"Come Back, Little Sheba" by Dark & Stormy Productions at Gremlin Theatre

Minnesota Fringe Festival is over, and the 2025-2026 #TCTheater season has not yet begun, which means it's time for another Dark & Stormy Production, a company that very smartly programs one of their unique offerings during this relatively quiet time. But this time, they're not serving us one of their usual dark comedies. The 1950 play Come Back, Little Sheba, by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright William Inge, is all dark and no comedy. It's a tragic play that mostly makes me think about how women's choices were so limited in the past, and in many ways still are today (and becoming more so). But it's thoroughly engaging and full of captivating and complex characters, beautifully brought to life by the cast and creative team. See it at Gremlin Theatre through September 7.

"The Sound of Music" by Frosted Glass Creative

Seeing my sentimental favorite The Sound of Music (having grown up loving the movie, later playing clarinet in the pit orchestra for my high school production, and spending four months living in Salzburg in college) outdoors by the river in Stillwater was an absolute dream. Frosted Glass Creative had to cancel the first of only three performances due to a storm, but the delayed opening night was a success. Even though it was hot and buggy, and there were some sound issues in the challenging outdoor environment, with difficult sightlines at times, I loved every second of it. It's such a joyful story about following your dreams, connecting through music, and making difficult sacrifices to stand up for what's right. The large and talented cast and gorgeous full orchestra put so much heart into the show that even people floating by on the river could feel it. Stillwater's Zephyr Theatre premiered "Broadway on the Bridge" on this spot in the pandemic days, which sadly only lasted two years (Mamma Mia! and School of Rock) before they experienced financial difficulties and had to pause activities for a year or two. Former Zephyr Artistic Director Calyssa Hall is now with Frosted Glass (and directed this show) and began their "Broadway on the St. Croix" series last year, and it's such a great idea and a perfect spot for outdoor musicals - truly the prettiest stage in Minnesota. The second and final performance of The Sound of Music is tonight, but follow Frosted Glass for more theater opportunities along the beautiful St. Croix River.

UPDATE: Monday night performance added to make up for Friday's rainout - get tickets here!

"Ordinary Days" at St. Croix Festival Theatre

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.

"Henry V" by Jackdonkey Productions at Theatre in the Round

Sixteen months ago, I had one of my best and most memorable days at the theater when I saw Guthrie Theater's production of the History Plays,  Shakespeare's Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V, all in one marathon day. One continuing story and one incredible cast of actors bringing it to life over three plays, for a total of 8+ hours of theater. The taglines for the three plays were: "a king becomes a man," "a man becomes a king," and "a king becomes a hero," respectively. But Jackdonkey Productions' new take on the finale of this trilogy, Henry V, brings a little different perspective to the story. Because in reality, war is much more complicated than that. There are no heroes, there are no winners, there's only death and destruction. This is a theme that is very relevant to what's going on in our world today, with wars, violence, and power-hungry leaders everywhere you turn. Jackdonkey brings this ancient story right into the present in this innovative production, playing at Theatre in the Round this weekend only (through August 18).

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2025: Wrap-Up and Favorites

The wonderful theatrical whirlwind that is the Minnesota Fringe Festival is over for another year, and I'm left with great memories of friends, fun, and theater, and also not a little exhaustion (I took an afternoon nap yesterday and then slept nine hours last night). I never cease to be amazed, impressed, and moved by the incredible talent in this festival, both local and touring artists. This year I saw 39 Fringe shows in 10 days, but technically I saw 42 shows within the 11 days of the festival, because I took the first day off to drive to Duluth and see Zeitgeist Theater's incredibly immersive and intimate production of my favorite musical RENT, and I took a few afternoons off to see a NEXT new works reading at Theater Latte Da and Artistry's fabulous production of the beloved classic Singin' in the Rain (continuing through August 31). But other than that, I saw a show in every timeslot that I could (not counting 10pm shows because #morningperson). And I did not see a bad show, in fact the majority of the shows I saw were excellent. Which makes narrowing my list of favorites down from 39 to something less than half of that a nearly impossible task. So here's a list of some (but not all) of the shows I loved at Minnesota Fringe this year. But Fringe is never really over; they continue activities and programming year-round, so be sure to follow them on social media and sign up for their email list (if you're not already). And most of the artists and companies in this festival do work all year round, so if you saw someone or something you really loved, check out what else they're doing this season. The 2025 Minnesota Fringe Festival is over, but #TCTheater never ends!

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2025: "The Wickie"

Day: 10

Show: 39

Title: The Wickie

Category: Clowning / Comedy / Physical Theater / Solo Show / Storytelling / Audience participation

By: Richie Whitehead

Created by: Richie Whitehead

Location: Barker Center

Summary: A physical theater clowning solo show about a lighthouse keeper and the search for his missing shoe.

Highlights: For my final Minnesota Fringe show, I went to see a show that was not on my schedule, but which so many people recommended. That final performance was sold out (or very nearly so), and later that night the show won an Artist Pick Golden Lanyard Award. Richie Whitehead, along with collaborators and directors Marc Frost and Salomé Mooij, has created something so charming and delightful, not even the interruption by someone trying to record the show on smart glasses could disrupt it (which Richie handled gracefully and totally in character). The show is a series of vignettes in the life of the lighthouse keeper, aka Wickie. The ocean has taken his shoe, and he wants it back. He has to climb 147 stairs to get to the top of the lighthouse to perform his duties, and it's exhausting. He communicates with his friends via Morse code. He goes looking for the grave of the first Wickie. In a gray wig and beard, Richie looks right at the audience, their impish facial expressions speaking to us as much as their words, inviting us into the story. With some clever audience participation, we feel like we're all in it together and a part of the story. Really great physical comedy, great use of props (including one tall ladder and a couple of buckets), bold lighting, and a bit of fourth-wall breaking make for a really fun, sweet, funny, and entertaining show for all ages. A show that has traveled to fringes around the world, The Wickie is deserving of all of the awards it has received, including "best strip tease dance scene" and "most outrageous fake accent."

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here. 

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2025: "The Big Secret"

Day: 10

Show: 38

Title: The Big Secret

Category: Storytelling / Political content / Religious content

By: Brad Lawrence

Created by: Brad Lawrence

Location: Rarig Arena

Summary: A solo storytelling piece about a big secret that Brad Lawrence has been keeping since he was 14, and why he's now sharing it with the world.

Highlights: This is a beautiful and moving story, masterfully told by NYC-based master storyteller Brad Lawrence. He weaves a mesmerizing tale about his traumatic childhood (including both familial and religious trauma), and finding connection with an older girl named Jessica in his church youth group. One night, over frozen custard, she tells him her shameful secret, that she's never shared with anyone. She makes him promise not to tell, and he doesn't, putting it in a box in the back of his mind that he never opens, even after her tragic murder five years later. But he has recently opened that box and looked at the secret with adult eyes, only to find that it wasn't shameful at all. Jessica was a child, taken advantage of by an adult, undeserved shame forced upon her by her religious upbringing. I won't share the secret in case you ever get the chance to see this show, because it's expertly revealed at the right time for the maximum impact. The important thing to know is that Brad is finally sharing Jessica's story in the hopes that those who hear it can let go of some of the shame in their own lives, and/or help create a world without shame for people who did nothing wrong.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here. 

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2025: "Duluth: An Improvised Midwest Murder"

Day: 10

Show: 37

Title: Duluth: An Improvised Midwest Murder

Category: Comedy / Drama / Horror / Improv / Mystery / Audience participation

By: Duluth Improv

Created by: Avery Kiefer and Walter Mueller

Location: Rarig Xperimental

Summary: A story of murder in a Midwest town.

Highlights: Curiously, Duluth Improv is a troupe based in Chicago. And they finally brought the show home to Minnesota "where it belongs." They ask one audience member to volunteer info about their hometown; at the show I attended it was Madison Wisconsin, home of the Oscar Mayer Wiener plant (and Wienermobile). What started out as one murder in the plant, with a body shoved into the machinery, turned into a Mayer family crime drama, a workplace murder at The Archives, and a shootout in the parking lot. The cast (many of whom were subs when I saw the show so I don't have all their names) is great at improvising crazy crime scenarios and bizarre deaths, all while speaking in Midwest accents, and sometimes Russian-ish. Most of their shows were sold out or nearly sold out, because Minnesota Fringe loves Minnesota humor, improv, and murder, even when it's from Chicago.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here. 

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2025: "Dice of Destiny: Neon City"

Day: 10

Show: 36

Title: Dice of Destiny: Neon City

Category: Comedy / Improv / Audience participation

By: The Bearded Company

Created by: The Bearded Company

Location: Theatre in the Round

Summary: The Bearded Co's trademark D&D style of improv applied to an '80s action movie.

Highlights: I saw the final show of what I believe was a continuing five-show saga. Anna Tobin and Maria Bartholdi play the main characters (even after so many Bearded shows I don't know D&D lingo), two crime fighters in the post-apocalyptic world of an '80s action movie. The rest of the cast (MJ Matheson, Tyler Mills, Joe Rapp, and Lucas Vonasek) play multiple characters, as our two heroes save the world in the weirdest way possible. As per usual, game master Allen Voigt calls the action, rolling the 20-sided die to see how strong each action will be, with Jack Barrett on keyboard and Dan Ruby on sound effects creating a soundscape. This group is a sure thing every year that they perform; they're experts at this long-form improv storytelling and always create a really funny story that also sort of makes sense. But you don't have to wait until next Fringe to see them; they are doing a couple of shows as part of Theatre in the Round's fantastic upcoming season. You can see them in November and May, the latter of which is running in rep with The Hobbit, so one can only hope these shows will be LOTR-themed (I may not be a D&D nerd, but I am a LOTR nerd).

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here. 

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2025: "Boxcutter Harmonica"

Day: 10

Show: 35

Title: Boxcutter Harmonica

Category: Mystery / Solo Show / Spoken Word / Storytelling

By: Paper Soul

Written by: J Merrill Motz

Location: Barker Center

Summary: A couple of historical detectives dig into mysteries surrounding artists in early 20th century New Orleans and Renaissance Italy.

Highlights: Since the Fringe is over, I'll spoil the joke that is at the crux of the show. This is not a two-hander starring #TCTheater artist J Merrill Motz and traveling fringe artist Martin Dockery. It's a solo show by Motz (rhymes with boats) in which he plays a version of himself playing a detective waiting for a version of Dockery who is supposed to play the other character in the show. But spoiler alert - he doesn't show. Motz, as Detective Black, continues on with the show, occasionally receiving texts and calls, and growing increasingly more frustrated. But the tale he's spinning, now on his own, is fascinating and more complex than I can relate here. Suffice it to say the detective tells stories about two pairs of artists, one in the shadow of the other. One part of each pair is tempted to make a deal with the devil in order to become a better and more famous artist, and their different decisions affect their lives. But by the end of the show we realize we're actually talking about three pairs of artists, as "Motz" has an existential artistic crisis of his own, and perhaps takes a third road. It's a very smartly written show, with a compelling performance by Motz and great use of props, including writing words on a large sketchpad and laying each sheet on the floor to form a literal crossroads. This show is an epic experience encompassing so many things, for which Motz received a staff pick Golden Lanyard Award for his unique use of tech and turning tropes on their head.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here. 

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2025: "Death! A Musical"

Day: 10

Show: 34

Title: Death! A Musical

Category: Comedy / Musical Theater / Original Music / Kid friendly

By: Gabriel Shen | Twin Cities Youth Theatre

Created by: Gabriel Shen

Location: Southern Theater

Summary: A musical about a 13-year old girl who dies and goes to the afterlife, written and performed by middle schoolers.

Highlights: This is the kind of show that makes adults wonder what they've been doing with their life, because soon-to-be 8th grader Gabriel Shen has written music, book, and lyrics (the latter two with Francis Shen) for a musical, which they also directed, play a role in, and operate the sound board for. Pretty impressive, and very promising for the future of #TCTheater. In the musical, Alana (an endearing Vivienne Steele) finds herself in the afterlife, and wants to return to life. She finds a clause in the fine print of the contract that says she can do just that if she completes seven random and pretty easy to accomplish tasks. So she does that, which results in the end of death. Sounds great, doesn't it? But these precocious kids remind us that what makes life so precious is that our time is limited, and "Life Without Death" is no life at all. Pretty profound stuff. All of the kids in nine-person cast are so talented and cute, and the onstage orchestra is also made up of talented young people, led by musical director and orchestrator Angela Steiner (because arranging their original score for a 10-piece orchestra is a big ask for a 7th grader, even a super talented one). It may sound trite, but children really are our future, and the future looks bright. Kudos to these young people for making adventurous art in the Minnesota Fringe Festival, for which they won the venue award (most tickets sold) thanks to their supportive families and community. 

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here. 

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2025: "An Exorcism, Don'tcha Know?"

Day: 9

Show: 33

Title: An Exorcism, Don'tcha Know?

Category: Comedy / Horror / Puppetry

By: New Endeavors

Created by: Andrew Rakerd

Location: Barker Center

Summary: The show description pretty much says it all: "Church Basement Ladies meets The Exorcist."

Highlights: I recently saw the original Church Basement Ladies for the first time, and the setup here is almost identical. There's a new pastor at the Lutheran Church in small town Minnesota, and the ladies holding an Easter fundraiser to raise money for a new furnace aren't sure what to think of him (he's "different"). And there's a young woman returned from school at "the U" in "the Cities," coming home different than when she left. And here's where this show diverges from CBL - she's possessed by a demon. A demon who is disappointed to find out he's been sent to torment not a Catholic Church, where they expect and know how to handle such things, but a Lutheran Church. The ladies (Angela Fox, Cayla Marie Wolpers, and Michelle Schwantes) and one husband (Mitch Kiecker) turn to Pastor Sal (Rob Ward) to help rid poor Regan (Emma Kessler) of the demon, but he's not sure what to do. One of the ladies has seen The Exorcist, and offers suggestions. But in the end, Minnesota Nice is the only thing that works to rid these Lutherans of the demon. Because it's not the Minnesota Fringe Festival without some Fargo accents and lutefisk jokes, and this show fills the bill nicely. The cast is great, particularly Emma with a blood curdling scream, her words echoed by Mike Dee as the demon, dressed all in black and shadowing her moves, creating a spooky otherworldly effect. This show is really fun and ridiculously funny, as I would expect from the team that brought us one of the most brilliantly stupid Fringe shows in my memory - 2017's The Buttslasher, and the 2019 sequel The Buttslasher: And Then There Were Buns. I'm still waiting for part 3, but in the meantime, you can catch the final performance of An Exorcism, Don'tcha Know? today (Sunday) at 1pm for some Minnesota humor mixed with a touch of horror.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.