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"The Spitfire Grill" Shines at Cross Community Players

After serving her time in prison, Percy Talbot dreams of starting over in a new place – specifically, in a small town she found in a travel book. But when she gets there, she finds a town hit by hard times, where people don’t often open up and don’t easily trust an outsider with a troubled past. The Spitfire Grill is a show about people who have lost hope in their communities, their families, and their own lives. Percy’s belief in what the town has to offer starts to turn things around, but is it too late for the other characters to change their ways? Cross Community Players picked an interesting space for their production of The Spitfire Grill ; the room they used at St. Joseph Catholic Community was not designed as a theater and was not even totally enclosed, but it worked surprisingly well for staging this show.   As a bonus, coinciding with the run of the show, the church had on display an exhibit featuring poetry by incarcerated people.   A church member told me that they had b
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An Emotional and Unique "Rent" at Theatre 55

How do you live your life when tomorrow’s not guaranteed? The characters of Rent try to create art, fight the systems of power, and have fun – but in the end, what matters are their connections with each other. Theatre 55’s production of Rent may not be the edgiest or the sexiest version of the show you’ll ever see on stage (there was at least one cut of some racier material), but this production delivers where it matters most, in the sense of connection between the characters on the stage and between the performers and the audience. One element that helped this was the space; Gremlin Theatre’s thrust stage and steep seating put the actors and the audience very close to each other.   (Gremlin is in a very cool spot, sharing a building with a brewery and other businesses; one downside of this space, though, was that the seating is a little cramped.)   But the most essential element in the emotional impact of this show was the cast.   The characters in Rent are young adults, but it w

I'm "Positive" You'll Enjoy "Legally Blonde" at Ashland Productions

When Elle Woods is dumped by her boyfriend because she’s not “serious” enough for him, she knows just how to get him back; she’ll get into Harvard Law School and prove in person just how serious she is. East Coast academia is a cold new world for a girl used to sorority life in the California sun, and Elle seems destined to fail, proving that everyone who thinks the worst of her is right. But with encouragement from new and old friends, Elle finds her footing and her drive, just in time for the biggest challenge yet – a murder trial! Can Elle win the case without compromising on who she is? There are some musicals I wouldn’t want to see over and over again, and a large part of that is whether the main characters are ones worth caring about.   Legally Blonde is a show that’s fun and energetic, but at its core it’s a show about doing what you believe in and building supportive friendships along the way.   Elle Woods may be vain and she may commit to things for the wrong reasons, but sh

She Loves Me a Delight at 4 Community Theatre

She Loves Me tells a story that by now feels familiar: Two rivals each develop a romantic relationship with a pen pal – not knowing that they’re actually writing to each other. The first iteration, the play Parfumerie, premiered in 1937 in Hungary, and in the years that followed it was adapted into film versions starring Jimmy Stewart and Judy Garland (in two separate movies), then into the musical She Loves Me, and most recently into the 1998 film You’ve Got Mail , starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Whether the characters are writing letters or shooting off emails, the premise remains irresistible. How long can they hate each other at work and love each other in writing, and which will win in the end? 4 Community Theatre has certainly been busy lately, as I imagine they started rehearsals for She Loves Me right on the heels of their summer show.   But they’ve found a nice spot in the year for an uncontested show weekend; after multiple crowded weekends this summer it was nice to hav

A Playful and Exuberant "Shrek" at Chaska Valley Family Theatre

What’s an ogre to do when a bunch of fairy tale creatures are dumped on his swamp? Earn the deed back from the megalomaniacal lord who put them there by rescuing a princess from a dragon, of course! But not without the help of a talkative donkey, and not without learning a thing or two along the way.  Shrek: The Musical  (based on the 2001 animated film)   is a mainstay of the community theater scene, and I’m sure not complaining. It’s a show with strong characters, plentiful jokes, and even some actual emotional heft. I am losing count of the number of times I’ve seen it (seven, maybe?), but I’ll keep showing up for it, because I know I'm always in for a good time with this show. I’ve been to a couple of shows at Chaska Valley Family Theatre, and I was glad to be back with them in the spacious theater at Chanhassen High School (the previous show, Bright Star , was in a smaller space with less comfortable seating).   One thing that surprised me even before the show began was the

"The SpongeBob Musical" Dazzles and Delights at Eagan Summer Community Theater

I’m a little too old to have been the target audience for the SpongeBob Squarepants TV show, but even in the early days it was impossible to avoid it completely. Now, after 13 seasons of the show, three feature length films, two spinoff shows, an unimaginable amount of merchandise, and some very catchy memes, it’s hard to imagine a person who hasn’t noticed SpongeBob at least a little. The premise of the show is that a sponge named SpongeBob Squarepants lives in a pineapple under the sea and works at an underwater burger joint. He has adventures with his best friend Patrick, who is a sea star, and Sandy, who is a squirrel in an astronaut suit. In The SpongeBob Musical , their whole town is threatened by an underwater volcano. Everyone else is occupied with greed, prejudice, rock music, or doomsday cults, and so it’s up to SpongeBob to make sure the day gets saved. After seeing Eagan Summer Community Theater’s production of Big Fish , I knew to expect a big production, but I was compl

A Colorful and Memorable "Little Mermaid" at 4 Community Theatre

Ariel has never felt like she fit in with her family and her surroundings. She has glimpses of a different world and imagines a new life for herself, but can’t make her father understand, so she ends up taking a dangerous risk to try to live her dream. Yes, she’s a mermaid. But there’s a universality to the story of Ariel’s search for the place and identity that makes her feel at home, and that’s a big part of what makes The Little Mermaid an enduring story. It's about a colorful and musical ocean world, but it's also about risking everything for the chance at true happiness. This is my second time attending a 4 Community Theatre, but my first at Orono High School Auditorium; it’s on the smaller side for a theater, and the stage isn’t raised at all, which is unusual, but the acoustics were better than some other spaces I’ve been in.   I happened to attend the sensory-friendly performance, and I thought 4CT did a really clever thing by preparing a pre-show slide show, which wa