"Promise of America: A Celebration of Jewish American Song" streaming from Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company

Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company's 2020-2021 "Theater Six Feet Apart" season continues with another virtual offering. Promise of America: A Celebration of Jewish American Song premiered last weekend and is available to stream at specific times through February 21. The cabaret show features songs from musical theater and popular culture by Jewish American composers, as well as a bit of history and commentary provided by the cast and creators. Of course, one hour is not nearly enough to showcase the incredible contributions to 20th Century music by Jewish Americans, but it's a great sampler, from the Gershwins to Carole King to Nassim Black.

"It's A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play" at the St. Paul Hotel

#TCTheater friends, there's a well kept secret in town. At least I've never heard of it in the theater world, but my parents have heard of it from their favorite radio station (and the one I grew up listening to) WCCO. Every holiday* season at the beautiful St. Paul Hotel, there is a charming performance of It's A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play accompanied by a three-course meal. My mom has been wanting to go to it for several years, but it has a loyal following and is a tough ticket to get. We finally got in this year, and I was surprised at just how much I enjoyed it. Now in their 12th season with the same cast, this company puts on an entertaining show filled with nostalgia and the warmth of the holidays, with a lovely meal (see menu to the left, vegetarian options also available). Performances continue through December 24 and are sold out except for a few dates. Or you can listen to a live broadcast of the show on WCCO on December 17 at 7 pm, with a re-broadcast on December 24 at 5 pm.

"Stars of David" by Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company at the Highland Park Center Theater

In 2007, journalist Abigail Pogrebin interviewed dozens of famous Jewish-Americans about their experiences being Jewish in this country, and compiled them into a book called Stars of David. People like Senator Al Franken, actresses Lauren Bacall and Sarah Jessica Parker, actors Jason Alexander and Dustin Hoffman, director Stephen Spielberg, and playwright Wendy Wassserstein. A book of interviews does not exactly scream "musical theater," yet it has been turned into just that, with much success, and Minnesota Jewish Theater Company has brought it to Minnesota. It's not so much a musical as it is a musical review, featuring four actors telling these personal stories in the form of a dozen or so new original songs by various successful musical theater composers. The result is an entertaining, educational, funny, and poignant 90 minutes of musical storytelling.

Bryan Porter, Daisy Macklin Skarning, Laura B. Adams,
and David Carey (photo by Sarah Whiting)

Director Michael Kissin has assembled a great cast and arranged the show nicely in the circular stage space designed by Michael Hoover. Names of the book's subjects are projected onto the set, along with a brief photo as each one is introduced. The onstage four-piece band directed by Kevin Dutcher sounds terrific on these varied songs. Cast members Laura B. Adams, David Carey, Bryan Porter, and Daisy Macklin Skarning, dressed in black to more easily slip into the skins of these famous people, are all very engaging with beautiful voices. Singing solo, with or without backup, or in group numbers, these four singer/actors tell stories that are funny, tragic, moving, or all three.

Highlights include:

• Bryan sings a cute and then sad story about how Leonard Nimoy's childhood magician dreams are crushed by bigotry.
• As my favorite TV writer Aaron Sorkin, David sings a funny song about "Smart People."
• Laura has the unenviable job of being both Fran Drescher and Joan Rivers, two of the most recognizable voices in show business, and she pulls them both off. Joan's song is a sweet one in which she conveys the feeling of being able to just be herself on the "High Holy Days," and Fran's song is as funny and determined as she is, "What Do They Know?"
• Leave it to Next to Normal composer Tom Kitt to write a melody that made me cry, along with lyrics by book writer Abigail Pogrebin. "As If I Weren't There" tells the story of Ruth Bader Ginsburg being unable to grieve her mother in the traditional way she wanted, beautifully sung by Daisy.
• Another familiar musical theater composer, Duncan Sheik, wrote a song that's very reminiscent of his most famous work, Spring Awakening. "The Darkening Blue" features those same hauntingly gorgeous harmonies, as it relates Kenneth Cole's struggle with how to pass on his heritage to his children, who are being raised as Christians.
• In addition to telling his own story, Michael Feinstein wrote the music and lyrics for playwright Tony Kushner's "Horrible Seders," a fast, funny, and poignant song well sung by Bryan.
• Laura and Daisy sing Gloria Steinem's song, which is of course powerful and meaningful and woman-affirming. "The Women Who Had No Names" celebrates all of the women who came before.
• Gwyneth Paltrow is Jewish? "Who Knew?"
• David leads the cast in the moving closing song "L'Dor V'Dor," which means "from generation to generation." 

In this country that prides itself as a "melting plot," all cultures get lost through the generations. This book and musical are a way for people of Jewish heritage to hold on to some of that culture that they grew up with and share it with others of their and future generations. But it's about more than being Jewish, it's about how to hold on to and celebrate who you are and who your ancestors were in a world that's trying to make us all the same.

Stars of David plays Saturdays and Sundays only through March 8 at the Highland Park Center Theater on Ford Parkway.

"The Last Five Years" by Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company at the Hillcrest Center Theater

This was my second time seeing the Jason Robert Brown cult hit musical The Last Five Years, and I think I enjoyed it more the second time around. It's a complicated piece, both in structure and emotion, so it benefits from repeated viewings. This production by Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company employs a much simpler staging than the Flip Theatre production I saw last fall, with minimal set pieces and no microphones, which serve the intimate two-person 90-minute musical well. Already familiar with the story and structure, I was better able to appreciate the emotion of the story and Jason Robert Brown's fantastic score.

The premise is simple, but told in a complex way. A man and woman meet, fall in love, grow apart, and split up. The unique thing about this familiar story is that one half of the couple tells the story (through song) chronologically, while the other half is simultaneously working through the story backwards from the end. The show begins with a heartbroken Cathy singing about the end of her marriage and a newly lovestruck Jamie singing about this girl he just met. The two timelines cross in the middle when Jamie proposes to Cathy, and continue on to their ultimate conclusions - Cathy happy and hopeful at the beginning of the relationship, Jamie sad and conflicted at the end. It's quite fascinating to watch a relationship grow and disintegrate at the same time, and see how much these two people love each other but realize that they just can't make it work.

Matt Rein as Jamie
and Sarah Shervey as Cathy

As Cathy, Sarah Shervey* is sweet and sympathetic, with a lovely voice. Matt Rein as Jamie is charming and much more likeable than my first experience with the show. In a post-show talk back, director Kevin Dutcher (who does a fine job with this "puzzle" of a piece) said they made a conscious decision to make Jamie less of a "dick," and it works. Seeing the show this time I didn't think that either one was solely to blame for the break-up, but could see that they both contributed to the sad conclusion. The interesting thing about this pieces is that you only see the couple connecting together for one moment in the middle, but Kevin chose to begin the show with a brief happy moment between the two so the audience could see just what it is that's lost. He calls their one duet "The Next Ten Minutes" the "payoff" for "desperately wanting to see them together," and he's right. The two characters might be on stage at the same time at several points throughout the show, but they're never together in the moment except for that one song, and it's all the more bittersweet for it.

On the small stage at the Hillcrest Center Theater, the four-piece band is behind a screen. The forefront of the stage consists of a few city sketches as backdrop, with simply a chair and table for furniture (set design by Dan Wold). There's very little transition time lost between scenes as one song flows into the next. In a piece like this, less is more.

There's no question that Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years is deserving of its popularity, and I welcomed the chance to spend more time with it. This is a nice production with a charming and talented cast, and a simple staging that lets the story and the songs shine through. Playing weekends only through March 2.



*I was told that both leads were sick with colds on the day I saw the show, so they might not have been at their best. But what I saw was still pretty great.