31 Days of Theater (You're Gonna Love Mayyyyy)

I don't need to tell you, loyal theatergoers, how important it is to support the arts and arts funding in these incredibly challenging times.

However, even as loyal theatergoers ourselves, we were delighted to see how incredible the theater offerings this May are, and reminded us what an amazing theater community we have here in the Twin Cities. (Naturally, check the website for dates/times.)

So without further ado, 31 Days of May Theater!

May 1: Fun Home at Theater Latte Da - A gorgeous production of the Tony-winning musical with a fantastic cast. (April 2 - through May 11)

May 2: Scarecrow on Fire at Illusion Theater - A take on the Oz story by Kevin Kling with another all-star cast: Dan Chouinard, Simone Perrin, Stephen Yoakam, and Kling. (April 25 - May 4)

May 3: The Nut, The Hermit, The Crow and The Monk at New Native Theatre - This comedy follows a zillennial brother and sister on a journey to heal from generational boarding school trauma, inspired by The Odyssey and Alice in Wonderland set to the soundtrack of Dark Side of the Moon! (April 16 - May 4)

May 4: Muyehpen by Exposed Brick Theatre - Written by Ehkhudah Zar, this is the first-ever theater production by a Knyaw playwright in the U.S. and shares the story of Muyehpen with a new generation. (performed in Worthington on May 4 only)

May 5: Sister Act at Lyric Arts - The entire run of this based-on-the-movie musical is completely sold out, which is a good reminder not to sleep on hot shows! (April 11 - May 11)

May 6: Joyful Noise at Bucket Brigade Theater - The unbelievably true tale of the unlikely origin of Handel’s Messiah by this charming theater, performed in an old church. (April 25 - May 10)

May 7: Sickle at Theatre Novi Most - A "pastoral apocalyptic" tale of four women attempting to survive a Russian-made famine in Ukraine. Amazing cast, includes Ukrainian supertitles. (May 1 - May 10)

May 8: The Lightning Thief at Stages Theatre Company - Musical based on the Percy Jackson books by Rick Riordan with a delightful young cast and ingenious staging. (April 11- May 11)

May 9: Waitress at Artistry - Production of the Broadway musical by Sara Bareilles with the usual Artistry artistry and skill. (April 17 - May 11)

May 10: Bart and Arnie by Melancholics Anonymous - Two pals making their way in the city. Existential dread and friendship. Puppets. Modern Dance. Whimsy. The financial difficulties of living in the big city and the highs and lows of art and commerce. (May 9 - May 18)

May 11: The Rainbow Connection: A Cabaret at the Hive Collaborative - It's time to play the music and light the lights with The Rainbow Connection - a cabaret of all things Muppety! Join us to laugh, cry laugh more, and sing along to your favorite Muppet tunes. Bring your Muppet Show knowledge to try and stump our expert! 

May 12: When We Are Found at Penumbra Theatre - Love’s newest fable is an achingly poignant and sometimes funny meditation on the passage of time and the persistence of love — and a hopeful prayer that what we seek finds us. (April 24 - May 18)

May 13: The Mousetrap at Guthrie Theater - Agatha Christie's murder mystery, the longest-running play in the West End. (March 15 -  May 18)

May 14: An Act of God at Six Points Theater - Four words: Sally Wingert as God. Also, written by the head writer of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. (May 3 - May 18)

May 15: The Last Day of Pompeii: A New Musical at Gnarly Bard Theater - Road trip to St. Cloud and step into the shadows of history in The Last Day of Pompeii, a gripping new musical set in the heart of a city teetering on the brink of destruction. (May 5 - 18)

May 16: mixtape: adrift: true stories of being lost in the sauce by Wayward Theatre Company - An intimate collection of humorous to harrowing stories of folks who are looking for their way, delving for the answers and seeking a deeper understanding of themselves and this wild and weird world we all stumble through. (May 15 - 17)

May 17: & Juliet at Hennepin Arts - See the tour of the Broadway show that asks what would happen next if Juliet didn’t end it all over Romeo? (May 13 - May 18)

May 18: Three Sisters/No Sisters at Theatre Pro Rata - A new adaptation of Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov alongside No Sisters, a clever companion piece by Aaron Posner. Performed simultaneously! (May 9 - 24)

May 19: Puppet Lab Festival at Open Eye Theatre - A 2-week festival of radical, genre-expanding, boundary–pushing puppet work, the culmination of a 6-month development residency for emerging puppetry and mask artists.

May 20: The Nacirema Society Requests the Honor of Your Presence at a Celebration of Their First One Hundred Years at Guthrie Theater - Among the fantastic cast: Aimee K. Bryant, Joy Dolo, Darrick Mosley, Greta Oglesby, Regina Marie Williams. I mean, come ON. (April 20-  May 25)

May 21: Lolek by Open Window Theatre - Lolek brings to life the captivating story of Karol Wojtyla (later Pope John Paul II) and his heroic resistance to the Nazi Occupation of Poland as a young man during the Second World War. April 25 - May 25)

May 22: Berlin to Rugen at the Phoenix Theater - A new one-man show by Michael Rogers, writer and director of “As Above, So Below” (winner of Minnesota Fringe Artist Pick award and the What the Fringe!? - Best Drama award).  (May 21 - 24)

May 23: The Improvised Sword & Sorcery Campaign by The Bearded Company - In this award-winning improvised fantasy campaign, The Bearded Company will tell you a tale you won't soon forget. (May 22 - 24)

May 24: Violet at Ten Thousand Things - A young woman embarks on a cross-country bus trip in search of a televangelist she believes can cure a scar on her face. Always inventive, always inclusive, love TTT. (April 23 - June 1)

May 25: Whoa, Nellie! The Outlaw King of the Wild Middle West at History Theatre - Tells the rip-roaring musical tale of Nellie King, the “wily and scandalous female cowboy detective” whose countless criminal exploits and penchant for male attire made her an 1800s Minnesota media icon. (May 17 - June 8)

May 26: Between Riverside and Crazy at Park Square Theater - Pulitzer Prize-winning dark comedy from Stephen Adly Guirgis, this play explores family bonds, resilience, and the harsh realities of life in modern New York City. (May 14 - June 8)

May 27: NOOMA, An Opera for Babies at Ordway Center - NOOMA is an invitation into a vocal circus, a space where sounds, words, gestures and objects are offered, mimicked and transformed as we delight in the joy of making music together. Part of the Flint Hills Family Festival.

May 28: Ode to Walt Whitman at Open Eye Theatre - Bart Buch’s acclaimed ODE TO WALT WHITMAN is a tender, silent puppet poem that uncovers a dialogue between Walt Whitman and Federico Garcia Lorca

May 29: Matt & Ben at the Hive Collaborative - Before Good Will Hunting. Before J-Lo (both times). Before all those f*cking Bourne movies. They were just two best friends... (May 30 - June 30)

May 30: Significant Other at Lyric Arts - Directed by Max Wojtanowicz and diving into the complexities of modern relationships with humor and heart, SIGNIFICANT OTHER is a candid and charming exploration of all types of love. (May 30- June 22)

May 31: Sixpack at Jungle Theater - With a backdrop of the competitive world of Hmong volleyball, SIXPACK explores if a friendship can withstand the harms, betrayals, and messiness that happen when you feel your life pulling away from the future you envisioned. (May 31 - June 29)

The Birds by TheatreX at The Hive

As longtime fans of gothic horror, we were really anticipating TheatreX's production of The Birds. We loved their production of The Haunting of Hill House performed at the James J. Hill House (!!) in 2018, which had the best sound design we've ever heard in a show locally (we called it "staggeringly effective.")  

 

TheatreX also did a terrific Frost/Nixon in 2024 at Landmark Center. The Birds is presented at our neighborhood theater: The Hive Collaborative and being able to walk to theater = priceless.

We saw The Birds originally at the Guthrie Theater, which commissioned the play and held its North American Premiere in 2012. Written by Conor McPherson, the play is based on a short story by Daphne du Maurier, which was also adapted into an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

The play bears very little resemblance to du Maurier's 1952 story, which has some interesting reverberations to the present. As farmhand Nat works to secure his family from the bird onslaught, he contemplates how government will respond: 

"Maybe they’ll try spraying with gas, mustard gas. We’ll be warned first, of course, if they do. There’s one thing, the best brains of the country will be onto it tonight.”  Somehow the thought reassured him. He had a picture of scientists, naturalists, technicians, and all those chaps they called the back-room boys, summoned to a council; they’d be working on the problem now. This was not a job for the government, for the chiefs of staff—they would merely carry out the orders of the scientists.

Later, as they realize all radio communications have stopped:

The tapping began at the windows, at the door. The rustling, the jostling, the pushing for position on the sills. The first thud of the suicide gulls upon the step.  “Won’t America do something?” said his wife. “They’ve always been our allies, haven’t they? Surely America will do something?”  Nat did not answer.

The play also bears little resemblance to Alfred Hitchcock's film, which STILL causes me to walk a little more quickly when I see more than four birds resting on a telephone wire. Also, it's hard to forget  the famous behind-the-scenes story of Hitch whipping birds at poor Tippi Hedren. 

But here's the deal: Although Conor McPherson has a great reputation for atmospheric, slightly supernatural, contemplative thrillers, his script for The Birds is a bit of a dud. One of the most chilling elements of both du Maurier's story and Hitchcock's movie is the creeping dread. Birds are a normal, everyday sight in the world. When they start to mass and then to unexplainably attack, it's truly horrifying. 

Rather than building up to disaster, McPherson places his characters in the middle of an unexplained catastrophe where birds, apparently all over the world, are massing to attack humans. Two strangers who met on the road are holed up in an abandoned house. Nat (Tim Reddy) suffers from a fever as Diane (Kari Elizabeth Godfrey) listens to the last-ever radio broadcast, in which the participants are trying to report overwhelming events as they are happening. When the signal goes out, it's understood that there will be no more broadcasts. 

As the two get to know each other (she's a writer, he's had mental health issues), they are constantly aware of the ominous sounds of birds flapping their wings, flying into the sides of the house and the boarded-up windows, and walking across the roof. Or in the house?? The fantastic sound design by Forest Godfrey, especially in the first act, is chilling and claustrophobic. The audience feels the same tension as the characters, with the sounds of marauding birds coming from all around the theater. You couldn't help but look at various corners of the theater just to be sure that the birds weren't coming in. 

Diane and Nat are settling into a routine of wary cohabitation and venturing out to scavenge for food and fuel, when they are joined by Julia (Ankita Ashrit), a girl who claims to have escaped from an attacker in the previous group she was sheltering with. As Julia sets her sights on Nat, the domestic routine is unsettled and secrets abound. Unfortunately, although the tensions rise among the three, the pace lags. There's very little sense of urgency despite the real dangers of bird attacks, unfriendly survivors, and starvation. Instead, the story leans into love triangles and a rather cliched interpersonal development. Even a visit by a potentially menacing survivor doesn't help ratchet up the tension. 

TheatreX's website calls McPherson's The Birds a "gripping and unsettling look at human relationships in the face of societal collapse" and I wish it was. Although the play brings up questions of loyalty and morality, such as whether it's different to kill someone than to let them die, it doesn't really do anything with those questions. We are left with the survivors still struggling against an unfathomable and inescapable enemy, just hoping to live for another day. Maybe the banality and helplessness of that struggle is just too close to home right now.

Secret Warriors at History Theatre

Secret Warriors, a new play commissioned by the History Theatre (running through April 19), does what the History Theatre does best: focuses in on a particular element of history with a Minnesota connection. This World War II-set play, written by R.A. Shiomi and directed by Lily Tung Crystal, brings to light the stories of the Japanese Americans who were recruited to serve as translators and interpreters in service to the American military.

This play is set during a particularly shameful chapter of American history when, in February 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt cited military necessity as the basis for incarcerating over 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II, regardless of birth or citizenship status. While their families have lost their businesses and livelihoods and are living in camps, these men have come to Minnesota to attend the Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS) and serve the country that has incarcerated their families. 

"They are the warriors you don’t know. Inspired by the stories of the Japanese Americans who served as translators and interrogators for the U.S. Armed Forces, Secret Warriors features two men, Koji Kimura and Tamio Takahashi, who took extraordinary risks to save their fellow soldiers in the Pacific Theater during World War II. As the eyes and ears of General MacArthur, they saved countless Allied lives and shortened the war by two years. Discover their compelling personal journeys and heartfelt love stories set against the backdrop of the war and the incarceration of their families." (History Theatre)

In the first act, we meet a group of recruits as they attend the language school at Camp Savage in Minnesota. Koji Kimura (Clay Man Soo), Tamio Takahashi (Erik Ohno Dagoberg), Masa Matsui (Song Kim), and Isamu Oikawa (Josh Kwon) are studying hard and constantly monitored by Lt. Jeff Nelson (Paul LaNave), who demands they keep up with latrine cleaning and KP duty when they're not studying. Though the four come from very different worlds, they band together to help one another pass. A welcome respite for Koji and Tamio comes when they spend an evening at the Minneapolis USO and meet Natsuko Nishi (Stephanie Anne Bertumen) and Denise Murphy (Kendall Kent). Their wartime romances make it even more difficult to leave when they receive their overseas placements. 

The second act follows the soldiers through the war and beyond. From being unable to go up on deck (and threatened) on their ship overseas to going into incredibly dangerous situations, the stories of these brave heroes are even more poignant considering that everything they did remained a secret until many years later. Not only that, but their efforts did not provide any relief or comfort to their incarcerated families.  

Hey, by the way! Did you know that the antiquated law that enabled President Franklin D. Roosevelt to authorize the Japanese internment camps was The Alien Enemies Act of 1798? Sound familiar? It should, because the current federal administration is using it to deport legal and illegal immigrants without due process. Speaking of shameful chapters in American History . . .

(L-R) Erik Ohno Dagoberg, Josh Kwon, Clay Man Soo,
Song Kim. Photo by Rick Spaulding. 

The cast of Secret Warriors is universally excellent. Erik Ohno Dagoberg is a engaging hero as Tamio, whose streetwise spark contrasts with Clay Man Soo's initially innocent farmer boy. The two also have marvelous chemistry with their respective loves, Kendall Kent and Stephanie Anne Bertumen. Rich Remedios, with his rich voice and bearing, is another standout in distinctly different roles as their teacher John Aiso, and as a Japanese military leader who is questioned by Koji. 

We stayed for the "Afterthoughts" talk back and learned quite a bit about the creation of the play. We would have not known to shout out Rio Saito, their Japanese Language Consultant, but we definitely do after hearing the work they put into teaching non-Japanese speakers to speak so authentically in Japanese. I loved how naturally they flowed from Japanese to English and how captions were not used. Why should we as English speakers always have language spoon fed to us? It was also fascinating to hear of the organizations that are holding and sharing this history in the Twin Cities who assisted with this play.

As Lily Tung Crystal says in her director's note: "These soldiers faced an extraordinary contradiction. They were asked to prove their loyalty to a nation that has turned its back on them. They fought on two fronts--one against an enemy abroad, the other against racism at home. Their contributions were critical to the war effort, yet for decades, their service has remained largely unrecognized."

Thanks to the History Theatre and the cast and creators of Secret Warriors for shining a light on the stories of these heroic soldiers as well as the stories of incarcerated Japanese Americans. 

If you'd like to learn more about the incarceration of Japanese Americans in World War II, a great source is Densho, an organization that is dedicated to "preserving Japanese American stories of the past for the generations of tomorrow." 

And if you'd like even more reasons why preserving and telling these stories is so important, see the article "The Rise and Threats of Digital Erasure in Public Memory" on Densho's website, which gives an example of how the current federal administration is attempting to remove race from American history.

Triassic Parq by Minneapolis Musical Theatre

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: If you want to see “rare musicals, well done” (their mission), you have to check out Minneapolis Musical Theatre. We’ve followed them for years and they excel in presenting fun, quirky, and heartfelt productions of musicals you won’t see anywhere else.

Their current show, Triassic Parq, performed at Lush Lounge and Theater through April 13, is so tremendously rare, we've never even heard of it. And to be honest? It's a little bananas. It's about dinosaurs and gender, and faith and science, and it's utterly filled with chaos and camp. We've never seen anything like it. 

Life of Pi National Tour at the Orpheum Theatre

Life of Pi was originally a Booker Prize-winning 2001 novel by Yann Martel, which was also made into a 2012 film by Ang Lee. The play, adapted by Lolita Chakrabarti, had successful runs in London's West End and then on Broadway. Now, the national tour of the play has opened at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis, playing through March 9.

Taha Mandviwala as 'Pi' and puppeteers Anna Leigh Gortner,

Shiloh Goodin and Toussaint Jeanlouis as 'Richard Parker'

in the National Tour of LIFE OF PI. 

Photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade.

Loudly, Clearly, Beautifully at The Hive

Loudly, Clearly, Beautifully, playing at The Hive Collaborative through January 31, lives up to its name. In this self-penned one-woman show, Elena Glass shares the story of her father's Multiple Sclerosis (MS) diagnosis when she was a young teen, and how his decline defined her family and her life for 16 years. 

Parade Tour at Hennepin Arts (Orpheum Theatre)

Three days after Donald Trump was sworn in for his second term as President, the North American tour of Parade had its official premiere at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis. The theme of injustice in America seemed terribly fitting.

Max Chernin (center) as Leo Frank with the
Company of Parade. Photo by Joan Marcus.

 
With a book by Alfred Uhry and music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown (who was in attendance), Parade follows the true story of a Jewish factory superintendent who in 1913 was accused of murdering a factory worker, 13-year-old Mary Phagan. The musical originally premiered on Broadway in 1998 and won Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Original Score (out of nine nominations). Despite positive reviews, the show ran only 84 performances on Broadway, followed by a U.S. tour.