November 2008
November 26, 2008Review: "A Christmas Carol" at the Guthrie
Guest review by Courtney Lewis, Minnesota Monthly assistant managing editor Jacob Marley may be getting a little concerned about the ticket prices demanded by the Guthrie Theater for A Christmas Carol these days ($70 on opening night). But the production values have arguably kept pace--nowhere in the country will you see a more polished production. Eight years into the directorial tenure of Gary Gisselman—four with Raye Birk as Scrooge—this juggernaut has settled into a sweet spot of sentiment and storytelling, with brisk pacing that never lets the moralizing stick long enough to become cloying. Gisselman was the founding director of Chanhassen Dinner Theatres, of course, and blends a crowdpleasing knack for choreography and crowd scenes with crisp... Read more » Posted on Wednesday, November 26, 2008 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0) |
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November 21, 2008Preview: TU Dance electrifies the O'Shaughnessy
When TU Dance literally leaped headfirst into the local dance community a few years back--landing at the top of the heap--it was as if a cool (but not too cool) breeze had swept in, sweeping away much of the pedantry, didacticism, and other limitations of a rather academic choreography scene, muscling open new possibilities through sheer physicality, playful humor, and intuition. In its fall performances, November 21 to 23 at O'Shaughnessy Auditorium in St. Paul, TU Dance will offer a new work that gets right to the pulse of choreographer Uri Sands' intuitive approach: Sense(ability) Sketch 1, the first in a series exploring the relationship between the senses and the elements. Sands, who leads the company with his wife, the dancer Toni Pierce-Sands, is not so much a... Read more » Posted on Friday, November 21, 2008 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0) |
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November 14, 2008Review: "Shadowlands" reveals C.S. Lewis at the Guthrie
Guest blog by Courtney Lewis, assistant managing editor at MNMO Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0) |
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November 10, 2008The Al Franken / Soul Asylum Conspiracy
Last Friday, as Al Franken's vote total escalated post-election, KTLK radio ranter Jason "Mr. Right" Lewis postulated that it was no coincidence the additional votes were coming from St. Louis and Pine counties--St. Louis encompassing part of the DFL-dominated Iron Range, and Pine County, well, that was Indian country (part of the Mille Lacs reservation, with its Grand Casino, is in Pine County). And everyone knows that Native Americans, he asserted, are the sugar daddies of the Democrats. In the face of Obama's overwhelming victory last week, with its promise of less partisanship, you could almost hear the bandwidth of right-wing blather narrowing, squeezing shut, screaming as it swirls down the drain.... Read more » Posted on Monday, November 10, 2008 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0) |
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November 4, 2008Obama wins—in Africa: MnMo's Journalist of the Year reports
Just last month, Minnesota Monthly named Edwin Okong'o, a Kenyan immigrant, the Twin Cities' Best Journalist. And now he's covering the election from a little-considered angle: the fact that some of Barack Obama's biggest fans aren't even in America. They're in Africa, where his father, of course, was from. Okong'o's latest story, a 13-minute piece for the PBS Frontline series called "Kenya: Sweet Home Obama," explores the unprecedented pride and over-the-top jubilation washing through Kenya, the home of Obama's father. Read more »Posted on Tuesday, November 4, 2008 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0) |
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