Twin Cities Community Theater Beat

Why do so many community theater groups do Shrek ?  Because it’s a perfect community theater show--it has a huge number of featured roles, it has name recognition, it’s got a good family-friendly message, theaters can re-use a lot of costumes they already have… Honestly, there are a lot of reasons.  Why do community theaters end up doing it at the same time? Well, that’s just how things go in a city with a lot of community theaters. But each production is a unique creation, and even familiar shows can surprise you, like River Valley Theatre Company’s Shrek did for me. Shrek is the story of an ogre who knows the fairy tales--pretty people get to live happily ever after, and the weirdos and freaks don’t.  But with the help of an exuberant talking donkey (and some other weirdos and freaks) he and a princess learn that they can forge their own fairy tale.  Jared Mogen played the titular ogre in RVTC’s production, and from the beginning his Shrek struck me as more...

Freaky Friday is the story of a mother and a teen daughter who can't seem to get along--until they literally walk in each other's shoes.  When they magically switch bodies, they each learn firsthand about how hard the other's life can be. It's a story that's been popular enough to generate two successful films (in 1976 and 2003) and finally a stage musical.  While the musical wasn't a runaway hit, it is a show that pleasantly surprised me. It would be a good show for families to see together, because it delivers its message about cutting your family some slack in a way that is more mature than other stories--perfect for tweens and up. In the stage version, performed this July at Woodbury Community Theatre, mother Katherine and daughter Ellie trade places after fighting and breaking a magical oversized hourglass that Katherine's late husband had given to his daughter (he had given an identical one to his wife).  I implore you not to think too hard about...