Showing posts with label Kelsey Cramer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kelsey Cramer. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 26, 2023

"The (Almost) Complete and (Mostly) Accurate History of Alcohol" at Bryant Lake Bowl

Favorite local funny man Josh Carson and friends have put together a sketch comedy show about that great elixir and social lubricant - alcohol. Ironically, I saw the show about four weeks into a six-week break from alcohol (and caffeine), which I started as part of my marathon training. And even though an injury got me off of the marathon track, I stuck with the alcohol break just to see if I could do it (and I am still in training, if only for the much less physically demanding half marathon). It's an interesting experiment and has made me more aware of how prevalent alcohol is in our society and our social lives. It hasn't really been that hard for me, but there have certainly been days where I wanted a drink to smooth out the edges of a rough day, or just to taste a delicious concoction on a night out. This group of very funny writers and performers have taken all of these ideas, as well as stories of alcohol throughout history, and created about a dozen silly, funny, relatable sketches. You can see it at Bryant Lake Bowl (with dinner and yes, drink service before and during the show) through September 30 only (click here for info and tickets).

Sunday, November 7, 2021

"Top Girls" by Theatre Pro Rata at the Crane Theater

Everyone loves the '80s, right? Maybe not so much after seeing Theatre Pro Rata's production of Caryl Churchill's Top Girls, which takes an unflinching look at what the '80s were really like, particularly in the lives of working women who seemed on the surface to "have it all." It's dark, weird, and a little fantastical, like all of Churchill's work, but it's also smart, thought-provoking, grounded in humanity, and relevant to our world 40 years later, with a different sort of gender politics happening in the work place.

Friday, August 6, 2021

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2021: "The Convent of Pleasure"

Day: 1

Show: 2

Title: The Convent of Pleasure

By: Theatre Pro Rata

Performance Type: Live In Person

Location: Wood Lake Nature Center Amphitheater (outdoors)

Length: 90 minutes

Summary: A hilarious modern adaptation of the 17th Century play of the same name about a woman who forsakes the company of men, founding a commune of women who dedicate their life to pleasure.

Highlights: Theatre Pro Rata got their start at the Minnesota Fringe Festival 20 years; one of the many benefits of this festival is that it supports artists in such a way that allows companies like this to form and expand beyond the festival that birthed them. Local playwright/actor/comedian/baker Heather Meyer's play is one of those "ghost plays" that was supposed to premiere in the summer of 2020, and happily it is finally seeing the light of day. This fantabulous all-female cast really brings out all of the humor in the script (of which there is much), as well as the emotion in the sweet love story between Lady Happy (the delightful Boo Segersin), who uses the money her father left her when he died to create the Convent and live only for the immediate pleasures of all of the senses, and Princess Principle (a serene Megan Kim), who loves Lady Happy but longs for commitment. Kelsey Laurel Cramer, Nissa Nordland Morgan, and Taj Ruler play Lords Somewhat, Sortof, and Soso, who try to woo the ladies, devilishly twirling their greasepaint mustaches. Ankita Ashrit, Lynda Dahl, and Kayla Dvorak Feld flit across the stage and grounds as Lady Happy's companions, while Meri Golden frets as her mistress of accounts. And can we talk about the costumes? So fun, colorful, and playful, with flowers and hats and frills to spare (designed by Mandi Johnson). There's a reason I chose this show to see on the first night of the Fringe - a company that's been doing good work for 20 years, a strong cast, the feminist theme, and the promise of laughs make this a must-see.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

Monday, August 5, 2019

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2019: "Mad as Nell, or How to Lose a Bly in Ten Days"

Day: 4

Show: 12

Category: COMEDY / HISTORICAL CONTENT

By: Rinky Dink Productions

Created by: Rinky Dink Productions

Location: Rarig Center Thrust

Summary: A modern, comic, feminist retelling of 19th Century investigative journalist Nellie Bly who went undercover in a mental institution.

Highlights: Written by cast members Josh Carson, Shanan Custer, Allison Witham, and Kelsey Cramer as Nellie Bly, this show is the fun mash-up of history and pop culture that I've come to expect from this group (freshly minted as Rinky Dink Operations, with a quarterly variety show at BLB). They tell the loosely historical story of aspiring "lady reporter" Nellie Bly, who tries to impress editor Joseph Pulitzer by writing a series of articles exposing the horrible conditions at the mental hospital she gets herself committed to (possibly mashed up with the movie How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, or maybe that's just for the clever title). The cast (also including Adelin Phelps, Aisha Ragheb, Tim Hellendrung, and equity members James Detmar and the deliciously evil Sue Scott!) is hilarious and playful, they sing a few fun original songs, there are just the right amount of 4th wall breaking moments, and the inspiring feminist story is succinctly, cleverly, charmingly, and irreverently told. Simply put, this is Fringe at its best.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

Sunday, June 16, 2019

"The Rinky Dink Show! What Kind of Rinky Dink Show is This?" at Bryant Lake Bowl

There's a new group in #TCTheater called Rinky Dink Operations - a collection of very funny people you many know from the Fringe or various other theater, improv, and/or comedy stages around town. They've begun a residency at Bryant Lake Bowl in Uptown with their Rinky Dink Show, a sketch comedy/variety show inspired by everything from Saturday Night Live to The Muppet Show. It's a lot of fun, and something different from the theater I usually see. And with the 7pm showtime and 90 minute runtime, you can be home by 9 for an early bedtime still enjoy other evening festivities that cool people do on the weekends.

Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2018: "A Justice League of Their Own"

Day: 5

Show: 20

Category: Comedy / Sci-Fi / Political Content

By: Mainly Me Productions

Directed by: Josh Carson

Location: Theatre in the Round

Summary: A mash-up of A League of Their Own and superhero movies, in which female superheroes are recruited to fight evil and the patriarchy.

Highlights: Let me start by saying that I have very vague memories of watching A League of Their Own many years ago, and I don't watch superhero movies. At all. Because of this I probably missed about a third of the jokes (also because the 60 minutes are packed with as many jokes as Lin-Manuel Miranda musicals are packed with words, and because my brain moves considerably slower after 10 pm), but I still found this show brilliant and hilarious. Kudos to director Josh Carson for writing (with ample help from his mostly female cast) a play that skewers the misogyny of the superhero universe and the world in general, and making it so funny and geeky too. Five awesome women (Allison Witham, Emily Jabas, Kelsey Cramer, Lauren Omernik, and Sulia Altenberg) play five awesome superheroes who, despite being strong and capable, have to deal with society's expectations of how they should behave. Heather Meyer is a superhero as well with her multiple characters and lighting fast dialogue, while Josh fills the Tom Hanks role as the past his prime alcoholic Batman hired to coach the women (with Andy Rocco Kraft and Brad Erickson playing many ridiculous roles). The entire cast is fun and playful and all around top notch. If you're more familiar with A League of Their Own than I am (I really need to watch that movie again), you might recognize some familiar scenes and themes, as well as some superhero archetypes. Like Not Fair, My Lady!, this show comes at just the right time and refreshingly shows us female characters just being (super) human. How revolutionary.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

Sunday, August 13, 2017

Fringe Festival 2017: "Repertoire Dogs"

Day: 10

Show: 41

Title: Repertoire Dogs

Category: Comedy

By: Ideal Productions

Created by: Dana's Boys

Location: Mixed Blood Theatre

Summary: Impressions of celebrities in unlikely situations, performed by a cast of seven.

Highlights: This show is just plain fun. Who doesn't love impressions? If they're good it's fun to appreciate the skill, if they're bad it's fun to laugh at how bad they are (and there's a bit of both in this show). Josh Carson hosts a panel which, when I saw the show, included Allison Witham, Ben Tallen, Brad Erickson, Kelsey Cramer, Ryan Nelson, and Thomas Matthes. The first segment is celebrities or fictional characters in movies they weren't in, like Tim Gunn reading the rules from Fight Club, Gollum in The Goonies, and George Bush doing the Independance Day speech. There's a bit of audience participation when someone picks a card of a stock impression every impressionist should have (Jerry Seinfeld) and a competition ensues to see who does it best, while reading from Fifty Shades of Grey. And one (un)lucky audience member gets to go onstage and try to guess the impression. After a lot of laughter (including from the stage, it's also fun to watch the panelists crack each other and Josh up) and Simpsons characters, the show wraps up with a motley crew singing "Piano Man."

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

"The Taming" by Theatre Unbound at SteppingStone Theater

Women in politics. It's a pretty timely issue in this election season that may end with America's first woman president (if we're lucky and vote smart). Theatre Unbound's The Taming looks at women and politics, specifically "three powerful, ambitious, and politically motivated women: an animal-loving Democratic social media giant, a workaholic Queer Republican Senator's aide, and a Miss America-hopeful who attempts to break their divide and bring the parties together to rewrite the constitution" (per a note in the program from director Mel Day). Inspired by Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, but not bearing a whole lot of resemblance to it, there's still a whole lot of fodder for political satire, humor, and wackiness, and The Taming delivers.

Monday, August 3, 2015

Fringe Festival 2015: "Women's History Month: The Historical Comedybration (with fabulous prizes)"

Day: 4

Show: 20


Category: Comedy


Created by: Heather Meyer

Location: New Century Theatre

Summary: A sketch show about women in history. Because what's not funny about feminism?

Highlights: This super fun show deserves a bigger audience than the one that was at New Century last night (maybe I'm not the only one turned off by downtown traffic, construction, and parking?). It's really funny and also highlights important and accomplished women in a light-hearted way, so that you might not even realize that you're learning something. I particularly enjoyed the running gag about Rosie the Riveter applying for jobs (Rosie the Receptionist, Rosie the Radiologist, Rosie the Race Car), Laura Ingalls as a modern and emotionalal teen, the quirk-off between Zooey Deschanel and Virginia Woolf, a wine-drunk Mary Richards deconstructing her impossible to live up to theme song, and the fun and educational game shows which the audience can choose to participate in. Writer/performers Heather Meyer, Kelsey Cramer, Leslie Vincent, and Shannon Troy Jones are all funny and clever and so excited about the show that there was palpable excitement in the room even with a small audience. Go see this show to laugh and learn and celebrate women's history!

Monday, June 15, 2015

"The Illusion" by Theatre Pro Rata at Park Square Theatre

In Tony Kushner's The Illusion, an adaptation of a 17th Century French play, you're never quite sure if what you're watching is reality or illusion. But this is the theater, so it's all illusion anyway, isn't it? The Illusion plays with ideas of reality, theatricality, illusion, truth, perception, and imagination. Theatre Pro Rata's production, now playing at Park Square Theatre's Boss Stage as part of their "Theatres in Residence" series*, playfully dives into these themes and delivers a funny, entertaining, and engaging play.

In the opening scene of the play, we meet a man who has come to a secret cave to ask a magician about the son he kicked out years ago. For a fee, the magician obliges and shows him the life of his son acted out before him behind a line he cannot cross. Three different scenarios are presented, related but with slightly different circumstances and ever-changing names for the people involved. In the first scene we see the son in pure, young, innocent love; in the second scene he's involved in a love that makes him do desperate and perhaps unwise things; and finally, we see the son with a love that's become tired and jaded. Throughout it all, the man, the magician, and his assistant watch the stories play out. It's unclear, to them and to us, how these three are stories related and which of them is true, if any. After all, you can never really trust a magician to tell you the truth. And what would the man do with the truth anyway? Perhaps he wants to imagine his wayward son as something other than what he has actually become.

The fantastical nature of the magician's illusions are brought to life with colorful, almost cartoony, sets and costumes (which makes even more sense when the "truth" is revealed, which I won't spoil for you). Simple two-dimensional set pieces are carried on and off the bare stage by the characters in each scene, who are dressed in the flouncy skirts or knee pants we associate with 17th Century French society. Set against a backdrop of a curtain in a frame, the effect is very much that we're watching a scene play out for the viewers, who sit on one side at the back of the stage and watch the events unfold with varying reactions (set design by Sadie Ward and costume design by Mandi Johnson).

As the play went on, I became more and more convinced of the excellent casting of the actors who play father and son and who really look the part. Paul de Cordova and Michael Fell share the traits of thick dark hair, a thin face, and a lanky build. Or perhaps it's just their acting that makes me think they look alike, Paul as the father, a little older, wiser, and regretful of past mistakes, Michael as the son, full of energy and acting against his father's rejection. The two never meet (or do they?), but the two performances anchor the two sides of the story and provide a connection. As the magician, Charles Hubbell is appropriately mysterious and a bit creepy, and Tim Uren is amusing as his silent assistant who later takes part in the action. All of the actors in the revolving scenarios, including Michael, bring the stories to heightened life, and play slightly different versions of the same character in each. Abby DeSanto is the beautiful and desired lover with a will of her own, Kelsey Cramer is the mischievous maid whom you almost want to win out over her mistress, Ben Tallen is the pompous rival, and Bryan Grosso is the delightfully over-the-top comic foil.

I saw my first Theatre Pro Rata show just over a year ago, and I've been impressed by everything I've seen since then. It's all been pretty intense (the real-life hanging of a circus elephant, an adaptation of a frightening dystopian novel, and a convicted child molester trying to reintegrate into society), which I appreciate, but it's fun to see a lighter, more playful side to the company in The Illusion, while still being thought-provoking and captivating. The Illusion continues through June 28.


*Park Square Theatre's "Theatres in Residence" series also includes Sandbox Theatre, whose War with the Newts was recently seen on the Boss Stage, and Girl Friday Productions, debuting on the Boss Stage with The Matchmaker next month.