Tag: london

How to Catch Creation Captured My Heart, See it Before it Ends on 2/8 at Theatre in the Round

Tia Tanzer and Duck Washington Photo by Aaron Mark Photo Film

Third time’s the charm, as the saying goes. This was my third attempt to see How to Catch Creation. I was originally scheduled to attend on January 17, 2026, but changed my plans in anticipation of a far-right wing protest slated to end in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood that Theatre in the Round calls home. I rescheduled for Friday, January 23, but that performance was canceled in observance of the statewide general strike. I almost cut my losses and accepted that I simply wasn’t going to see it.

But I kind of love Theatre in the Round, and earlier this season, for the first time in probably a decade, I had missed their annual Agatha Christie play when my stepmom passed away. I didn’t want to miss another show. And my God, am I glad I didn’t. The production is only running one more week, closing on February 8th. If you can make it to one of the remaining performances, I highly recommend you do so.

Mary Cannon Photo by Aaron Mark Photo Film

I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting going in. I had read the synopsis on the theatre’s website, but it didn’t really sink in, because this play wasn’t what I expected at all, and it’s unlike anything else I’ve ever seen at Theatre in the Round. I think it’s representative of the changes we’ve seen at TRP over the last several years, particularly since the arrival of their current Executive Director, Larisa Netterlund. We’ve seen more risks being taken. I’m not sure the audience has fully caught up with what’s happening at TRP yet, but I hope word spreads and programming like this continues.

How to Catch Creation, by Christina Anderson, weaves together the lives of six characters in San Francisco, four in 2014 and two in 1966–67. Griffin, a man recently released from prison after spending 25 years incarcerated following a wrongful conviction, reconnects with his best friend Tami, a painter who runs an art school. Both are in their mid-forties. They each come into contact with one half of a younger couple in their mid-twenties: Stokes, a painter, and his girlfriend Riley, a computer programmer.

Tia Tanzer and Izzy Maxwell Photo by Aaron Mark Photo Film

Tami and Riley meet when Riley confronts her about why Stokes’ application to her school was rejected. Griffin and Stokes bond in a park over their shared love of the work of Black feminist author G.K. Marche. We also see Marche and her partner Natalie in the 1960s, and events in that timeline echo powerfully in the present-day story.

I think I expected this play to be about the creative process, but that turns out to be only a small part of it. It’s about the desire to create: Stokes wants to paint, then write a novel; Tami wants to paint; G.K. writes; even Griffin longs to create a new life. But what the play is really about is connection, the heartaches, sacrifices, joys, the need to be seen and heard, and the desire to reach out to another human being, whether for friendship or for love.

Duck Washington and Noah Branch Photo by Aaron Mark Photo Film

The cast features Duck Washington, a Stages of MN favorite, as Griffin. Washington brings an almost Zen quality to the role, creating a portrait of a man who long ago made peace with the inequities of life. His calm and openness make Stokes’ desire to seek out his advice mirror our own. Lyreshia Ghostlon-Green, the only other performer I was familiar with going in, plays Natalie in a role punctuated by moments of fairly intense, at least for Theatre in the Round, sexuality.

The rest of the cast was new to me, but I sincerely hope they appear in many future productions, because they are all terrific. This play contains conflict and even betrayal, but there isn’t a single character you don’t like. That’s certainly a testament to Anderson’s writing, but it’s also a credit to the performers. Every one of them creates a character you care about, whose longings and struggles you internalize. I found myself unexpectedly tearing up in the final moments. Faithful readers know that’s not entirely unusual for me, but the way it crept up on me surprised me and revealed just how deeply these six characters had seeped into my heart.

Mary Cannon and Lyreshia Ghostlon-Green Photo by Aaron Mark Photo Film

I was going to name my favorites among the performers who were new to me, and then realized I’d be listing all of them. So here they are: Tia Tanzer as Tami, Izzy Maxwell as Riley, Noah Branch as Stokes, Mary Cannon as G.K. Marche, and Abdoulie Ceesay, who appears briefly in a non-speaking role just before intermission and then vanishes until curtain call. (What play does that?) It’s wild, but his role is deeply consequential, and while you don’t see him for long, you do see more of him than the other performers.

I also want to give major props to Director Vanessa Brooke Agnes and Set Designer Kejia Yu for making this tapestry of stories flow so seamlessly. There are a lot of scenes in this play, which often leads to clunky transitions and broken momentum. Here, the storytelling never pauses. Locations shift fluidly with the introduction of a prop or a performer. Sometimes scenes from different timelines unfold simultaneously. It feels organic and effortless, when in reality it’s the result of precise writing and incredibly thoughtful execution by everyone onstage and backstage.

Lastly, a note on Jacourtney Mountain-Bluhm’s costumes, sometimes in a show like this even though it takes place over the course of months, the actors find themselves wearing the same costumes in about every scene. Not here, it feels like there is a new costume for every scene and as I mentioned, there are a lot of scenes! I don’t usually notice costumes that much, but I noticed and appreciated the effort.

How to Catch Creation runs through February 8 at Theatre in the Round. I urge you to see it before it closes. This is a deeply satisfying play, brought to life by a cast of mostly unfamiliar but thoroughly compelling performers.

For more information and tickets, visit:
https://www.theatreintheround.org/howtocatchcreation/

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The Hatmaker’s Wife From Ten Thousand Things

Kimberly Richardson, Jim Lichtscheidl, Michelle De Joya, and Clay Man Soo. Photo by Tom Wallace

The Hatmaker’s Wife is only my second show from acclaimed theater company Ten Thousand Things and they are quickly becoming one of my favorite Theater Companies. Performed in the round with minimal sets, props and costumes, basically whatever they can fit in a Van, the focus on connection with the audience. The lights are on the only concession to creating mood or atmosphere is the accompaniment of live music, the focus is on the story and the performers skills in communicating it. One of the goals of this company is to provide access to theater to those who would not ordinarily have it. Part of the reason for the way they stage their shows is so they can travel with them and perform anywhere. Their schedule is divided into traveling dates out in the community which are free of charge and then two Thursday thru Sunday Weekends and two Minneapolis location which are paid admission, which help to fun the free performances. It’s a beautiful mission and it aligns perfectly with that of The Stages of MN, which is to create new theatergoing audiences. There are two steps to accomplishing that goal, the first is to get people who don’t make theatergoing a regular part of their lives into a seat at a performance. The second is to present something that will make them want to see another show. Ten Thousand Things does both of these steps incredibly well.

The Hatmaker’s Wife is at once complex and simple. Like a fairytale for adults with a straight forward message, but told through jumps backward and forward in time. The narrative technique does not confuse the audience but enriches the story adding layers of meaning and emotion in what is otherwise on the surface mainly comedic. This blend creates an entertaining work that has an emotional resonance by the end beyond what one expects given the humorous tone of the play. This is a story not of our world, but one very similar. Voice played by Michelle De Joya moves into a rental house with her boyfriend Gabe played by Clay Man Soo only to discover that the Wall, who is played by Tyson Forbes, has a story to share with her. Feeding her pages that flashback to the story of Hetchman, the Hatmaker of the title, and his Wife, who are played by the wonderfully physical comedic actors Jim Lichtscheidl and Kimberly Richardson. Hetchman loves his hat more than anything else in the world, his wife longs for a hat of her own, but Hetchman does not provide her with one. One day his hat goes missing and Hetchman is sad, next his wife goes missing and Hetchman is sad that his hat is still missing. His neighbor and best friend Meckel, played by Pedro Bayon, tries to help Hetchman to find his wife and convince him that she is the more important of the two things that have gone missing from his life. It’s a story that uses fantastical ideas to remind us of what is really important and how we can lose sight of that at times in our lives.

To engage an audience fully and tell a story without the usual trappings of lighting and sets means you have to have the best material and talent. The Hatmaker’s Wife Written by Lauren Yee is a wonderful script and the direction by Joel Sass displays that has a perfect understanding of the material and how to bring it to life. You couldn’t ask for better casting than Jim Lichtscheidl and Kimberly Richardson. They open the play with a nearly, perhaps entirely, wordless scene that relies on the their gifts as physical performers, of which they are among the very top in the Twin Cities. I have noted and wondered at their talents in Physical Comedy in past performances, Lichtscheidl recently in Dinner For One at Jungle Theater and Richardson so memorably in The Red Shoes at Open Eye Theatre, which impressed me so much I went back a second time. For them alone the show is worth seeing, everyone else is gravy on top, but it’s a rich and flavorful gravy that brings out all the nuances of the play. Tyson Forbes along with playing Wall, which magically talks, also plays Golem a symbolic creature from Jewish folklore is a costume designed by Sonya Berlovitz. Forbes does nice work covered in a massive costume without a face giving the Golem a personality and presence through movement and body language alone.

The Hatmaker’s Wife is a thoroughly entertaining and magical night at the theater with a superb cast performing a work that feels timeless in the way a fairytale does. It runs through March 17th at various locations, for more information, performance locations and to purchase tickets go to https://tenthousandthings.org/our-season/hatmakers-wife/

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