so many external sources are telling you what to do, be, and think. This is conveyed through the specific challenges of being a young gay man in a strict Christian African American boarding school. And the music, which is absolutely beautiful and essential to the piece, really helps to create the specific world. Under the direction/arrangement of Sanford Moore, these five young men create some beautiful harmonies and fascinatin' rhythms on these traditional gospel and spiritual songs with a modern twist. The music is placed perfectly to enhance the storytelling, whether the song is mournful or joyful, and happens organically in scene transitions, rehearsals, or performances.

the Choir Boys (Darrick Mosley, Ryan Colbert,
John-Michael Lyles, Nathan Barlow, and Kory LaQuess Pullam,
photo by Heidi Bohnenkamp)

John-Michael Lyles is the one member of this excellent seven-man cast who's new to the Twin Cities theater scene, and he's just perfect for his role. He creates a real and well-defined character in Pharus, alternately frustrating and sympathetic (if the Drew choir is Glee, Pharus is Rachel Berry, full of talent and not afraid to say it). The four other young men are bright young local talent seen on various stages around the Cities in the last few years, and it's nice to see them all shine as individuals and as a group in this piece. James Craven always makes everything better, here as the stern Headmaster who truly cares for these boys at the same time he's frustrated, perplexed, and annoyed by them. Last but not least is Robert Dorfman, his portrayal of the eccentric teacher in nice contrast to the otherwise strict boarding school environment and providing some comic relief - bumbling, putting his foot in his mouth, but passionate about his job and reaching young minds.

Michael Hoover's sharp set simultaneously represents five different settings (dorm room, Headmaster's office, showers, classroom, and yard) on multiple levels, making great use of the upper story balcony in the Dowling Studio. And what was it that Chekhov said? If you show a shower on stage, you must have a shower scene? Both Damn Yankees and Choir Boy deliver on that promise, although the latter with more realism.

I saw Choir Boy last Saturday night at the Guthrie Theater, home of three stages in one building. It also happened to be the first preview of The Music Man, and the joint was jumping! Even though I was annoyed to find my usual parking level full, and people clogging the escalator, hallways, and bathrooms, like the man I rode the elevator with said, it's nice to see so many people out supporting the arts. And three such different plays on the three stages - a 90-year-old Irish play that is departing Artistic Director Joe Dowling's swan song, one of the most beloved American musicals, and this exciting new play about young African American men coming of age. Some 2000 people, all gathered together in one space to share in the experience of live theater - what a beautiful thing (thanks again Joe Dowling!). Choir Boy continues through July 5.


This article also appears on Broadway World Minneapolis.

"The Ballad of Emmett Till" at Penumbra Theatre

On what would have been Jordan Davis' 19th birthday (a black teenager who was killed by a white man because of events that happened outside a store where he was buying bubble gum), I went to see a play about Emmett Till. History repeats itself, and theater is there to tell the stories and speak the truths that cannot otherwise be told or spoken. And when it comes to African American history, which really is our shared history, no one does it better than Penumbra Theatre. The Ballad of Emmett Till is the story of a smart, funny, precocious 14-year-old boy from the South Side of Chicago with his whole life ahead of him, until one summer in Mississippi when he unknowingly violates the unwritten rules of the 1950s South - do not touch a white woman, do not talk to a white woman, do not look at a white woman. The light-hearted and music-filled play takes a turn into darkness when Emmett is kidnapped from his uncle's home in the middle of the night several days after "the incident," driven around in a truck to various locations, beaten, tortured, shot, and dumped in a river with a weight around his neck. A note in the playbill from Co-Artistic Directors Lou and Sarah Bellamy says it best:

We will not make the tragedy of this child's death easy for you. We will not stage gratuitous violence. We will not erase the flagrant racism of the environment that justified his murder. We will celebrate, with heavy hearts, the dignity and grace of a child who paid the price for our nation's tolerance of hatred and discrimination. It will be what you have come to expect from Penumbra Theatre Company, a frank and unflinching depiction of issues that urgently need our attention.

I admit I didn't know many of the details about Emmett Till's life and death (read more about it here), so it was quite educational for me. But this is not a dry and sober history lesson, it's an entertaining and captivating play, a celebration of life and family, with wonderful music (music direction by Sanford Moore). You almost forget the tragic ending looming over the story as you get to know these characters and share in their life and family. But it all comes crashing down when Emmett is taken, and we see scenes of the torture, Emmett's mother's reaction, the trial and its aftermath.

Darrick Mosley as Emmitt Till
with Greta Oglesby, T. Mychael Rambo,
and Shá Cage

At the center of this wonderful six-person ensemble is Darrick Mosley, who plays Emmett with great spirit and energy. Shá Cage and Greta Oglesby play the women in Emmett's life with strength and sympathy. H. Adam Harris, T. Mychael Rambo, and Mikell Sapp play multiple roles from amusing to threatening, including the two men who kidnapped and beat Emmett. Playwright Ifa Bayeza writes in such a way that there are sometimes multiple versions of a character onstage, so that we can more clearly see the different sides of them. In one particularly moving scene, we see two mothers testifying at the trial and grieving their son in different ways, one the strong and farsighted woman who insisted on an open casket, which became a spark in the Civil Rights Movement, one the emotional woman witnessing the mutilated body of her baby.

The simple but effective set (by Maruti Evans) consists of a raised platform in the center of the stage, and wooden planks on the walls upon which are written the words of the murderers who, after being acquitted of the crime and therefore protected by double jeopardy, admitted that they killed Emmitt in an interview with Look magazine. It's quite sobering to watch Emmitt's story play out surrounded by those hateful words.

The Ballad of Emmett Till is a beautiful, tragic, spirited, and very well-done play. Emmett's final words to the audience are, "Is it done?" That is a question to ponder. (Playing now through March 2 at Penumbra Theatre.)