"Tape" by Vertigo Theater at the Hive Collaborative

New theater company Vertigo Theater makes an impressive debut with the one-act three-hander Tape, playing a The Hive Collaborative for a short two-week run. Most of the artists involved are recent graduates of the Guthrie / U of MN BFA program, several of whom were part of the 2025 graduating class's fantastic production of Jez Butterworth's epic play The Ferryman. I'd never seen or heard of Tape (although it was adapted into a film in 2001 starring then-married Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, along with Robert Sean Leanard), and it's super intense. It's basically one long scene, mostly between two characters, with the late introduction of a third. It's the kind of play that feels like an acting exercise, with really complex and very real characters, and these three actors excel at the exercise. It's a taut and gripping 60 minutes that'll leave you with more questions than answers. Tape has four more performances at the Hive; it's a great chance to see some talented young artists who you will very likely be seeing more of in the future, and take in this intense and engrossing play.

"The Last Yiddish Speaker" at Six Points Theater

The new play The Last Yiddish Speaker by Deborah Zoe Lauer had a rolling world premiere just last year, and now Six Points Theater is bringing us the regional premiere. And I'm so glad they are because it's an urgent, necessary play. It feels like a warning call, like a very possible look into our future if this country, this world, keeps going in the direction it's going. The direction of fear, hate, otherism, nationalism, and division. The play is brilliantly written and expertly executed by the cast and creative team at Six Points, for a gripping 90+ minutes that's unsettling and disturbing and eerily familiar. Go see The Last Yiddish Speaker, a prime example of art holding up a mirror to the world, playing at Highland Park Community Center through November 9.

"The Book of Will" by Theatre Pro Rata at the Crane Theater

We all just take for granted that Shakespeare's 30+ plays have always been available - to put on a play, to read in school, to make a parody of. But it turns out that like many playwrights from centuries past, his plays might have been lost to us forever. A theater world without Shakespeare is unimaginable, and we have his good friends and actors in his company to thank for it. And we have this season's most produced playwright Lauren Gunderson to thank for giving us this story, and Theatre Pro Rata for bringing us the regional premiere of The Book of Will. It's a compelling and dynamic tale about 17th century publishing, as shocking as that may sound, and Pro Rata gives it fine treatment, with a great cast and simple yet effective design. See it the Crane Theater through October 11, and find out how Shakespeare's First Folio came to be.