"Pickup Truck Opera Volume 5: The Return of King Idomeneo" by Mixed Precipitation at Silverwood Park

It's time for one of my favorite #TCTheater summer traditions - Mixed Precipitation's Pickup Truck Opera! It's exactly what it sounds like - opera that operates out of a pickup truck. Well, sort of. Since the pandemic they've moved away from their "picnic operetta" with passed trays of food into this more portable show, driving all around the state in a 2011 Blue Ford pickup truck loaded with sets and props and instruments, bringing their unique brand of accessible and fun opera / pop music mashups to communities around Minnesota. In this year's Volume 5, they're mashing up Mozart's Idomeneo, about the aftermath of the Trojan War, with pop music from '50s and '60s. And they also modernize the story and make it more modern and relevant. The result is pure joy, and just an absolute delight to experience! As one audience member described it, "it's part opera, part silly play." If that sounds appealing to you, click here to find an outdoor location near you (continuing through September 14).

""Pickup Truck Opera Volume 4: Faust" by Mixed Precipitation at Silverwood Park

Mixed Precipitation's Pickup Truck Opera is back for the fourth year. Their unique mashing up of a classic opera with a particular genre of pop music, performed outside in parks all around the state of Minnesota, is a delightful #TCTheater summer tradition. They make opera accessible and fun. With a modern adaptation of the story, the opera bits are performed in the original language (in Charles Gounod's Faust - French) with surtitles charmingly displayed on scrolls manually revealed. And the pop songs (here the songs of '80s British band Depeche Mode) are well chosen to fit into the story. It all adds up to a lot of fun, especially when you have a perfect late summer evening. The Pickup Truck Opera (yes, there is an actual pickup truck) continues it's journey around Minnesota through September 15 - click here to find a location near you.

"Pickup Truck Opera Volume 3: Romeo and Juliet" by Mixed Precipitation at Loppet Trailhead

One of #TCTheater's favorite summer traditions is here! After years of presenting a "picnic operetta," Mixed Precipitation has switched to the "pickup truck opera" format, which is basically the same except for no passed snacks, and there's a pickup truck. A 2011 blue Ford pickup truck to be exact. Previously they've performed in and around the pickup, in addition to using it to haul the show around the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota, but this year it sits on the sidelines (although it does enter the show at one point). What's consistent through the years of outdoor performances is a fun and accessible production of a classic opera mashed up with pop songs, retold in a playful and modern way. So pack a picnic, grab a lawn chair, and find a performance of Romeo and Juliet (a mashup of Bellini and Fleetwood Mac) close to you! Even if you live in northern MN, the Pickup Truck Opera is coming for you! (Click here for schedule and to make reservations.)

"Falsettos" by Morris Park Players at Edison High School

There's a ton of great community theater in the Twin Cities, but I don't get to see much of it because I'm kept more than busy attending shows by the plethora of professional #TCTheater companies. But when the only local theater to do Falsettos (in my recent memory) is a community theater, I'm there. The 1992 multiple Tony winner had a successful Broadway revival a few years ago, and I fell in love with this messy and real love story when I saw the filmed version in a movie theater, and the subsequent tour. I just happened to see that Morris Park Players, a Northeast Minneapolis-based company that has been around for 70 years, was doing Falsettos, and I was lucky enough to catch their final performance. This is not an easy musical, think Sondheim-level complicated lyrics and rhythms, and I was super impressed with MPP first for choosing it, and secondly for the way they handled the material with energy, skill, and heart. It looks like they do one or two shows a year, so I'll be watching for their next choice. You can too (follow them on Facebook here), or better yet, find out what community theater is performing in your neighborhood and give them your support!

"A Pickup Truck Opera; Volume One: The Odyssey" by Mixed Precipitation at Various Outdoor Locations

While Mixed Precipitation's annual tradition of the "picnic operetta" is on hold due to the pandemic, last year they premiered a new fun and accessible opera mash-up experience - the Pickup Truck Opera. Driving a 2011 royal blue Ford pickup to parks around and outside of the Twin Cities, and performing out of the bed of the truck (have opera - will travel), they mash up Monteverdi's 17th Century opera The Return of Ulysses to his Homeland with the songs of Dolly Parton. Last year they teased us with Episode 3, but this year they're presenting the full three-episode saga, and as always with this troupe, it's sheer delight. I caught them near the end of their two-month run in a nearby park, but you can still see them today at Cedar Lake, next weekend in Hastings, or their closing weekend September 11-12 in St. Paul and Minneapolis (see details and schedule here).

"A Pickup Truck Opera; Volume One: The Odyssey; Episode Three, The Song of Telemaco" by Mixed Precipitation at Various Outdoor Locations

One of my favorite summer #TCTheater traditions is Mixed Precipitation's delightfully playful mash-up of classic opera and pop music, performed outdoors with passed small bites of delicious food. While the "Picnic Operetta" (which I've attended for the last six years) is on hiatus this year due to the pandemic, Mixed Precipitation is still bringing us fun and and accessible outdoor opera in the form of what they're calling "Pickup Truck Opera." In a 2011 royal blue Ford pickup, they've been "popping up" all over the Twin Cities with their 25-minute performance of yet another opera/pop mash-up. I was lucky enough to catch one of their 11 performances, at a little not-park in St. Paul on a perfectly gorgeous fall afternoon. Their final two performances will be as part of Park Square Theatre and Steppingstone Theatre's "Family Day Out" event on October 25.

"The Clemency of Tito's Tennis Club: A Picnic Operetta" by Mixed Precipitation at Tony Schmidt Regional Park

Combine classic opera, pop music, and tasty treats made from freshly harvested veggies, and what do you get? Mixed Precipitation's annual picnic operetta. This year, Artistic Director Scotty Reynolds, with help from Music Director/ Arranger/ Conductor Gary Ruschman, has adapted one of Mozart's last operas La Clemenza di Tito, setting it in a tennis tournament and adding '80s pop songs. A talented cast of professional opera singers and adorably enthusiastic children present this unique creation in about 75 minutes in the great outdoors. Even when some actual precipitation causes an unplanned intermission and move underneath a park pavilion, the experience is a one-of-a-kind delight. This intrepid company travels around the state performing at parks and gardens; click here to find a location near you.

"Dr. Falstaff and the Working Wives of Lake County: A Picnic Operetta" by Mixed Precipitation at the Dodge Nature Center

Cooler weather, back to school sales, and the Minnesota State Fair may signal the end of summer, but one of #TCTheater's summer highlights is in full swing. This is my 5th year attending Mixed Precipitation's annual picnic operetta (now celebrating their 10th anniversary), and if you haven't seen them yet you're missing out on a unique delight. Mixing classic opera, pop music, and Minnesota's bountiful harvest, they perform a charming show outdoors while feeding the audience throughout the show. What's better than that?! For this year's opera, Artistic Director Scotty Reynolds has adapted German composer Otto Nicolai's 1849 opera Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (based on Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor), setting it on the Iron Range in the '70s at the time of the foundation of the EPA, adding in songs by Bruce Springsteen. The result is exactly as weird and wonderful as that sounds. It's playful, fun, outdoors, and did I mention they feed you?! Playing in gardens and parks around the state, from Lake County to Winona (including several locations in the Twin Cities area), you're not going to want to miss this unique theatrical and culinary delight.

"Philemon and Baucis: Planet in Peril" by Mixed Precipitation at Dodge Nature Center

One of my favorite summer #TCTheater traditions is Mixed Precipitation's annual picnic operetta, in which one can enjoy classic opera, pop songs, the great outdoors, and delicious food. For their ninth summer operetta (the fourth I've attended), Mixed Precipitation has chosen Austrian composer Joseph Haydn's Philemon and Baucis, a piece so rare it doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. Written and directed by Scotty Reynolds, this timely treatise on a Planet in Peril is a delightful mash-up of beautiful German-language opera and the songs of Queen, with five delicious courses of small bites passed throughout the 70-minute show. Playing at parks and gardens throughout the Twin Cities and beyond, it's a unique opportunity to enjoy all that late summer in Minnesota has to offer (click here to find a location near you).

"What Fools These Mortals Be" by Interact Theater at the Lab Theater

Interact Center for Visual and Performing Arts is celebrating 20 years of "creating art that challenges perceptions of disability." In one of the finest examples of inclusivity in theater, Interact provides opportunities for artists with disabilities to share their work, which allows the audience to see beyond the disability to the artist and the art that they create. I attended a performance by Interact Theater for the first time this weekend, a mish-mash of Shakespeare plays called What Fools These Mortals Be, written by and starring beloved local storyteller extraordinaire Kevin Kling. I was completely charmed by the performance. It's such a beautiful thing to see people of various abilities working together to create art. What Fools is filled with much humor and heart, and a spirit of playfulness often lacking in Shakespeare. Ten Thousand Things shows us that "theater is better when everyone is in the audience," and Interact shows us that theater is better when everyone is on the stage.

"Escape from Alcina's Island" by Mixed Precipitation at Falcon Heights Community Garden

For another installment of summer outdoor theater in Minnesota, we have Mixed Precipitation. Every summer they deliver something they like to call a "picnic operetta," which is just what it sounds like - a little light opera with food. Perhaps the "mixed" in this company's name refers to the mixture of food, music, theater, and the outdoors, perhaps it refers to the mixture of classic operetta with pop music. Either way it's a fun, charming, delightful, and yummy example of the outdoor theater that can be had in Minnesota. And even better - they travel around to area parks and gardens, so you can likely find a performance near you.

Handel's opera Alcina, about a seductive sorceress (Carolyn Cavadini) who lures Ruggiero (Dan Piering) away from his beloved Bradamante (Maggie Lofboom) with the help of her sister Morgana (Lizz Windnagel), has been transformed into a story of truckers on the road (adaptation by Director Scotty Reynolds and Music Director Marya Hart). This allows them to bring in some great old Country-Western road and heartbreak songs like "Six Days on the Road," "Heartaches by the Number," "The Race is On," and the classic George and Tammy duet "We're Gonna Hold On." It's great fun to hear these songs played by the four-piece classical/country orchestra, interspersed with Handel's lovely music sung mostly in Italian (with some surtitles charmingly rolled out by hand on a scroll to the left of the stage).

Morgana's Melon Margarita

There's nothing serious about this show, except that this cast can seriously sing. The show is loose and playful, performed with great enthusiasm by the large ensemble which includes several children and teens. Their Western attire adds to the fun and informality of this operetta. The acoustics aren't always great with the wind and the nearby soccer game, but that's part of the charm and spontaneity of outdoor theater.

Alcina's Antipasti

And then there's the food (created by Nick Schneider and Kimlinh Bui). The five courses are announced by the cast and somehow worked into the plot, usually as Alcina offers her guests hospitality. Each of the courses is a perfect little bite of flavor, all of them vegetarian and some of them vegan (make sure to ask about any dietary needs). Plates are passed among the crowd seated on the ground or in camp chairs as the show continues. So come hungry (but not too hungry, they are small bites).

Mixed Precipitation offers a unique, fun, and summery opportunity to enjoy good food and entertaining music-theater in your neighborhood park. I know it's mid-August, but summer in Minnesota isn't over yet so be sure to get in this last taste of outdoor theater before the snow falls! Performances continue at parks and gardens around the Twin Cities area and beyond - see their website for the full tour schedule.

the charming scene at the Picnic Operetta - the race is on!