St. Croix Festival Theatre in St. Croix Falls Wisconsin is making it really hard for me not to cross state lines to see theater. Earlier this year I saw my first show there, the Kate Hamill-penned
Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson, Apt. 2B, a modern, funny, and feminist adaptation of the classic detective stories. This weekend they're closing
their three-week run of the rarely done musical Ordinary Days, which unfortunately opened during the Minnesota Fringe Festival so I was not able to see until the end of the run. It's a gorgeous gem of a musical, and they do a really lovely job with it.
I saw Nautilus Music-Theater's Ivey Award-winning production of the show in 2013, just four years after its Off-Broadway premiere, and loved it, but to my knowledge no #TCTheater company has done it since. I will never understand why certain musicals are done over and over again but gems like this one are not done, even though this 90-minute musical with four performers and a keyboard is relatively easy to stage. So it was absolutely worth a short road trip to Wisconsin. But if you missed this show,
their excellent season continues with
An Iliad (a co-production with #TCTheater company Combustible Company, which
will also be performed at the Southern Theater in Minneapolis), my favorite living playwright Lauren Gunderson's
I and You (a play we haven't seen in #TCTheater yet, other than
a virtual version during the pandemic), and concludes with
Frosty: A Musical Adventure as their unique choice for the holidays. If St. Croix Festival Theatre continues to program plays and musicals I can't see in the Twin Cities, I'm going to keep making that beautiful drive across the river.
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| photo by Dan Norman |
Ordinary Days, which premiered off-Broadway in 2009, is "two love stories in 21 parts." With virtually no spoken dialogue, four very real characters and their lives and relationships are introduced through song. We get to know and love these characters as they express themselves to us and each other with music. Jason (James Randolph) is moving in with his girlfriend Claire (Beth Siegling), but something is holding her back from letting him in. Aspiring artist Warren (Noah Warner) and frustrated grad student Deb (Lindsey Fry) have a "meet cute" moment, but not in the way you expect. We watch these two relationships change and grow and intersect through a series of vignettes about "ordinary days" - getting coffee, going to a museum, moving boxes. The fifth character is New York City, the greatest city in the world. The characters walk down Broadway, visit the Met, ride in a taxi or on a train, view the city from their balcony. If it sounds simple, it is, but it's also beautiful and profound, funny and touching, amusing and heart-breaking.*
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Claire (Beth Siegling) and Jason (James Randolph)
(photo by Dan Norman) |
Mark Rosenwinkel (whom we've seen a lot in #TCTheater) directs this musical that is entirely sung through, just song after brilliant song with no dialogue, and makes it dynamic and engaging. It's primarily a series of solo songs and duets, with a couple of moments with the entire cast, each song a full and complete story unto itself ("Favorite Places" is a beautifully unique love song, "I'll Be Here" makes me weep every time). Strung together these songs create a picture of these four intersecting lives in NYC, fully embodied by this fantastic four-person cast. They're all so great and make these characters feel so real.
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Warren (Noah Warner) and Deb (Lindsey Fry)
(photo by Dan Norman) |
The script doesn't call for fancy sets, the songs could speak for themselves. But five rotating panels with scenes from the city, and a couple of set pieces - a bench, a dresser - help to set the scene. A cityscape backdrop reminds us we're in NYC, with keyboard accompanist Elizabeth Chen sitting in front of it. Jason and Claire are dressed in casual chic outfits with a few changes to mark the passage of time, newer New Yorkers Warren and Deb in changing graphic NYC T-shirts (scenic design and music direction by Isaac Bont, costume design by Kim Murphy).
Ordinary Days is such a beautiful modern musical, telling full and complete stories that are relatable, funny, and moving, in just 90 minutes. Thanks to St. Croix Festival Theatre for choosing it as part of their season full of interesting choices, and for bringing these stories to life so beautifully.
*Plot summary borrowed from my review of Nautilus' 2013 production.
