Show: 38
Category: Drama / Musical Theater / Original Music / Historical content
By: TROMPE L'OEIL
Written by: Kevin Bowen & Lynn Bow
Location: Rarig Stoll Thrust
Summary: A musical about the man behind the Foshay Tower, the tallest building in Minneapolis for over 40 years.
Highlights: The Foshay Tower is a fixture in the Minneapolis skyline, but I've never thought about where the name came from, or even if there was a person behind it. As we learn in this new musical (which premiered as a full-length musical at Open Window Theatre in 2023), Wilbur Burton Foshay was a businessman with big dreams. If you're thinking maybe he's similar to another businessman who like to see his name in big letters on buildings, he's not. He took pride in paying his workers fairly, and insisted that his tower (modeled on the Washington Monument) be built with 100% union labor, despite the fact that Minneapolis was "not a union town." This condensed version of the original musical somehow fits 19 songs into an hour (although a half dozen of them are instrumentals or reprises), and tells the full arc of Foshay's rise to the top, and his fall when the stock market crashes shortly after his tower opens, landing him in jail for mail fraud (he's pardoned decades later). It understandably feels like things wrap up too quickly, and I hope to see the full-length version sometime (it feels like the kind of show that would work well at History Theatre and benefit from their process). The songs are catchy and clever, expressing the emotions of the story and characters well. The two lead actors, Landon Hudson and Elisheva Scheuer as Mr. and Mrs. Foshay, give fantastic performances, with great support from Michael Chapman, Jessica Peters, and Samm Nordstrom as multiple characters. With simple set and costumes that evoke the period, this feels like a nice sampler of a promising musical that I hope to see more of.
