"A Taste of Things to Come" at Lyric Arts

Lyric Arts is starting off 2025 with a fun and feel-good musical about a group of suburban women in the 1950s, and how their lives (and the lives of all American women) changed in a decade time jump into the '60s. Although a line towards the end of the play reminds us of just how far we haven't come and how much work there is yet to do, the musical celebrates women, their friendship, and their accomplishments in broad brush strokes. The winning cast comprised of mostly newish performers portrays a tight bond and even tighter harmonies on this fun original score tinged with the sounds of the '50s and '60s, accompanied by an all-female band. Get A Taste of Things to Come at Lyric Arts on Anoka's Main Street through February 9, and maybe it'll spark deeper conversations and continued hard work to continue to make lives better for women in this decade and into the next.

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2024: "Playing Dead"

Day: 5

Show: 16

Title: Playing Dead

Category: Comedy

By: Kari Heistad

Written by: Kari Heistad

Location: Mixed Blood Theatre

Summary: A woman and her two daughters gather to prepare for her mother's funeral, when one of the daughters seems to be possessed by the dead woman's spirit.

Highlights: Grief does strange things to people. In this family dramedy, it makes a granddaughter pretend to be possessed by her recently deceased grandmother's spirit. Or maybe she really is possessed, or maybe she's having a nervous breakdown, or maybe she's just an eccentric actor (she also occasionally channels Lady Macbeth). Either way, the play explores mother/daughter and sister/sister relationships in a funny, real, and relatable way. The three women tell stories, bicker, and make up after a health scare. Written and directed by Kari Heistad, the talented three-person cast feels like a real family, with all the love and frustration that comes with it. #TCTheater veteran Meri Golden (you can see her play the title role in Theatre in the Round's King Lear this fall) is wonderful as the family matriarch, Laura Carlson is a hoot as the eccentric daughter and her grandmother, and Natosha Guldan is convincing as the serious stable daughter who feels like she's taken for granted. With more set pieces than usual at a fringe show, we feel like we're in this homey living room for all the fun family dysfunction.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.