"This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing" by Ten Thousand Things at Open Book

This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing, and this girl does all three and loves it! For their current production, Ten Thousand Things has found a fairy tale gem of a play that feels like it was written for their "All the Lights On" barebones straight-to-the-heart storytelling style. And it feels like it was written for this excellent five-person cast, so natural and rich and true are their performances. The story feels like a myth or a legend that could have been told around campfires for centuries, about three sisters - triplets - whose happy childhood is interrupted by tragedy, which sets them on three separate paths that eventually come back together again. This Girl is funny and sweet and heart-warming and joyful, in a way that only TTT shows can be. The show moves to Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church this weekend (an easy-to-get-to location near the Walker, with a free parking lot) and continues through March 16. Don't miss it!

"Passage" by Exposed Brick Theatre and Pillsbury House + Theatre

Two theater companies are joining forces to bring us Passage by Christopher Chen, loosely based on the 1924 novel A Passage to India. The central question is: is it possible for two people to be friends when one is a citizen of a colonized country and the other is one of the colonizers? Colonization has been a part of world history for hundreds, even thousands, of years, but awareness and discussion of its injustices has never been at a higher level. This play puts a human face on the sometimes abstract issue, and places the audience squarely in the shoes of both the colonized and the colonizers. For more on how this collaboration between Exposed Brick Theatre and Pillsbury House + Theatre came to be, listen to episode 2.3 of the Twin Cities Theater Bloggers' podcast Twin Cities Theater Chat, in which my blogger friends from Minnesota Theater Love and I interview the co-directors of this piece, longtime friends and synchronized swimming teammates Signe V. Harriday (Pillsbury House's Artistic Director) and Suzy Messerole (co-Artistic Director of Exposed Brick). Then get your tickets and head to "the jewel of South Minneapolis" to see this thought-provoking and engaging play.

"Emilia" by Ten Thousand Things at Open Book

A few months ago, the Guthrie Theater brought us the brilliant new play Born with Teeth, imagining meetings between playwrights Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare, and the theory that the two co-wrote some of the history plays attributed to Shakespeare. Now, Ten Thousand Things is taking another look at this subject, from the feminist side. Morgan Lloyd Malcolm's play Emilia premiered at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in 2018 and explores the life of Emilia Bassano, one of England's first published female poets. The play theorizes that she and Shakespeare were lovers, and that he took some of their conversations and put them into his plays, making her a contributor to the work of Shakespeare. There's lots of discussion about who really wrote the plays we know as Shakespeare (e.g., this article "Was Shakespeare a Woman?" by Elizabeth Winkler, which has been expanded into a book to be released this month). The truth is we'll likely never really know. And that's not what this play is about, anyway. It's about women's voices, women's stories, and why they have been systematically silenced throughout history. Told by an all-female cast, Emilia is the story of a historical woman who would not be silenced, even if it did take a few hundred years for history to recognize her contributions. It's a story that's all too relatable for modern women, and one we can take inspiration from.

"Georgiana and Kitty: Christmas at Pemberley" at the Jungle Theater

It's the most wonderful time of the year* - time to return to Christmas at Pemberley at the Jungle Theater. Playwrights Lauren Gunderson (one of the most produced playwrights in the country, often writing plays about women in history, particularly in STEM) and Margot Melcon have created the most delightful Jane Austen fan fiction in this series of plays based on the characters in Pride and Prejudice. The Jungle produced the first one, Miss Bennet**, in 2017 and it was such a hit that they co-commissioned a sequel, The Wickhams, which premiered the following year. After remounting Miss Bennet in 2019 and taking a break for two years for... you know, they've done it again, with another co-commission and rolling world premiere of the third (but hopefully not last) installment - Georgiana and Kitty. Each of these plays focuses on a different Bennet sister or two, but they're all similar in their sparkling dialogue that feels both period appropriate and refreshingly modern, their centering of women in the story (continuing the legacy of Jane Austen), their fleshing out of characters who didn't get much space in the original novel, and their charming romances complete with obstacles to be overcome, just like all good Austen heroines. With Georgiana and Kitty we get not one but two new Austen heroines to love and root for in their pursuit of love, art, purpose, and happiness. Every Christmas at Pemberley is sheer delight from start to finish, and I hope the Jungle makes this a 40+ year tradition (my dream is that they'll produce all three plays in rep someday and I can see them all in one wondrous epic day). You can visit Pemberley any day except Monday from now through December 23 (click here for info and tickets).

"Might as Well Be Dead: A Nero Wolfe Mystery" at Park Square Theatre

Shortly into Might as Well Be Dead: A Nero Wolfe Mystery, I had a feeling of déjà vu. But this was a world premiere play, how could I have seen it before? Eventually it dawned on me - three years earlier I saw another Nero Wolfe play. The Red Box was the first adaptation of this popular NYC detective series by author Rex Stout, and Might as Well Be Dead is another (a fact that was somehow lost to me before I sat down in the theater). Playwright Joseph Goodrich once again adapted the book into a play, Peter Moore returns to direct on a very similar set designed by Rick Polenek, and several cast members reprise their roles. Hence the feeling of déjà vu. Yes, the story is formulaic, but it's a formula that works. A curmudgeonly yet noble hero detective, his charming sidekick, a series of murders, and suspects a-plenty. If you're a fan of mysteries and noir crime thrillers, this one's for you.