"Ordinary Days" at St. Croix Festival Theatre

St. Croix Festival Theatre in St. Croix Falls Wisconsin is making it really hard for me not to cross state lines to see theater. Earlier this year I saw my first show there, the Kate Hamill-penned Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson, Apt. 2B, a modern, funny, and feminist adaptation of the classic detective stories. This weekend they're closing their three-week run of the rarely done musical Ordinary Days, which unfortunately opened during the Minnesota Fringe Festival so I was not able to see until the end of the run. It's a gorgeous gem of a musical, and they do a really lovely job with it. I saw Nautilus Music-Theater's Ivey Award-winning production of the show in 2013, just four years after its Off-Broadway premiere, and loved it, but to my knowledge no #TCTheater company has done it since. I will never understand why certain musicals are done over and over again but gems like this one are not done, even though this 90-minute musical with four performers and a keyboard is relatively easy to stage. So it was absolutely worth a short road trip to Wisconsin. But if you missed this show, their excellent season continues with An Iliad (a co-production with #TCTheater company Combustible Company, which will also be performed at the Southern Theater in Minneapolis), my favorite living playwright Lauren Gunderson's I and You (a play we haven't seen in #TCTheater yet, other than a virtual version during the pandemic), and concludes with Frosty: A Musical Adventure as their unique choice for the holidays. If St. Croix Festival Theatre continues to program plays and musicals I can't see in the Twin Cities, I'm going to keep making that beautiful drive across the river.

"Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson, Apt. 2B" at St. Croix Festival Theatre

St. Croix Festival Theatre has been performing in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, beside the beautiful St. Croix River, for 35 years. I've recently become aware of them; they've started inviting me to their shows and my blogger buddy The Stages of MN has been to a few shows. As appealing as it is, and as much as I love that theater exists outside of metro areas, it's hard for me to take a road trip to see theater when there's more theater in the Twin Cities than even I can see. But when they program a season that includes plays by Kate Hamill and Lauren Gunderson, as well as the rarely done gem of a musical Ordinary Days, it's nearly impossible for me to stay away! Since theater in the Twin Cities has slowed down a bit for the summer, I was able to make the scenic one-hour drive through darling Minnesota-Swedish towns to the charming river town of St. Croix Falls (just across the river from Taylors Falls). And now that I've been there, I'm going to make more of an effort to get back. The show that lured me there is Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson, Apt. 2B, a modern reimagining of the classic detective tales by Kate Hamill, the most produced playwright in America this season. Her plays have often been seen in the Twin Cities, including some local commissions, and they're always fresh, funny, feminist, modern, and cheekily theatrical. This one is no different, and Festival Theatre has assembled a talented four-person cast to bring this fun and clever play to life. It's playing for one more weekend (click here for tickets), followed by several more intriguing offerings this year (click here for season details).