"The Tourist Trap" by Ghoulish Delights at the Crane Theater

If you're excited about the Twin Cities Horror Festival, which just announced the lineup for its 12th season this October, you might want to check out The Tourist Trap at The Crane Theater (which will also host TCHF). Ghoulish Delights is remounting their 2014 Minnesota Fringe Festival hit (which I didn't see), and it feels very much like an appetizer for the 11 days of onstage horror that is TCHF. Frequent readers of this blog may recall that horror isn't my favorite genre, so some of the blood and violence was a bit much for me, but what I do love is this talented cast, the creepily effective storytelling of this show, and the exploration of small town life and our obsession with cults and serial killers. If you're looking for a little fantastical horror to take your mind off the very real scary things in our world, The Tourist Trap is the show for you (continuing through May 20).

"The Madwoman of Minneapolis" by The BAND Group at Calvary Baptist Church

The little theater in the basement of Calvary Baptist Church is becoming one of my favorite theater venues, because it's intimate and versatile. The latest example is The BAND Group's adaptation of the mid 20th Century French satire The Madwoman of Chaillot, which they're calling The Madwoman of Minneapolis. They've turned the space into a cafe, complete with food and drinks, which makes for an immersive and intimate (but not interactive, thankfully) experience of this charming little story, with a message of environmentalism and community over consumerism that couldn't be more timely.

Fringe Festival 2015: "FRANKENSTEIN"

Day: 1

Show: 1

Title: FRANKENSTEIN

Category: Something Different

By: Raw Red Meat Productions

Directed by: Tyler Olsen

Location: Intermedia Arts

Summary: A super creepy cool retelling of the Frankenstein story, in which a young boy becomes obsessed with the book to an unhealthy degree.

Highlights: Victor's story is told in a nonlinear fashion, and just like the original Dr. Frankenstein (and Victor himself), we need to put the pieces together to come up with one disturbing whole. Victor is often the narrator of his own story, and we see flashes back to his childhood mixed with scenes from the present at a dark and scary cabin. Scenes often move from one to the other in the middle of a conversation, with characters disappearing and appearing as if by magic. Tyler Olsen wrote, directed, and designed the show (a remount from last year's Twin Cities' Horror Festival), and has created a terrifying and starkly beautiful world. The whole show is done in the dark with hand-held lights and one floor light, flashed on and off at appropriate times to create some really beautiful images with contrasting light and dark. The sound design adds to the creep factor, from the moment you walk into the theater to the sound of buzzing flies. The excellent cast is fully committed to the creation of this world, centered around a raw and emotional performance by Miles Duffey as Victor, with the nimble Joanna Harmon as his girlfriend, Jay Kistler as a childhood friend, and Garrett Vollmer and Noah Bremer as some pretty scary monsters. The whole thing is really well done and yes, there is blood, and some pretty messy clean-up. Moral of the story: don't let your children read Frankenstein.