"Dot" at Park Square Theatre

Park Square Theatre is getting into the #TCTheater holiday* show game, but the new play Dot is less of the sugar plums and figgy pudding variety and more of the juicy family dramedy variety. A family gathers at Christmas, adult children and friends come home, finding they have a lot of stuff to deal with. Chief among said stuff is that family matriarch Dotty has Alzheimer's, but everyone in the family has their own stuff going on too, just like life. This is a very real, grounded story of a family with issues (what family is without issues?), a family that loves each other and tries to do what's best, even if they don't know what that is. A fantastic cast under the direction of E.G. Bailey bring this smart, funny, poignant, relatable play to life.

"How to Use a Knife" at Mixed Blood Theatre

About their newest production, Mixed Blood's Artistic Director Jack Reuler notes, "How to Use a Knife is definitive Mixed Blood: hilarious until it's not, propelled by catalytic cultural collisions, simultaneously political and theatrical, timely in America and in our own Cedar Riverside neighborhood, multi-lingual, and 90 intermissionless minutes." If you think this sounds like a recipe for a delectable and satisfying theater meal, you are absolutely correct. Will Snider's new play is a tragicomedy that takes place in a restaurant kitchen with diverse, clearly drawn, realistic characters, brilliantly brought to life by a fantastic cast, with a completely engrossing story that'll leave you wondering just who the bad guy is in this story, and maybe realizing that defining a "bad guy" isn't all that simple.

"Dancing on the Edge" by Theatre Novi Most at the Southern Theater

Theatre Novi Most, whose mission is to "combine the artistic traditions of Russia and America to create performances in which seemingly disparate ideas, languages, cultures and ideologies can clash, commingle and cross-pollinate," has been developing a play about the passionate and tragic romance between American dancer Isadora Duncan and Russian poet Sergei Esenin for over ten years, including the last five years with Playwrights' Center affiliated writer Adam Kraar. It's a fascinating story about two fascinating people, their art, and their turbulent relationship. Dancing on the Edge is an intense and lovely play filled with movement and poetry.

"Bars and Measures" at the Jungle Theater

I've only recently become aware of what an incredible resource we have in The Playwrights' Center, located right here in Minneapolis (even if there are occasional bats in the performance space). PWC fosters new playwrights and supports experienced playwrights, helping them to develop new work through various programs, workshops, and readings. Much of this work ends up on the stage, not just here in the Twin Cities but around the country. This spring saw the local premiere of three plays developed at the Playwrights' Center, The Changlings, Scapegoat, and Le Switch. The latter was at the Jungle Theater, which is following that up with another new play by a Playwrights' Center playwright, Idris Goodwin's Bars and Measures. The Jungle's production is one of four around the country in the National New Play Network's Rolling World Premiere. It's a sharp, intense, lyrical, topical play, and in my completely unbiased opinion, I cannot imagine a better production of it than the Jungle's with this incredible cast, director, and technical team.

"Sons of the Prophet" at Park Square Theatre

"You are far greater than you know, and all is well." In the 2012 Pulitzer Prize finalist Sons of the Prophet, the members of the Lebanese-American Douaihy family cling to this quote from their distant relation Khalil Gibran like a lifeline in the midst of their suffering. The also idolize the Lebanese Saint Rafqa, a 19th Century nun who prayed for suffering so she could feel closer to God. Being raised Catholic, I'm familiar with the idea of suffering as virtue, and I don't buy it. Suffering is not something to be sought after, it doesn't make us more pious. But let's face it, suffering is a part of life. We all suffer in different immeasurable ways. The suffering itself is not a virtue, rather it's how we're able to get through it and who we are on the other side that matters. The Douaihy brothers endure their suffering with humor and compassion in this play full of quirkily endearing characters that ends with no resolution, only a promise of more suffering, and more life.

Fringe Festival 2015: "Ferguson, USA"

Day: 8

Show: 35

Title: Ferguson, USA

Category: Drama

By: Random Walk Theatre Company

Written by: Maxwell Collyard

Location: U of M Rarig Center Arena

Summary: An intensely powerful play about the shooting of black teenager Michael Brown by a white cop in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014.

Highlights: Maxwell Collyard has written a powerful and thought-provoking play, weaving together scenes of the shooting and its aftermath with spoken word poetry, tied together with the recitation of what everyone agrees on: "who, what, when, where." The harder one to grasp is "why." The strong four-person cast (Andrew Erskine Wheeler, Ashe Jaafaru, Brid Henry, and Talief Bennet) plays multiple people involved, including a brother and sister who knew Michael, the cop who shot him, and FBI agents who may or may not be trying to get to the truth. I ended up seeing this show because the one I intended to see was sold out, and I'm glad I got the opportunity to witness this well-executed piece that tackles some important and difficult questions, without ever preaching to the audience or providing pat answers.