"For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday" by Prime Productions at Mixed Blood Theatre

Now in their 8th season of telling stories about women in their prime (at a time when we start to become invisible in society), Prime Productions is bringing us the regional premiere of Sarah Ruhl's For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday. Playwright Sarah Ruhl wrote this play for and about her mother, Chicago theater actor Kathleen Ruhl, who, like the character Ann in the play, played Peter Pan in an Iowa production and met Mary Martin (read more about that here). In this fictionalized version of her mother's life, Sarah explores ideas of family relationships, grief, loss, religion, faith, politics, and what it means to grow up (and do we have to?). It's an engaging and relatable 90 minutes. See it at Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis' Cedar-Riverside neighborhood now through October 26.

"Significant Other" at Lyric Arts

The 2017 Broadway play Significant Other had its regional premiere at Six Points Theater in 2020, just before the pandemic shuttered theaters for 18 months, and five years later this funny, poignant, relatable play is worth a revisit. Lyric Arts has programmed it as the penultimate show of what has turned out to be an excellent 2024-2025 season, and has found the perfect director, design team, and cast to put their stamp on this well-written play. Significant Other is about, well, finding a significant other. Society put so much pressure on us to be coupled, a pressure that our protagonist Jordan feels increasingly strongly as he watches his friends get married. I didn't think it was possible, but I loved this second experience with the play even more than the first. It's a perfect cohesion of script, direction, design, and performance that made me both laugh and cry - my favorite kind of show. See Significant Other at Lyric Arts in Anoka Thursdays through Sundays until June 22, and start your summer theater season off right.

"The Wanderers" at Six Points Theater

Fresh from a successful Off-Broadway run, the new play The Wanderers by Anna Ziegler opened at Six Points Theater last weekend. The compelling story of two seemingly different couples is well told by this cast and creative team. The thought-provoking and relatable play explores themes of marriage, the parent/child relationship, identity, and legacy. The Wanderers continues at Six Points Theater's home in the Highland Park Community Center in St. Paul through May 14.

"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. 

"The Mousetrap" at Lyric Arts

The world's longest running play has arrived in Anoka! Agatha Christie's murder mystery Mousetrap opened in London's West End in 1952 and has run continuously ever since (not counting the covid intermission). Lyric Arts's new production opens this weekend, and it's delightful. I had never seen the play before, so I was in the wonderful position of not knowing whodunit, until the murderer was finally revealed to audible gasps from the audience. It's less scary than spookily fun, as the audience tries to figure out whom to trust and whom to suspect amongst these unique and specific characters who come together in a boarding house just outside of London. Christie's popular and well-plotted (if a few too many coincidences) story, along with this talented cast and spot-on design, make for an entertaining evening on a chilly Minnesota night.

"Miracle on Christmas Lake" at Yellow Tree Theatre

Gather round, children, this is one of my favorite stories in #TCTheater. Not that long ago, in a land not too far away, a couple moved home to Minnesota from NYC to start a theater company. Shortly after doing so, the rights to the holiday* show they were planning were pulled a few weeks before rehearsal was set to begin. Luckily, one of them was a playwright, so she wrote a play. That play was a comedy about a couple that moved to a small town in Minnesota from NYC to run a theater company, when the rights to their holiday play were pulled the night before opening. They say write what you know, and Jessica Lind Peterson did just that, to great success. She mixed her and Yellow Tree Theatre co-founder Jason Peterson's story together with Minnesota humor, soap operas, Little House on the Prairie, a handful of quirky characters, and a bearded dragon, put it all in a crock pot to simmer, and something delicious was born. Now, ten years later, Yellow Tree's holiday show is a huge hit every year and anchors their season to be able to produce some extraordinary and diverse work year-round. There have been two installments of Miracle on Christmas Lake, as well as two stand-alone plays A Hunting Shack Christmas (which you can see this December at Camp Bar produced by Actors Theater of Minnesota) and A Gone Fishin' Christmas. For their 11th season they're returning to where it all began, the original Miracle on Christmas Lake with most of the original cast. This was my 6th time seeing some iteration of the Christmas Lake franchise, and I love the silly, ridiculous, sweet, wonderful mess even more each time I see it. The show continues through the end of December, but as I mentioned it's always hugely popular, so get your tickets soon!

"Natasha and the Coat" by Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company at Highland Park Center Theatre

For the final show of their 23rd season, Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company is bringing us the world premiere of a new play. LA-based playwright (and Playwrights' Center affiliated writer) Deborah Stein's Natasha and the Coat is an engaging look at a Hasidic Jewish family in the neighborhood of Williamsburg in early 21st Century Brooklyn, as well as the garment industry in that neighborhood. It touches on themes of immigration, gentrification, and how to maintain one's culture and traditions while still functioning in modern American society. While it could use a little tightening up (it's lacking in momentum in parts, and feels too long at 2.5+ hours), the likable and believable cast make it worthwhile.

Fringe Festival 2016: "For Worse"

Day: 8

Show: 37

Title: For Worse

Category: Comedy

By: Theatre Unbound

Written by: Anne Bertram

Location: Mixed Blood Theatre

Summary: Two interrelated monologues by a husband and a wife, pondering marriage and life.

Highlights: Written by Theatre Unbound's Executive Director Anne Bertram and co-starring Theatre Unbound's Aristic Director Stacey Poirier, For Worse is a funny and poignant look at two sides of a marriage. But don't worry, my fellow singletons, it's not really about marriage, but more about life. And what happens when you realize your life isn't what you thought it would be. Greg (Edward Linder) begins to feel guilty about his job, which is to figure out the "best" people to lay off, and is reminded of his father. Michelle (Stacey Poirier) turns her substitute teaching gig about The Lord of the Flies into a therapy session in which she comes to the decision that she needs to leave her husband. With excellent performances by both actors (and a few audience recruits who threatened to steal the show), this is a funny and insightful portrait of two complicated people.