Welcome to One Show to See This Week, a weekly newsletter where I recommend the one play or musical you should see in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area in the next seven days, because I believe live theater should be part of your routine. My inbox is always open, as are my DMs. Glad you’re here!
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One Show to See This Week
Strange Heart: The Dream Songs of John Berryman
Open Eye Theatre, 506 E. 24th Street, Minneapolis, MN 55404
March 5th – 22nd
This Thursday marks the beginning for Strange Heart, as this “operetta” about poet John Berryman will be getting its official world premiere. But for playwright and composer Greg Brosofske, whose previous compositions have been featured in shows at the Guthrie and the Jungle, it’s the continuation of a project that’s been in the works for over a decade.
As Open Eye Theatre notes, they’ve been helping develop this production in various ways since 2015 when they first held a workshop and ran the show for a weekend. Anyone out there who can say they were there then?
If you don’t know poet John Berryman, or his most famous work, the Pulitzer-winning Dream Songs of the title, there are still a number of points of interest here that should convince you to grab a ticket.
First, Berryman has a Minnesota connection: He taught at the U of M from 1955 until his death in 1972. Second, the two main actors in this show are favorites in the Twin Cities scene: Bradley Greenwald (who I saw last in Passion at Theater Latté Da) and Anna Hashizume (who I hear won plenty of new fans as Eliza Doolittle in Latté Da’s My Fair Lady, which I regrettably missed). And lastly, because this is Open Eye, you’re not just getting a live band “playing a dreamy jazz-infused score,” you’re also getting the puppet Henry, based on Berryman’s main character and alter ego in Dream Songs, who will be performed by Samuel Albright.
Last Call for In the Green at Theatre Elision
Did you get a bonus email from me last week? If so, my apologies. I was apparently so excited that I was publishing my first full review of a show in months that I sent it out to a few inboxes instead of simply adding it to the site.
I’m sorry for accidentally spamming, but I’m not sorry for promoting Theatre Elision’s experimental, visceral, and entrancing musical In the Green, which has just three performances left: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. (It’s 90 minutes, no intermission, if that appeals to you…) Read my full review of it here.
See you here next week!
Alex
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