""Pickup Truck Opera Volume 4: Faust" by Mixed Precipitation at Silverwood Park

Mixed Precipitation's Pickup Truck Opera is back for the fourth year. Their unique mashing up of a classic opera with a particular genre of pop music, performed outside in parks all around the state of Minnesota, is a delightful #TCTheater summer tradition. They make opera accessible and fun. With a modern adaptation of the story, the opera bits are performed in the original language (in Charles Gounod's Faust - French) with surtitles charmingly displayed on scrolls manually revealed. And the pop songs (here the songs of '80s British band Depeche Mode) are well chosen to fit into the story. It all adds up to a lot of fun, especially when you have a perfect late summer evening. The Pickup Truck Opera (yes, there is an actual pickup truck) continues it's journey around Minnesota through September 15 - click here to find a location near you.

"Pickup Truck Opera Volume 2: The Magic Flute" by Mixed Precipitation at Dodge Nature Center

Mixed Precipitation's "Picnic Operetta" has been a staple of summer outdoor #TCTheater since 2009, combining classic opera, pop music, and passed bites of delicious food. In 2020, rather than letting a global pandemic shut them down entirely, they transitioned to the "Pickup Truck Opera" format, a similar opera/pop music mash-up performed out of a 2011 Ford Pickup that they drove around to local parks. They expanded on this idea in 2021, and return with Volume 2 this year, performed at parks and gardens not just in the Twin Cities but around the state. This year's mash-up features Mozart's The Magic Flute and "groovy beats from the 90s discotheque." As expected from this troupe of traveling artists, this Pickup Truck Opera is a super fun, silly, sweet, and accessible experience of music, theater, and community. You can see it at various locations in the Twin Cities Metro Area, plus Hastings, through September 11 (click here for dates, locations, details, and free reservations).

The 77th "Musical Mondays" at LUSH, January 2020

What better way to celebrate the beginning of the 2020s than to look back at some great musical theater songs from the 1920s? For their 77th show, Musical Mondays did just that. Hosted by talented #TCTheater artists and BFFs Sheena Janson Kelley and Max Wojtanowicz, this popular monthly cabaret series at LUSH Bar in Northeast Minneapolis showcases different local talent every month. Also different every month is the theme, which gives musical theater fans like myself the chance to take a deep dive into a specific genre and learn a little bit more about musical theater history, while enjoying a fun and entertaining night, at the cost of a suggested $5 donation (which goes directly to the artists). This series should definitely be on the radar of every local music-theater fan. Their next show is on February 3; follow their Facebook page for the announcement of theme and performers.