"Glory" at Theatre in the Round

Similar to The Wolves or Flex, Glory is a play about a women's hockey team that's about so much more than hockey. These athletes are referred to as hockey dolls, sportscasters talk about how they look in their uniforms, when they're strong and tough and powerful people say they must be men, they get paid less and have less access to the things they need than male athletes, and people in power claim women are soft and weak and therefore aren't qualified to do hard things like play hockey (or serve in combat). Was this the 1930s or last week? The answer is both, which is perhaps why the cast and creative team of Theatre in the Round's production of this beautiful play made me cry about hockey, I sport I've never watched and care nothing about. This play (based on a true story and premiering in 2018) deals with sexism, anti-Semitism, war, poverty, and discrimination in a way that's unfortunately still incredibly relevant today. Go see Glory at the oldest theater in Minneapolis, continuing weekends through February 9.

"The Lady Demands Satisfaction" by [un]qualified theatre at University Baptist Church

Another new #TCTheater born out of the Minnesota Fringe Festival continues to make great work outside of Fringe. [un]qualified theatre's super fun and playful adaptation of The Invisible Man was one of my favorite shows of 2023. Now they're bringing that playful silly vibe to the play The Lady Demands Satisfaction. This 18th Century farce was written in this century, so it feels both period and modern. Co-Artistic Directors Jake Sung-Guk Sullivan and Kiko Laureano serve as director and associate director, respectively, and have made a fun scrappy little show, performed in a church basement. They read this play during the pandemic and wondered why no one was doing it here, so they decided to do it themselves. That's the great thing about this theater community, that a group of young artists can put on a show with a much lower budget but just as much entertainment value as the big theaters in town. Unfortunately this is a super short run, with only two performances remaining at University Baptist Church in Dinkytown (go early to navigate construction, traffic, crowds, and parking).

"Doubt: A Parable" at Theatre in the Round

To open their historic 71st season, Theatre in the Round is presenting the 2005 Tony-winning best play Doubt: A Parable. In roughly 90 minutes, the intense and tautly written play explores ideas of faith, doubt, gender, race, class, sexual abuse, and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church that allowed such abuses to continue. Presented in a series of mostly two-person scenes, expertly written and well performed by this cast, the play is not so much about whether the accused is innocent or guilty, but about how we as humans deal with the doubt and uncertainty that exists in many areas of life. Doubt is truly a parable that can be applied to so many situations (especially today with so many sources of "truth" flying at us), with no clear answers, leaving the audience feeling a bit unsettled.