Twin Cities Horror Festival XIII Day One Reviews: The Wrench, Let’s Summon a Demon at Debbie’s, The Alchemist’s Bargain, and Doctor Clown

TCHF XIII actually launched a day early this year on Wednesday night with the sold out, one night only, Leslie Vincent Presents: A Monster and Mayhem Cabaret. I think everyone in the audience that night is of the firm belief that this is the way to open every TCHF going forward. Here’s hoping that is in the works for next year. The Festival shows of which there are 11, began on Thursday, each will have 5 performances throughout the 11 days of the festival. To see the schedule and purchase tickets to any of the shows go to https://www.tchorrorfestival.com/tchf-xiii.html . But don’t wait to long, shows have already sold out performances.

The Wrench is a play written by Andrew Erskine Wheeler Who’s Whoosh!… remains in my memory as a highlight of my very first Minnesota Fringe Festival. Here again he dives into a real life event, but this time there is a dark side. A group of actors, most of whom were present at the 1849 Astor Place Riot, have been hired for a new production of Macbeth. The story of their experience with the riot and how it left one of them with a traumatic brain injury is recounted to the young understudy who will have to go on as Lady Macbeth after the leading lady met with an accident. Interesting how often the Scottish Play and it’s curse has been coming up lately, just Sunday it was a very fun antidote in Patrick Page’s All the Devils Are Here at the Guthrie and those of us on the theater beat know of the series of accidents that have plagued Theater Latte Da’s production of Scotland, PA. Wheeler is great as Roscius Denue, who was trampled by horses during the riot and now speaks gibberish most of the time, but has perfect recall of the Shakespearean roles he played before the accident. There is also nice work from Carolyn Pool and Shanan Custer as two actresses that have aged out of the Lady Macbeth role and into the three witches.

Let’s Summon a Demon at Debbie’s is this years breakout hit, and it was so even before anyone saw it. By the time of the first performance four of its five performance slots have sold out. So if you are interested get online and get your tickets tonight, they will be sold out in the next day I’ve little doubt. Is it worthy of all the advance hype, yeah I think it is. The show opens on the home of Debbie, who lives with her menagerie of dolls whom she thinks of as her children. When her doorbell rings for the first time in 10 years and 27 days she is on her guard, but it turns out to be her old friend Cara, that she hasn’t seen in 25 years. Not since the day they and their friend Lucy tried to summon a demon in Debbie’s house during their senior year of high school. Is it scary? not really but it certainly has horrific elements. It’s really a pitch black comedy with some messed up stuff in it. Reagan Kay James is perfect as the uptight and slightly off her rocker doll loving Debbie. Julia Weiss as Cara wows us first by downing and entire bottle of wine in one drink, then with a story about catching her husband cheating on her that becomes more and more outrageous as it goes on and on, none of which can be repeated here for fear on violating some obscenity laws. Ashley Rose Wellman is Lucy whose entrance provides what is probably the plays one genuine moment of fright.

The Alchemist’s Bargain is a charming puppet show performed using blacklights, which really brought me back to my childhood, when you could get a blacklight bulb and blacklight posters at Spencers Gifts in the mall. I even had blacklight crayons that I used to color with and than look at using the blacklight. The story follows a man who seeks out a Alchemist who he hopes will be able to bring his true love back to life. The Alchemist sends the man on a quest to retrieve three ingredients that he will need in order to bring the loved one back. There is a lesson learned by the end but even if there wasn’t the journey itself is worth attending the show for. It’s a visual treat that ends with the alchemist’s trick. This is a great show for families, kids while marvel at the creativity of the medium, In fact so will their parents. I didn’t just enjoy myself, I was very much delighted by Phantom Chorus Theatre’s production. It’s a great example of the variety of styles and shows on view at the TCHF.

Doctor Clown is this years entry from Dangerous Productions. Typically the one show you can count on to be bloody and scary. Well, that is until this year, the blood is still there, but the scares have been replaced by laughs. Many of the laughs coming from the use of blood. Was I a little disappointed? yes, not because what they did wasn’t successful, it is. And it isn’t because it’s just a bunch of gross out humor, there is actually a fair amount of political and social commentary involved. No, it’s just that the one thing I’ve always found about the TCHF, and I do love the TCHF, is that very few of the shows actually even attempt to be scary. So it’s a little bit of a let down when the one company that can be relied upon to try and get the blood pumping, in more ways than one, doesn’t, at least, not in more ways than one. Of course the company should be allowed to do something different, and this clowning show if very well done. So it is a good show and my hope is that by setting your expectations accordingly you will be able to appreciate it more fully. If you have issues with blood and gore, this is not a show for you, it isn’t used to scare you but it could trigger a gag reflex or two all the same.

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The Brontide From Nimbus Theatre at the Crane Theater Tackles Very Relevant Creative Themes

The Brontide the latest work from Nimbus Theatre is packed full of ideas, to the point where at intermission you’re wondering if it’s been over stuffed. But Playwright Josh Cragun brings everything home, answering all the questions you find yourself discussing during the interval. That’s not to say that the play couldn’t do with a little pruning, at 130 minutes it feels slightly long. I liked the story, I liked all of the themes it was exploring, I liked all of the characters. If there is one criticism I have is that it feels like the material wants to be a Limited Television series rather than a play. Cragun does a great job of packing everything into a thoughtful and satisfying story, don’t get me wrong, but there are signs of what this wanted to be. One is the amount of scene changes, it wants to change scenes every two to five minutes. Also there are multiple storylines and characters going on that are unrelated until towards the end when they intersect. One character, that of Raveena, could be cut from the play entirely, but if expanded into a TV series could be really interesting. The role is played well by Wasima Farah, it’s not about the performance it’s about the sense that the characters function is all potential, but when you think about her function plotwise, it could easily be covered by other characters.

Here’s where I’m supposed to give you a plot synopsis, but I’m not going to. Instead, I’ll tell you about the themes the work explores. It’s about the nature of storytelling, the dangers of A.I., the creative stifling caused by corporate greed, and the dangers of over reliance on I.P.’s. These are some really interesting topics which they do a nice job of exploring without beating them to death. It’s shows us examples of some of these concepts with explaining them trusting the audience to carry the thoughts through. One of the concepts that has conflicted with the creative process in the last century or so is that of the copyright. Now obviously, the creator of something should have the right to protect it and earn from their art. But somewhere along the way those protections kept getting extended to the benefit of corporations as opposed to individuals. As the play points out in it’s opening scene there are a finite amount of stories. The creative process isn’t just about creating something entirely new, more often then not it’s about innovating or adapting that which has come before. Shakespeare, arguably the greatest writer in the English language, adapted many of his works from existing tales, and plays by others. But he didn’t just rewrite them he used his talents to make them better, to adapt and innovate. Corporate greed tries to prevent artists from doing the same and that is a major plot point of this play. If these are ideas you think about or discuss with friends, I think you’ll find a lot of interesting talking points in The Brontide.

This is truly an ensemble production, no one has the lead or steals the show, everyone is good even if no one especially stands out. Which works well in a piece like this, everyone does their part and seems like they are performance wise on the same level. In a true ensemble production the worst thing you can have is one or two people in the cast who are either way better or way worse than everyone else. The discrepancy is jarring, and will take the audience out of the show. The Co-Directors Mitchell Frazier and Ernest Briggs do a good job of keeping the show flowing despite the heavy number of scene changes. I do think they could tighten things up by having lights dim on one scene and come up on another, allowing for some minimal scene changing to be done silently in one area of the stage while the play moves forward in another. The set design by Erin Gustafson certainly allows for that approach, it’s very versatile and segmented allowing for all the changes of location. I really enjoyed the costumes designed by Rubble&Ash, there are two characters that morph into a sort of human insect hybrid , with very simple but effect costume and movement.

The Brontide runs through June 9th at the Crane Theater in NE Minneapolis. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://nimbustheatre.com/productions/the-brontide

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Something Happened in Our Town at the Children’s Theatre Company

Dean Holt and De’Anthony Jackson Photo by Glen Stubbe Photography

Something Happened in Our Town a play written by Cheryl L. West, based on the Children’s book Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story of Racial Injustice by Marianne Celano, PhD, ABPP, Marietta Collins, PhD, and Ann Hazzard, PhD, ABPP, makes it a world premiere at Children’s Theatre Company. An effective introduction to young audiences that the theatre can be more than just entertainment. For many this will be their first exposure to a play that addresses real social issues with an eye towards acknowledging the different perspectives from which households view the world. West’s play presents a difficult real world problem for which there is no easy answer. Doing so in a way that simplifies it for a young audience without ignoring it’s complexities. It addresses the difficulting in explaining these issues to children while giving us a starting point with which to do just that. In that accomplishment as well, it’s presentation Something Happened in Our Town is brilliant.

Focusing on two families who live next door to each other, one black and one white. Josh and Emma are best friends but come from very different households. Josh lives with his mother a writer, father the principal of the local high school, and older brother Malcolm. Emma lives with her single mother who runs a beauty salon. Emma’s family also includes her uncle Manny who is an important and present person in her life, he is also a police officer. Emma is the type of kid who marches to the beat of her own drum. The type that grows up to be a very interesting person, but can have a hard time in the early years. She wants to have friends but lacks the ability to read the room, often tries too hard, and is ridiculed by the other kids for it. Josh instinctively knows how to avoid drawing unwelcome attention to himself. Emma is white and Josh is black, they are best friends and do not seem to really attach significance to their skin color. That personality trait which informs their characters interactions provides us insight into the characters themselves, also mirrors the inequities that exist in our society. The story moves from the concerns of the two young friends regarding getting along in school to much more serious matters. News breaks of a black man shot and killed by a white police officer. We see the ways in which the different households react to this news. The character makeup gives us a lot of different ways of processing the news. We see interactions between the husband and wife, Malcolm and his parents, Uncle Manny and the two neighbor boys, Manny and his sister, Manny and Josh and Malcolm’s parents, and the two mothers. We also see the world through the microcosm of the schoolyard through Emma, Josh, and their classmates. We are given a lot of examples of behavior and character types but it doesn’t feel contrived. Instead, it feels like there are many seeds being planted that we as the audience can go back to later on the drive home. The beauty of the piece is that it gives parents a way to begin talking about these difficult realities with their kids. It also gives kids a way to empathize with other people’s situations in a way that is organic through characters they can recognize or identify with.

De’Anthony Jackson as Josh and Lola Ronning as Emma lead the cast and they hold their own with a strong cast of more seasoned performers. Jackson is appearing in his first professional production and you can see that there are going to be great things in his future. He already exhibits a natural stage presence and a knack for finding the humor in a straight man line. Ronning, I’d seen and was impressed with last fall in the CTC production of Annie. Here again she showcases her talent for seeming at home on stage. Selling the offbeat out of sync nature of Emma and her obliviousness to why she is an outsider, she doesn’t play that, she embodies it. Calvin Zimmerman as Malcolm gives a strong performance as well, showing us the angry and outraged young man without overplaying it. He finds a way to play that making it feel real without going to a level of reality that would not feel appropriate in a production geared towards children age 7+. The adult performers that made the largest impression were Rajane Katurah as Josh’s Mom and Dean Holt as Uncle Manny.

The Scenic Designs by Junghyun Georgia Lee reflect the color pallets and background of the picture storybook source material, while the foreground set pieces provide enough realism to help us bridge the storybook and the in-person experiences. The moving sets that glide in and out from the wings help director Timothy Douglas swiftly change locations keeping the action flowing beautifully from scene to scene. Douglas makes some interesting choices with the help of lighting designer Alan C. Edwards to highlight some nonverbal beats at the end of scenes. Little moments to give a second to focus and reflect on a character and their reactions. This gave the young audience a moment to notice a character, to maybe highlight for just a couple of seconds that there is something to think about what just happened in a scene beyond just plot. It’s important for a theatre like CTC to train young audiences on how to experience theatre and Something Happened in Our Town is full of those moments. Douglas, West, and their collaborators are actively exposing young people to theater that can be entertaining while also giving us things to think about. They are trying to teach them at the same time how to be an active viewer, rather than just letting the entertainment wash over them.

I highly encourage parents and grandparents of all economic and racial backgrounds to take their wee ones age 7+ to Something Happened in Our Town. With the Looming Teachers strike this might give families a chance to do some learning while they are out of school. There is a lot for young ones and the older folks to take in and process and can lead to some rewarding and enlightening conversations for all. the play runs through March 27th for more information and to purchase tickets go to https://childrenstheatre.org/

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Theatre Pro Rata Presents “Top Girls”a Stripped Down Production of a Thought Provoking Play

Pictured: Maggie Cramer, Nissa Nordland Morgan, Emily Rosenberg, Kelsey Cramer, Sarah Broude
Credit: Alex Wohlhueter

Theatre Pro Rata’s latest play is a marvel of construction and ideas. I’ve found myself thinking about the subject matter long after I would normally have started writing. Top Girls is a play written by Caryl Churchill and set in Great Britain in the early 80’s. It examines the roles available to women in our society at that time and what the cost of success can be. It looks at the subject matter by comparing and contrasting it with women from the past and by showing us various women interacting with each other. All characters that appear in the play are female but the male perspective is not entirely absent. It is felt in the way the characters behave and react to their circumstances. Sometimes they are showing us what they have to do in order to make it in a still heavily Patriarchal society, at others we see them model the same patronizing attitudes they hate from men towards each other. It is a play full of complex characters that showcase the ambiguities of humanity – an important work that challenges the audience to keep up. Unfortunately, this production of an amazing script stumbles at times to translate the ideas beyond the stage to those of us in the theater seats. It’s not a bad production, there is a lot to like here and it’s a rare opportunity to see this classic of modern theatre performed. I urge you to attend and I’ll try and give you some pointers on how to get the most out of it.

The play opens in a restaurant. We see Marlene who is here to celebrate her promotion as head of the Top Girls Employment Agency. She is joined by women from the past both historical and fictional. They proceed to converse and eat, each of the women relating their experiences, the scene written and performed in such a way that the dialogue overlaps. We might not catch everything that’s said, as is often the case at a larger dinner party, with conversations happening at opposite ends of the table. Although all this isn’t occurring in the real world of the play, but is a representation of an idea being played out: “What if you could have dinner with anyone from history?” This is an interesting way to begin the play, showing us the roles and experiences of women through time. I like this idea of creating the atmosphere of the dinner party, and it seems to me by the end that in many ways these various women were different aspects of Marlene and the other characters, but unfortunately this opening scene is also where the production falters.

Firstly, the stage is set in the middle of the theatre and there are chairs on both sides for the audience. The problem with Director Carin Bratlie Wethern’s staging the production like this is that if you are not micing your actors, much of the dialogue is inaudible. I got there a little later than I like to and so was seated to the side, but I was still in the second row and it isn’t a large theatre. The character of Pope Joan for instance was seated with her back to me for most of the scene and even though she was the closest to me I rarely could make out her dialogue because she is talking in concert with other characters and speaking away from me. This happened with multiple characters. The second issue with the scene is that it isn’t clear what is happening here.
Partly due to lost dialogue, this concept of a fantasy dinner takes much too long to really become clear. There needed to be some way to convey that this was not reality up front. An example perhaps of the value a Director’s note in a program can add. The costuming also would have been a way to make clearer who these women were from the start. While the costumes by Eleanor Schanilec convey the idea of who these people are, this is an area where more would have sold the idea to the audience a lot faster. Thankfully, after this scene and a short one right after it that features two young friends talking, the staging and audibility issues were largely eliminated. The play is told nonlinearly with the final scene being the earliest chronologically, it’s revelations affecting how we view Marlene and the earlier scenes. After the opening scene rest of the play is set in the real world and involves Marlene and the other employees at Top Girls, as well as clients, Marlene’s sister Joyce, her niece Angie and her friend Kit.

Aside from needing to project more to compensate for the staging, the entire cast does a great job, most of them essaying multiple roles, with the exception of Maggie Cramer in the lead. The stand out for me was Emily Rosenberg, who played Dull Gret in the opening dinner scene. Rosenberg spends most of the scene delivering one word answers, so when they climb up on the table and talk about marching into hell, the entire audience took note. It is a speech delivered with power and backed by the surprise of it’s unlikely source. Rosenberg also plays the niece Angie who, in some ways, is an extension of Dull Gret. In both roles they find a way to surprise us, and in a play very focused on ideas, they provide the emotional in for the audience. Maggie Cramer as Marlene and Kelsey Laurel Cramer as her sister Joyce have a brilliant interaction in the final scenes where our sympathies change. It really is a brilliant script. The cast is rounded out by Megan Kim and Nissa Nordland Morgan as the employees of Top Girls, with Sarah Broude and Ninchai Nok-Chiclana as clients in little vignettes illustrating the complexities of these women: their roles, their strengths and their weaknesses – at times supportive of each other, at times cruel and petty. Kelsey Laurel Cramer has a scene as the wife of the colleague that Marlene beat out for head of Top Girls. We see her try to help her husband, certainly a kind gesture, but without realizing that in doing so she is making the argument that women don’t matter as much as men. It’s such a pleasure to see a play where even a five minute role has nuances and shades of character that some main characters don’t have in other plays.

Top Girls is worth your time. It will make you think and make you questions things, including, by the end, what you thought of the first half. Top Girls runs through November 21st at the Crane Theatre in northeast Minneapolis. For more information and to purchase tickets click here https://www.theatreprorata.org/. I recommend getting there early, seating is General Admission. I’d suggest sitting front row dead center if you can manage it. Hopefully with that placement and a heads up of what is happening in that first scene you will really be able to key in from the beginning.

Three From Opening Night of the Twin Cities Horror Festival

It’s Monster Month and that means watching scary movies, reading ghost stories, and of course the Twin Cities Horror Festival. TCHF is in it’s 10th season and I for one am grateful that many of the shows this year are in-person. I didn’t get access to the virtual shows that opened the festival last week but I will be reviewing all five of the in-person productions. Opening night I attended the first three shows. Splinter from Dangerous Productions, Blood Nocturne from The Winding Sheet Outfit, and Blackout in a Blackout from Blackout Improve. The Festival runs through Halloween, with the five shows rotating to purchase tickets to any or all performances go to https://www.tchorrorfestival.com/ On the site you will find descriptions of each show as well as each shows ratings for Language, Violence, and Blood. Below I’ve copied the schedule for the remainder of the run.

Friday, October 29
6:00pm Channel / Dogwatch Productions
7:30pm Creepy Boys / Creepy Boys
9:00pm Splinter / Dangerous Productions
10:30pm Blackout in a Blackout / Blackout Improv

Saturday, Oct 30
1:00pm Channel / Dogwatch Productions
2:30pm Blood Nocturne / Winding Sheet
4:00pm Creepy Boys / Creepy Boys
5:30pm Splinter / Dangerous Productions
7:00pm Blackout in a Blackout / Blackout Improv
8:30pm Channel / Dogwatch Productions
10:00pm Blood Nocturne / Winding Sheet

Sunday, October 31
1:00pm Blackout in a Blackout / Blackout Improv
2:30pm Creepy Boys / Creepy Boys
4:00pm Blood Nocturne / Winding Sheet
5:30pm Channel / Dogwatch Productions
7:00pm Splinter / Dangerous Productions

First up was Dangerous Productions Splinter, easily the scariest show of the night. Pay attention to the ratings on this one, there will be blood. Just as they did my first year reviewing the TCHF Dangerous Productions has delivered the most intense and genuinely disturbing experience. Always effective on the technical side of things, the violence feels and looks real. There will also be several moments of “how did they do that?” for the observant audience member. Hats off to the production team on this one led by Director and Production Designer Tyler Olsem-Highness. The play really begins as soon as the house doors open with Laura Mahler on stage clearly going through some hard times. It’s a wordless performance before the play properly starts but for me, it set the mood perfectly and I felt I had a handle on the emotion she was experiencing – it created a sense of sympathy from the beginning. Mahler gives a riveting performance as a woman who has lost her memory due to a traumatic event and is being experimented on by Forensic Psychologist whose experimental techniques won’t intentionally hurt her. To say much more about the plot would rob it of it’s tricks and treats. I was impressed with all the performances but a special shout out to Jay Kistler as the other guinea pig who finds just the right balance between finding the humor in a scene and then alternating to somewhere darker.

Emily Dussault Photo by Scott Pakudaitis with Graphic design by Kris Heding

The second show of the evening was The Winding Sheet Outfits Blood Nocturne. This tells the story of Erzsebet Bathory whom I knew of as the basis of the 1971 Hammer film, Countess Dracula. This version is very different. First off, it’s a musical. Secondly, it attempts to be much more truthful in it’s telling of the real life Countess. The program tells us that Blood Nocturne was created and composed by the ensemble with quotes from actual letters and testimony. While trying to set the record straight they also challenge our societies default to print the legend as it makes a better story. Even as Emily Dussault as Bathory attempts to point out the truths behind the stories, she’s at odds with the rest of the cast who insist the horrific details that have been attributed to her make for a better story. While all three shows I took in tonight were very good, this was my favorite. I loved everything about it. It’s cast deserves to be singled out. I wish the program listed the performers with their character names since they were uniformly talented, I’ll simply list them all. Amber Bjork (also the Director), Kayla Dvorak Feld, Derek Lee Miller, Boo Segersin, Joshua Swantz, and the aforementioned Emily Dussault as the Countess. All of them are adept and find the darkest shades of humor within this gruesome biography. The cast plays the period instruments that accompany the songs and they are quite accomplished musically. The Orchestrations are simple, but haunting.

The third and final show of the evening for me was Blackout in a Blackout by Blackout Improv. The only thing of value I can say about this is to praise the performers. Let’s face it, this is improv, it’s going to be different with every performance, and if it isn’t, well you don’t really want to know that do you? So the less said about the storyline that emerged, the better. What I can tell you is that I’m already thinking of trying to catch this improv troupe again sometime. The group worked really well together and found a way to keep the laughs coming while also managing to try and add a touch of the supernatural to the proceedings. Find out more about them here https://www.blackoutcomedy.org/.

Every Brilliant Thing at the Jungle Theater is Dead Brilliant!

Joy Dolo. Photo by Lauren B. Photography

The Jungle Theater in Minneapolis has reopened with a one hour somewhat interactive play written by Duncan Macmillan, with Jonny Donahoe. Now don’t misunderstand me, you will not be influencing the course of the play and this isn’t improv, but there is a bit of flexing that muscle on display. You will be required to read a sentence or a word from a piece of paper when called upon. In a few cases you will be asked to do a little more. For instance, I had to give a speech at a wedding off the top of my head, but nothing more than that in most cases. Every Brilliant Thing is a one actor, one audience play. The actor in the performance I saw was Joy Dolo. She is telling the story of a woman whose mother attempted suicide when she was seven years old. The seven year old’s response to her mother’s wish to die was to make a list of every brilliant thing she could think of that made life worth living to show her Mom. Number one, Ice Cream! We follow this young lady through her life and as she grows, so does her list. It’s a lesson in taking note of all the good things even when we are not feeling well or happy. It’s a simple idea, but it’s a very powerful one. Think if you sat and made a list of Every Brilliant Thing. Not the OK things, but just the brilliant things. What would you do with such a list? What would its power be? I’d take it out when I was feeling overwhelmed, sad, hopeless, and remind myself that there is more to life than this moment, this pain, this struggle.

I like the idea so much that I’m going to start my own list right now. The first thing on my list of brilliant things is Joy Dolo’s performance in Every Brilliant Thing. There simply is no actor more engaging and welcoming with the ability to make you laugh and cry in the space of seconds. She single handedly shepherds a cast of dozens of unrehearsed people to create a unified, coherent story. The audience participation seems like a gimmick at first, there to provide some humor and get people into the swing of things, maybe just to keep them paying attention. But that isn’t it, you don’t need a gimmick to keep people’s attention when Dolo is on stage. And the participation adds more than humor, it build connection at least it did for this blogger. When I toasted my daughter on her wedding night, I thought back to the car rides we’d shared in silence and the times I shut myself away in my den to listen to music rather than help her understand what was happening. I wished her all the happiness and prayed for her forgiveness. Some performers are loud, or wild, or powerful and they scream “look at me!!”. Dolo, doesn’t do that, she invites you in, you look at her, you pay attention to her, not because she is demanding it, but because you really really want to. She is open to the audience in a way that lets you in immediately. While she is coaching the audience through their parts, she never loses her character. As for the rest of the cast it will depend on your audience, I thought the fellow playing the Father was quite good the night I went, considering he didn’t know he’d even been cast.

I have to say that I had sort of read a brief description of the play, saw it’s run time was only an hour, and thought with so many shows finally opening up I’d give this one a miss with the packed schedule. I was urged by another blogger not to miss this show and I’m glad I took her advice. Every Brilliant Thing is not to be missed. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve seen since the theaters reopened, for me this has been the most rewarding of my post pandemic excursions. The show is directed by Meredith McDonough with the unique tasks of directing two different performers in the same role. Jucoby Johnson actually plays the lead in most performances with Joy Dolo appearing every Thursday of the run. I have not seen Jucoby Johnson’s performance but there is an excellent review here by Cherry and Spoon . The Theater has been transformed from it’s usual configuration into a theatre in the round venue by Scenic and Costume Designer Mina Kinukawa and it really enables Dolo and Johnson to get that engagement with the audience going. It was the right decision for this show, and plays a key part in establishing an all in this together vibe. The other technical aspect that really deserves a shout out is the Sound Design by Montana Johnson. Music is minimal but key, it’s use always important to the story and very effective. I particularly liked being reminded of Daniel Johnston and always good to hear a little Ray Charles.

Every Brilliant Thing runs through November 14th at the Jungle Theater in the Lynlake area near Uptown Minneapolis. For more information about the show and to purchase tickets go to https://www.jungletheater .org.