Day: November 30, 2024

A Cruise-mas Carol From The Mystery Cafe Would Be a Crime to Miss

The Mystery Cafe’s new show A Cruise-mas Carol is like all of their shows I’ve seen, just good plain fun. You get a nice meal, in this case it’s like the meals on all cruise ships and served buffet style. An entertaining show filled with corny jokes and in this case a magic show. But wait! That’s not all, you also get to pit your wits against the writers of the show and try and guess the solution to the mystery. This time it’s not a murder but a theft and the thief could be anyone a member of the crew or a passenger. And there are prizes awarded to the most creative solutions as well as the Super Sleuth who solves the crime. Last year I gave The Mystery Cafe as Christmas gifts and I plan to do that again this year. It really is the perfect outing to spend with family and friends, everyone has a good laugh, and trying to solve the mystery together can be a great team building exercise for those business owners looking for something unique to try with their employees.

A Cruise-mas Carol was co-written by one of my favorite local Writer/Actor/Artistic Directors Nissa along with The Mystery Cafe Founder Brian Kelly. Nissa also brings her boundless energy and enthusiasm to the role of Sandy, the Ships Activity Director and Niece of the Captain. Pulling double duty as both DJ and Roger, the ships engineer, is another favorite of The Stages of MN Sam Landman. He plays the ships engineer as a Scotsman as all ship engineers should be, with a very passable and fun accent. His work on the soundboard is as important as his character role as there is a lot of laughs that come from sound cues. Always great to see Wini Froelich in a show, she plays a retired author and amatuer slueth Julia Flender, who is introduced with one of those above mention audio jokes, see if you can guess what it might be? Everyone in the cast of these shows is having a blast and that makes it fun for the audience as well. I did also want to acknowledge Ryan Robert Nelson who plays the ship’s Captain so openly and playfully silly. A special shout out to Markus Clegg who plays Randy the Remarkable, the magician who is the ships entertainment, his portion was really fun, particularly a shadow puppet sequence.

A Cruise-mas Carol runs through January 4th 2025 at the Majestic Oaks Golf Club in Ham Lake. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://www.themysterycafe.com/shows/now-playing. You’ll find info about all of their current shows there as well. The Mystery Cafe is also performing another holiday themed show this season which I saw last year called I’ll Be Homicidal For Christmas. This year it is being performed at a new location, The Sheraton Bloomington along with a few cast changes. Read my review from last years production, it’s a lot of fun as well. https://bit.ly/TSOMNHomicidalXMAS

Hot pink, red and orange textured geometric squeeze wallpaper

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Scrooge in Rouge Still Brings the Laughs at Open Eye Theatre

Tom Reed, Abilene Olson, and Maren Ward Photo by Bruce Silcox

*Note much of this review was adapted from my 2023 review of the show as I got it right the first time.

There are a lot of shows with Christmas themes this time of year, and several that are quite funny, but in terms of being a consistently funny, audience pleasing production, this one probably takes the fruit cake. I saw it last year and in the busy Holiday season was probably going to skip seeing it again to make room for new shows. Then I heard that there was a cast change and the new cast member happens to be on my Must See List so I booked the show again and am glad I did because it’s such a fun show. The premise is a British Music Hall production of A Christmas Carol where 17 of the 20 performers are out sick with food poisoning. So the three healthy performers play all the roles, as of course, for Queen and Country, the show must go on. Some of the humor comes from the backstage plotline of how the three will perform a script meant for 20. While much more comes from the music hall tradition of double entendres, silly word play, and wacky characters. Some of the jokes are old, but then so are many of the audience members. Old or new, obvious or out of the blue, it’s the delivery that makes the show. These are three performers who are brilliantly cast, they are completely believable as over the top music hall performers. This is the show to go to with your group of friends who love a good laugh, a great time will be had by all, respectful rowdiness is encouraged.

The cast is expertly accompanied on piano by Patrick Adkins who has the odd line as well but, declines to take the role of Tiny Tim when called upon. Will you answer the call? If you don’t want to be asked, avoid the aisle seats, you’ve been warned. Now when I say the three performers take on the roles of 20, I really mean two of them do. You see Maren Ward who plays Vesta Virile, a male impersonator mainly plays Ebenezer Scrooge, ge sund heit. She is excellent as Scrooge and as the center around which all the chaos revolves. Neal Skoy who played Charlie Schmaltz in the production is in New York City performing in Big Apple Circus. So this year the role is played by a The Stages of MN favorite Tom Reed, who in turn plays everyone from Bob Cratchit, to the Ghost of Christmas Past. My favorite roles of Reeds were that of Scrooge’s nephew Freddie and Bob Cratchit. As Freddie he plays it as a cartoon version of Whodehouse’s Bertie Wooster, and Cratchit is a lovesick softie. Abilene Olson is the the singing soubrette Lottie Obbligato, I’m not going to tell you what that means, I had to google it and so do you. Lottie makes it clear she’s happy to take in a little extra cash for extra services, wink-wink, nudge-nudge. Olson has a wonderful singing voice which serves her well, legitimately but also for comic effect. She’s the sauciest and bawdiest of the trio and gets a lot of laughs with her thinly disguised euphemisms. I’d have to say my favorite role she plays is that of Lottie herself. As opposed to Schmaltz, who is listed in the program as a “character actor” and thus tries to create a new personality and look for each role. Lottie isn’t, and thus it’s perfectly fine that Olson let’s Lottie shine through quite a bit no matter what role she’s performing in the show, within the show. If that didn’t confuse you … can you explain it to me?

The show has a book and lyrics by Ricky Graham with music by Jefferson Turner, additional bits and bobs of material were added by Jeffery Roberson and Yvette Hargis. The production is Directed by the Open Eye Theatre Producing Artistic Director Joel Sass. Sass knows his space well and makes effective use of Open Eyes small stage and all it’s nooks, crannies, and trap doors. As is always the case with Open Eye productions, the look of the show is one of the stars. Michael Sommers set design and Kathy Kohl’s costumes are gorgeousities. There really is nothing quite like the designed theatricality of an Open Eye production, merely functional is never the aim. Every wall, every sign, every prop, every effect has to do more than exist, it has to add to the atmosphere of the piece. Helping achieve the look and overall feel of the show are the expert skills of Lighting Designer Bill Healey and Sound Engineer Dan Dukich. And I think a special shout out is due to Stage Manager Brian Hirt and Assistant Stage Manager Evelyn Kelly who keep the show flowing and one assumes helping the performers do their quick costume changes.

Highly recommended Scrooge in Rouge is a hilarious take on A Christmas Carol done in the tradition of the English Music Hall. The show runs through December 29th at Open Eye Theatre in South Minneapolis. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://www.openeyetheatre.org/scrooge-in-rouge