Friday, April 12
Take the Bait
WHAT: Nice Fish
WHERE: Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis
WHEN: 7:30 p.m.
There have been more plays about ice fishing in Minnesota than you’d ever expect, mostly watched by people who don’t ice fish. But this is the first literary attempt, from Tony Award-winning actor Mark Rylance and Duluth poet Louis Jenkins, whose work was read by Rylance as part of his two Tony acceptance speeches. Here, it’s the last day of the ice-fishing season, a blizzard is gearing up, and a strange visitor has pulled onto the lake. Learn more at guthrietheater.org
Friday, April 12
Celebrity Scandal
WHAT: Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde
WHERE: Theatre Garage, Minneapolis
WHEN: 7:30 p.m.
Walking Shadow Theatre Company explores the celebrity takedown that was Oscar Wilde’s undoing. It proves a good exercise in thinking about whose fault such falls from grace are: when Wilde was called a sodomite, he sued for libel, leading to a scurrilous and revealing trial. (Actually, three of them.) The play leans heavily on original source material—trial manuscripts and the like—such that the play doesn’t so much pass judgment as leave the audience to weigh our complicity in celebrity scandal. Learn more at walkingshadowcompany.org
Saturday, April 13
Go With the Flow
WHAT: River See
WHERE: Pillsbury House Theatre,
WHEN: 7:30 p.m.
Sonja Parks is joined by a talented, physical cast including hip-hop dancer Kenna Cottman in this jazz and blues-soaked trip down South, just as the Great Migration was getting underway. Blues stories inspire improvisation, an act of engaging with the audience and the text in living, breathing way. Learn more at pillsburyhouseandtheatre.org
Saturday, April 13
Irish Kisses
WHAT: Celtic Woman
WHERE: Orpheum Theatre, Minneapolis
WHEN: 3 and 8 p.m.
The singular name has always been confusing, because while the line-up has changed over the years, there’s never been just one singer. It’s sort of like the Marlboro Man—an idea, a type—and that’s certainly what the music strives for: that idealized soaring sound, inspirational, with flutes. It’s hard to resist, no matter how many people are singing. Learn more at hennepintheatretrust.org
Sunday, April 14
Virtuoso Latin
WHAT: Paquito D’Rivera & the Assad Brothers
WHERE: Dakota Jazz Club and Restaurant, Minneapolis
WHEN: 6 and 8 p.m.
If you had combed Latin America for the most accomplished musicians and scooped them up here, you would have been left with these three stuck in the tines. The Assads are a kind of classical guitar machine—an über guitar, if you will—while D’Rivera, a clarinetist, has ranged from classical to Latin jazz. A sit-down world party. Learn more at dakotacooks.com
Sunday, April 14
Whoa, Nellie
WHAT: Nellie
WHERE: History Theatre, St. Paul
WHEN: 2 p.m.
Playwright Kim Hines, who met Nellie Stone Johnson in her later years and spoke to plenty more people who knew her well, doesn’t mind suggesting that Johnson was pushy (to say the least). When she was on the offensive, fighting for economic or racial justice, manners fell away until she was satisfied. Her story, dramatized at the History Theatre, is almost unbelievable: growing up on a farm in northern Minnesota, organizing workers at the all-male Minneapolis Club, helping form the DFL Party, and advising Hubert H. Humphrey on his groundbreaking approach to civil rights. Learn more at historytheatre.com
