"Code You" by Exposed Brick Theatre at Dreamland Arts

Exposed Brick Theatre, "dedicated to telling untold stories, centering omitted narratives and creating art at the intersection of identities," was founded in 2004, and somehow this is my first experience with them. Last night I saw the new play Code You, written and directed by Nora Montañez Patterson, at Dreamland Arts, a sweet little venue on Hamline Avenue in St. Paul that I haven't been to since pre-pan. Code You is one of several plays to come out of Exposed Brick's 2020 "Through Our Eyes" program, in which they commissioned eight playwrights to write plays "in response to the multiple pandemics impacting MN communities." Code You starts out as fun and trippy multiple-reality narrative about friends just hanging out and having fun, but there's an undercurrent of something more sinister happening, and things get serious real fast. The short run continues for one more weekend only, and the hour-long play is short, sweet, and to the point, bringing back the fear of the unknown from those early COVID days and reminding us what we all went through.

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2019: "Glass & Lady M."

Day: 1

Show: 3

Title: Glass & Lady M.

Category: DRAMA / MYSTERY / PHYSICAL THEATER / LITERARY ADAPTATION / POLITICAL CONTENT / SHAKESPEARIAN ELEMENTS

By: Full Circle Theater Company

Created by: Lindsey Bushnell and Martha B. Johnson

Location: Dreamland Arts

Summary: New #TCTheater company Full Circle Theater gets Fringey with two short plays proving commentary on patriarchy and the troubling legacy of America.

Highlights: The new play Glass by Lindsey Bushnell imagines four women trapped in a room, waiting for a man to come through the glass and bring them "blessings" or "luxuries." One has apples, one is constantly sweeping, one is holding a baby, and one is obsessively applying make-up and checking her looks. In what is a pretty obvious metaphor for patriarchy, the women discuss their situation and how to get out of it, alternately chiding and supporting each other. Lady M. is a brief reimagining of Macbeth by Full Circle Co-Artistic Director Martha B. Johnson (who directs both pieces), with the bloody ambition of the Macbeths compared to the bloody ambition of America and the wake of tragedies left behind in the pursuit of "Manifest Destiny." A strong cast of four women (Alice McGlave, Charla Marie Bailey, Delinda "Oogie" Pushetonequa, and Marci Lucht) perform in both plays, fully committing to the absurdist style of the two pieces that speak to each other nicely. As an independently produced Fringe show at Dreamland Arts in St. Paul, this one is a little out of the way, but worth the 10-minute drive from the Cedar-Riverside hub to see this powerful, relevant, weird, and beautifully done new work.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

"Gone Missing" by Theatre Elision at Dreamland Arts

The Twin Cities Theater Bloggers gave new-ish #TCTheater company Theatre Elision the "Under the Radar" award for 2018 (read all the awards here). It was less than two years ago that they debuted with an original musical Ragtime Women in the intimate Dreamland Arts space in St. Paul. After nearly a dozen small cast, one act, original or rarely done musicals at small venues around town, they return to Dreamland Arts with another such piece. Gone Missing was created by NYC based theater company The Civilians, including playwright Steven Cosson and composer/lyricist Michael Friedman. The Civilians also created The Abominables at Children's Theatre, premiering shortly after Michael's death from AIDS shocked the theater world. I'm a big fan of his music (see also Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson), so I'm grateful to Elision for bringing us this piece. Gone Missing is a funny, quirky, poignant little musical about all things lost, as always beautifully performed by the cast and band.

"The Basset Table" by Persistent Theatre Productions at Dreamland Arts

Welcome to the Renaissance! The day after seeing the hilarious fictional farce about (all male) playwrights in Shakespeare's day, I saw an actual play written by a female playwright of the era. Who knew that there was a successful female playwright who lived and wrote shortly after Shakespeare's time? I didn't. Susanna Centlivre was one of the first women in history to make a living as a playwright, and was also an actor in the era just after women were allowed on stage in England. With the current necessary focus on putting more women's stories on stage, it's a great idea to revisit female playwrights of the past who have been largely forgotten. Thanks to Persistent Theatre Productions, a new #TCTheater company with a "feminist voice," for bringing us one of Centlivre's works.

"Ragtime Women" by Theatre Elision at Dreamland Arts

I'm usually not a fan of the jukebox musicals, but when the songs used are little known ragtime gems from female composers, I approve! In just a brief 75 minutes, Ragtime Women manages to tell a compelling story about four real life women who composed music in the early 1900s, while sharing over two dozen songs of the era, many of them written by these women. It's smartly constructed (by Theatre Elision founder Cindy Polich), well performed, and a promising debut for this new company. But it's a short run so act quick to see this short, sweet, and musically delicious little show before it closes on Sunday.

"FIVE" by 20% Theatre Company at Dreamland Arts

One of the things I most admire in theater is artists who tell their own very personal and often difficult story through their work. I find it incredibly brave to expose your life, heart, soul, heartaches, and triumphs on stage in front of a bunch of strangers, and this sharing of truth often results in the most affecting theater. The audience can sense the realness and the raw emotion they're witnessing. Such is the case with 20% Theatre Company's new work FIVE, written by Claire Avitabile. Claire is the founder and Artistic Director of 20% Theatre, named after a 2002 study which found that 20% of professional theater artists are women. 20% Theatre is "committed to supporting and vigorously promoting the work of female and transgender theater artists, and celebrating the unique contribution of these artists to social justice and human rights," work that is perhaps more important now than it ever has been in the company's 10-year history. FIVE is one person's specific story of overcoming childhood trauma, universal in its themes of loss, search for identity, and healing.

"Knight of the Burning Pestle" by Theatre Pro Rata at Dreamland Arts

Sunday was a day of comedy for me. First I saw one of the most beloved comedies of American theater - The Odd Couple - in an excellent production at Lyric Arts. Then I traveled from the 1960s back to the 1600s with Theatre Pro Rata's Knight of the Burning Pestle, the first parody in English theater. This play-within-a-play is a spoof of theater itself, and the cast has great fun with it. And while I didn't always understand the specifics of what was going on (I sometimes have a hard time with Shakespearean era language), that didn't seem to matter. The enjoyment comes in watching the delightfully campy performances of the eight-person cast as they poke gentle fun at the thing we all love best -theater.

"Heading East" by Theater Mu at Dreamland Arts

On the afternoon of the day that the Tony Awards were presented in NYC, I had the privilege of watching Tony winner BD Wong in a reading of a musical called Heading East (first produced at East West Players in the 1990s, with music by Leon Ko, book and lyrics by Robert Lee, who was also in attendance), presented by Theater Mu and supported by a fabulous cast of local actors. I've never attended a workshop of a new work before (unless you count an early preview of Tony Kusher's An Intelligent Homosexual... at the Guthrie a few years ago, at a time when he was making daily changes to the script), so I was curious to see what it would be like. It was just like I pictured it – a dozen or so chairs with black music stands on a bare stage (at the lovely and intimate Dreamland Arts in St. Paul), where the actors sat, stood, sang, spoke, and mimed some action. The emotion and feeling of the piece was fully there, but with a very sparse production around it. Some stage directions were read aloud to help create a mental picture of the scene, and the work of the actors soon made me forget this was "just" a reading. I found it to be a really well-written, entertaining, and moving piece of musical theater that I hope continues to grow and find life.

Heading East tells the story of one man over the course of roughly 130 years, representing the life of the Chinese immigrant in that time. The time warp allows for many different topics and eras in Asian-American history to be covered, but as discussed in the post-show talkback, it's an issue that needs to be worked out so that it's a little easier for the audience (and not so distracting for linear thinkers like me). As a young man in mid 19th Century China, Siu Yee embraces new ideas and wants to help his parents by moving beyond the old ways. This eventually leads him to the "gold mountains" of California, where he develops a successful business. He takes a wife, raises a son, and becomes a citizen, all while experiencing over 100 years of Asian-American history. The show really about what it means to be an American. Most of us are descended from immigrants, and I found myself thinking of my own ancestors making the decision to leave home and family behind in search of a better life in America. Of course nothing is as good as it seems, there are struggles along the way, and there's a longing for home, as well as redefining what "home" means.

I really enjoyed the music. There are fun, catchy songs, beautiful duets and solos, and stirring ensemble numbers. (You can listen to the score here, from a 2010 concert.) The cast really did an amazing job; they've obviously been working hard on this little reading (click on the program above to see a list of performers). Everyone sounded fantastic (thanks to musical direction and piano accompaniment by Anita Ruth of BCT), and successfully conveyed the emotions of the characters. What a pool of talent we have here, it's no wonder the creators chose to work with Theater Mu on this project! Now about the star of the show: I've long been a fan of BD's TV work (especially as Father Ray, the moral center of the Oswald State Correctional Facility), so it was a thrill to see him act and sing on stage. His character is not always likable as he pursues success with little regard for anything else, but you begin to understand the man behind the ambition and the complexities of the character through BD's beautiful performance.

A post-show discussion was led by BD Wong, Robert Lee, and Mu Artistic Director Rick Shiomi. As usual, I'm fascinated by artists talking about their work, and there were many insightful comments from people more knowledgeable than I about the subject matter and the art form of musical theater. I really look forward to seeing the fully staged production next year (it will be part of Mu's 2013-2014 season) and seeing how it has changed. There's nothing I love more than new original musical theater, and I'm happy to support it wherever I can. And I'm thrilled and proud that a work like this is being produced here in Minnesota. After that, who knows? Personally, this is the kind of thing I'd love to see on Broadway instead of another movie adaptation or jukebox musical.