"A Laura Ingalls Wilder Christmas" at Lyric Arts

I'm a little bit obsessed with all things Little House on the Prairie, and I'm not ashamed to admit it! The TV show started the year after I was born, and I don't remember a time when I didn't watch it and love it. When I was old enough to read, the Little House books were a favorite, although I soon discovered just how different the TV and book worlds are. I've re-read them as an adult, along with several other books about Laura Ingalls Wilder, most recently the excellent Prairie Girl: An Annotated Autobiography. And when I took a road trip across South Dakota a few years ago, I made sure to stop in De Smet, and Walnut Grove on the way back into Minnesota. On the live performance front, I loved the Guthrie's 2008 musical adaptation of Little House on the Prairie (starring Melissa Gilbert!), and I even saw Alison Arngrim's comedy performance of her funny and touching memoir Confessions of a Prairie Bitch. So it's obvious I will consume Laura Ingalls Wilders' writings in any form I can, and I couldn't resist Lyric Arts' "Mainly for Kids" production of A Laura Ingalls Wilder Christmas. Playwright Laurie Brooks has turned a few pages in Laura's original memoir that never made it into her children's series, about their time spent in Burr Oak, Iowa, into a sweet little 65-minute play in keeping with the Little House theme of family and frontier life.

"Christmas in the Airwaves" at Lyric Arts

If today's snowstorm doesn't get you in the holiday spirit, Lyric Arts in charming downtown Anoka will! This year they commissioned a new holiday play, Christmas in the Airwaves, which premiered the week before Thanksgiving, and this weekend they open their "Mainly for Kids" (and grown-ups who can't get over their childhood obsession with all things Little House) production of A Laura Ingalls Wilder Christmas. I'll be visiting my friend Laura on Saturday, but first, let's return to the 1940s. A time when men went off to war, women stayed behind to run things (and sing harmony), and radio was king. It's in this idealized world of the '40s that our story takes place. It's Christmas 1944 in a small snowy Minnesota town, as we watch a live radio broadcast, along with the behind-the-scenes lives of the cast and crew of the show. This simple, sweet, charming story with lovely holiday and wartime music is as comforting as hot apple cider on a cold and snowy day.

"Frankie and Johnny in the Clair De Lune" by Casting Spells Productions at the Minneapolis Theater Garage

A short order cook who is an ex-con and reads Shakespeare. A waitress who's given up her dream of being an actress and is afraid to hope for anything more in life. It may seem inevitable that these two NYC diner coworkers get together, but how it happens is a funny, sexy, awkward, bittersweet little dance in the two-person play Frankie and Johnny in the Clair De Lune. From the company that brought us the delightfully disgruntled princesses of Disenchanted comes a very different play, but maybe not so different as it at first seems. In just their second outing, Casting Spells Productions once again delivers a funny, risky, well-cast, and entertaining show. I look forward to seeing what spells they cast in the future.