"Bent" by The BAND Group at the Phoenix Theater

Partnering with OutFront Minnesota, The BAND Group is bringing us the 1979 play Bent about the imprisonment and murder of gay people in Nazi Germany. A look at the daily news should tell you that those days are not as long ago and far away as they may seem, with increasing violence and discrimination against the LGBTQ community. One of OutFront's current campaigns is to end conversion therapy, which is still legal in Minnesota. You can find more information about this and sign the petition here. And you can see The BAND Group's powerful and sobering production of Bent at the Phoenix Theater in Uptown through this weekend only.

"Love Comics" by Minneapolis Musical Theatre at Bryant-Lake Bowl

Confession: I've never read comic books (unless you count the graphic novel Fun Home, because theater). I didn't even know there was such a thing as love comics, which apparently were love stories in comic book form, popular in the mid last century. But I know about it now, thanks to Minneapolis Musical Theatre. The musical Love Comics plays loving and playful homage to the tradition of romance comics. Big emotions, melodrama, love lost and found, and fun '50s era costumes. It's a clever and cute little show playing on Bryant-Lake Bowl's cute little stage through March 2.

"Musical Mondays" at Hell's Kitchen, May 2017

Musical Mondays at Hell's Kitchen is a monthly cabaret series featuring fabulous local talent performing songs from musical theater around a theme. The theme for this month's show, the 49th in the series, was musicals of the last ten years. My favorites in this time period include Spring Awakening, Next to Normal, The Book of Mormon, Once, Hamilton, and the very recently Tony-nominated Come From Away and Dear Evan Hansen. But only the last one made the cut for Musical Mondays. Which isn't surprising, perhaps my choices are too obvious, and Musical Mondays has always been great about picking the lesser known (to me anyway) songs and musicals. As always, it was a super fun night of celebrating musical theater, enjoying performances by local talent, people watching, and eating and drinking (it's always Happy Hour at Musical Mondays).