STRANGE HEART: The Dream Songs of John Berryman is… Different. So a Perfect Fit for Open Eye Theatre

Bradley Greenwald & Anna Hashizume Photo by Bruce Silcox

Strange Heart: The Dream Songs of John Berryman is different. Not bad different, but very much its own thing. It centers on Pulitzer Prize winning poet John Berryman, who died by suicide in 1972, the year I was born, which may explain why I wasn’t very familiar with him going in.

Billed as a jazz-infused operetta, the show primarily focuses on one of Berryman’s hospitalizations for alcohol abuse. There, we meet a puppet named Henry, representing his subconscious and giving him someone to interact with beyond his nurse and his wife. Through reminiscences, we get backstory about his mother, his father, and his wife, Kate.

Much of the show unfolds in a fluid, stream-of-consciousness style. The subject matter is dark, but the tone is decidedly humorous. Bradley Greenwald plays Berryman with an almost impish sense of humor, as if everything is a joke and most people, aside from him and Henry, aren’t in on it. There’s a song about whiskey that he performs with Sam Albright, who puppeteers and voices Henry, and it’s genuinely delightful, or at least as delightful as an alcoholic singing about whiskey with a puppet can be. If that sentence makes you wonder what the hell this show is, that’s exactly the point. It’s different, with a capital DIFF.

There are also sweet moments, such as the first date between Berryman and Kate, played by the always fabulous Anna Hashizume, and another where they reminisce about those early days. The duet they share looking back, along with the whiskey song, are the musical highlights.

This world premiere, written and composed by Greg Brosofske, runs about 90 minutes with no intermission, which feels like the perfect length. There are only five or six songs total, fewer than I expected. It’s definitely not a play, but it also feels a bit light on songs to be a full musical. “Operetta” is probably the closest label, though even that doesn’t quite capture it. Again, it’s its own thing. And if you find it’s not your kind of thing, well, I refer you back to the 90 minutes, no intermission.

Directed and designed by Joel Sass, the production has that Open Eye Theatre aesthetic I love. Sass has a knack for offbeat material and feels like a perfect match here. Music direction is by Wesley Frye, and his quartet provides exactly the right sound for the venue. As an added bonus, they entertain the audience with 15–20 minutes of preshow music. Remember when Theater Latté Da used to do that for shows like Once and Hedwig?

Strange Heart: The Dream Songs of John Berryman runs through March 22 at Open Eye Theatre in Minneapolis. For more information and tickets go to https://www.openeyetheatre.org/strange-heart

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The Importance of Being Earnest Reminds of the Importance of a Little Silliness at Lakeshore Players

Oscar Wilde was perhaps the greatest wit of the 19th century, and The Importance of Being Earnest is the perfect showcase of his genius. Unlike the comedies of William Shakespeare, Wilde’s play makes no claim to profound insights into human nature. It pokes fun at pomposity and the upper class’s detachment from reality, to be sure, but its greatest achievement is much simpler: it is hilariously entertaining. That, and Wilde’s innate mastery of the English language. It truly is a marvelous script: very smart, very funny, and very, very silly.

It is also one of those rare plays from the 1800s that needs no modernization to make it accessible. There’s no need for conceptual updates, explanatory framing, or footnotes aimed at the audience. Wilde’s language and comic structure still land perfectly well on their own. As an avowed anglophile and connoisseur of British humor, his work has always hit the sweet spot for me, and Earnest remains one of the purest examples of how well that style of comedy can work.

The play, which premiered in 1895, centers on two members of the idle upper class: Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, both of whom make use of aliases in order to get out of obligations and do whatever they please. Jack has created a younger brother named Earnest, which he uses as an excuse to leave his home in the country, where he lives with his ward, the 18-year-old Cecily, and go to London to live a carefree and pleasure centered life as his imaginary brother. Algernon has invented an invalid friend named Bunbury, whom he uses to escape dinners with his aunt, Lady Bracknell, under the excuse of being called to Bunbury’s sickbed.

Jack has fallen in love with Lady Bracknell’s daughter Gwendolen, and she with him. But Lady Bracknell will not allow the engagement due to Jack’s not knowing where he came from, having been discovered in a handbag as an infant in Victoria Station. Algernon, thinking Jack will be in London through the weekend and having discovered his country address, and the existence of the young ward Cecily, arrives at Jack’s country home pretending to be his younger brother Earnest. Cecily and Algernon immediately fall in love.

When Jack returns early to inform his household of the death of his brother Earnest, he’s surprised to find that Earnest has apparently moved into the bedroom next to his. The final ingredient comes when both men, who have wooed under the name Earnest, discover that the women they love insist they could only ever love a man named Earnest, which neither of them actually is. Hilarity ensues, and one can’t help suspecting that this play must have served as a template for half the books P. G. Wodehouse would later write.

Director Craig Johnson’s production at Lakeshore Players Theatre in White Bear Lake features a cast as nimble of foot as they are of tobgue. They bring a physicality to their roles that heightens the already deliciously ludicrous tone.

Cody Carlson plays Jack, the straight man, at least compared to Lewis Youngren’s Algernon. Both play their roles superbly. They have a wonderful scene where they argue while each tries to claim the muffin tray for himself. Skye Stuempert plays Gwendolen and Aerin O’Malley plays Cecily, who verbally spar over their mistaken belief that they are both engaged to Earnest. They play the cattiness of romantic rivals perfectly. Mary Cutler is a delight as the formidable Lady Bracknell, deliciously selling the leaps of logic and nonsensical rationale behind her firmly held beliefs, which conveniently change depending on her immediate goal.

Michael Garry plays both Algernon’s manservant in town and Jack’s servant in the country. The former feels like a template for Wodehouse’s Jeeves, and Garry captures that unflappable, dry delivery perfectly.

This is a great opportunity to see one of the great comedic plays brought to the stage by a cast that clearly knows how to make the laughs land. I always tell folks that when a classic like this comes around, make sure you see it. Plays are meant to be experienced live, and some of these classics don’t come around nearly as often as they should.

The Importance of Being Earnest runs through March 22nd at Lakeshore Players in White Bear Lake. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://www.lakeshoreplayers.org/earnest-season-73

Sleuth Will Keep You on Your Toes and on the Edge of Your Seat as This Classic Thriller Hits The Guthrie Stage

John Tufts (Milo Tindle) and Ramiz Monsef (Andrew Wyke) Photo Credit: Dan Norman

I’m fairly familiar with Sleuth, though I’d never seen it performed. I have seen the two film versions, which have their own interesting backstory. The play, written by Anthony Shaffer, premiered in 1970 and won the Tony Award for Best Play. It was adapted by Shaffer into a film directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz starring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine.

The play was adapted again in 2007 with a screenplay by Harold Pinter, who had never seen the earlier film or the play before. That film, directed by Kenneth Branagh, starred Michael Caine again, this time in the older role, with Jude Law taking over the part Caine played in the original film. Few plays have such an interesting lineage, where one generation of actors quite literally inherits the roles from the previous one.

Which made it a particular pleasure to finally see the original version as it was intended: on stage.

The two-act play is a cat-and-mouse game between Andrew Wyke, a writer of mystery novels, and Milo Tindle, who owns a travel agency and happens to want to marry Andrew’s wife. Andrew says he has no objections; he just wants to make sure that Milo can afford her and won’t find her back on his doorstep. Andrew has a plan to have Milo pretend to burglarize his house and make off with a fortune in jewels, which Milo can sell for cash while Andrew collects on the insurance money. But is it as straightforward as that? Is that even straightforward? The twists and turns are what make the show such an enjoyable entertainment, so discussing the plot any further feels like robbing it of its bread and butter.

John Tufts as Milo and Ramiz Monsef as Andrew both do solid work. Tufts in particular is very good, and while Sleuth isn’t exactly a comedic thriller, the performers find quite a bit of black comedy to play with.

That said, I was a little disappointed in the Guthrie for bringing in a cast of out-of-towners rather than utilizing the deep bench of talent we have here in the Twin Cities. Monsef also strikes me as a little young for Andrew. I couldn’t help imagining what someone like David Andrew Macdonald might have done with that role, with Peter Christian Hansen as Milo.

Rounding out the supporting cast is a particularly droll performance by Stanley Rushton as Inspector Doppler, with smaller roles for Liam McNulty and Robin Mayfield as fellow policemen.

I always say that a play that uses black wooden boxes to stand in for every piece of set can be just as thrilling as a set that costs the budget of some theater companies’ entire seasons. And I believe that to be true. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love a well-dressed and elaborate set. Todd Rosenthal has created a playroom of a set, which you can see in the accompanying photo, and it’s a thing of beauty.

If you enjoy a twisty-turny mystery, Sleuth will be right up your alley. It’s a well-mounted production and the cast is really quite good, even if they aren’t local. Sleuth runs through May 10. I read in a program recently that Agatha Christie was single handedly keeping theater doors open. That’s an exaggeration, of course, but this is along those lines and should fill seats and entertain theatergoers.

For more information and to purchase tickets, go to:
https://www.guthrietheater.org/shows-and-tickets/2025-2026-season/sleuth/

Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope Uplifts the Audience While Refracting a Spotlight Through the Prism of Black America

The Cast of Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope (March 2026 Penumbra Theatre) Photo Credit Caroline Yang

Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope is a historic piece of musical theater, the first Broadway show with music and lyrics by a Black woman and also the first Broadway show directed by a Black woman. That was back in 1972, the year I was born. The similarities end there.

Micki Grant’s musical revue doesn’t have a traditional narrative. There are no discernible continuing characters moving throughout the show, and no dialogue to speak of. And yet it feels as though each new number is a short story, complete with characters, a theme, and its own unique tone. Each of these short stories looks at the lives of Black Americans through a different social, political, or cultural lens.

Unlike other works that strive to examine the Black experience, this one feels like it’s looking at it from the inside rather than presenting it for an outside perspective. That allows the show to be, above all else, a celebration. This isn’t a laundry list of injustices or righteous grievances. It’s the world through a perspective shared by many in the audience and, for others like myself, perhaps a clearer sense of how that world looks.

What the show gets incredibly right is that no one is the sum of the bad things that happen to them. If that were true, all of us living under Trump would be defined either by our ignorance or by our outrage. I am more than my outrage, because outrage alone is no way to live a life. As with this show, many of the songs deal with social issues, and there are moments when the show allows that outrage to breathe. But it always reminds us that people living with outrage day in and day out still find ways to let joy in.

I want to convey as strongly as I can that this is not a work about anger and injustice. It’s a beautiful, engaging, uplifting, and ultimately joyous experience. It acknowledges reality and shows how people deal with that reality, by not letting it win, by fighting when they can, and by finding laughter, love, and yes, joy wherever they can. By refusing to be defined by what others have done to them.

The songs move through styles including gospel, jazz, funk, soul, and rock, though my personal favorite was the calypso flavor that kept popping up. One of the best songs early in the show, “Goin’ to Town This Morning,” immediately made me think of my favorite Donna Summer song, “Unconditional Love.” That number features one of my favorites, Austene Van, on lead vocals, reminding me yet again how amazing she is.

But here’s the thing: the entire cast is amazing. I could easily sit here and list every performer and tell you my favorite moment for each of them. But then I wouldn’t get to bed, and you’d probably stop reading a quarter of the way through. Suffice it to say they are all terrific, including Twin Cities Theater Blogger Favorite Emerging Artist of 2025 Antonisia Collins. This is her first role since winning the award, and it reassures us that we got that one absolutely right.

And Mrs. The Stages of MN would kill me if I didn’t also mention Aimee K. Bryant, who gave her goosebumps every time she sang. Did I know Bryant could sing? She can’t possibly be that good and I never noticed, so I must have known and simply forgotten.

Before wrapping up, I do want to acknowledge a few of the backstage artists. First, Patdro Harris, who directs the show so that each song has a distinct and clearly told story. Harris is also getting my nomination for Best Choreographer, one of the elements that makes this production truly unforgettable. Sanford Moore’s music direction, and the sound he gets from his band, is so thrilling that there wasn’t a moment in the entire runtime when I wasn’t bobbing along or clapping to the beat. The energy of some of these numbers is absolutely infectious.

I also want to mention projection designer Miko Simmons, whose work is exceptional. The projections add texture and weight where needed without overwhelming the show’s overwhelmingly positive “Good Vibrations“.

Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope runs through April 5 at Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit:
https://penumbratheatre.org/event/dont-bother-me-i-cant-cope/#4

Water For Elephants All the Fun of a Trip to the Circus But With the Added Bonus of Great Music, and No Smells.

The cast of WATER FOR ELEPHANTS Photo by Matthew Murphy for MurphyMade

Water for Elephants is based on the novel by Sara Gruen, which I haven’t read, that was adapted into a film, which I haven’t seen. Really, all I knew going in was that Mrs. The Stages of MN and I saw the poster when we were in NYC in 2024 and wished we’d had time to see it.

The story is told by an old man to two circus employees after a performance, so it is a memory play. The older Jacob tells of his days in the circus as a young man who missed taking his veterinary exams when his parents were killed in a car accident. With their house taken over by the bank, he hops a train looking for… what, he doesn’t know. What he finds is a circus in need of a veterinarian who can’t afford a real one. He reluctantly agrees to stay on, and when the circus acquires Rosie, the elephant of the title, he helps train her along with the circus owner and ringmaster August’s wife, Marlena. Marlena and Jacob bond over training Rosie, whose addition to the circus reverses its fortunes, endearing Jacob to the rest of the workers and performers. Everything could be wonderful, but, August is not a good man…

The story is compelling enough, and I enjoyed the score and songs enough that I may give the cast recording a listen or two. Sorry, current audiobook, I’ll get back to you in a day or two. But what really makes this show stand out is the choreography by Jesse Robb and Shana Carroll, assuming that’s what you call the spectacular and seemingly peril-filled circus aerial acts. There are some genuinely jaw-dropping moments that you’re amazed they pull off once, let alone eight times a week. As much as I enjoyed everything else about the show, it was those circus acts, and the clowning by Walter, played by Tyler West, that delighted me most. The clowning is so funny and wonderfully slapstick. I loved it, and West was probably my favorite performer in the entire show.

This must be an exceptionally hard show to cast, and to be honest, I think they cast for the ability to do the stunts first and singing voice second. Very few in the cast are outstanding vocally, but none are terrible. Based on what I was most delighted by, I’d say that was probably the right call. The best singers were Zakeyia Lacey, who was in as the understudy for Marlena, and Javier Garcia, who plays Camel, the elderly circus worker who first befriends Jacob. The real stars, though, as I’ve said, are the people floating gracefully through the sky and free-falling headfirst down ropes, stopping themselves inches from the floor. It’s breathtaking.

Visually, in every respect, the show is a winner, from the scenic design by Takeshi Kata, which works seamlessly with Bradley King’s lighting design and David Bengali’s restrained, mood-enhancing projections to create the look of a simpler time. The animals are created via puppets by Ray Wetmore, Jr Goodman, and Camille LaBarre, and while not on the level of Life of Pi or The Lion King, they’re still effective.

Water for Elephants runs through March 8th at Hennepin Arts Orpheum Theatre through March 8th. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://hennepinarts.org/events/water-for-elephants

Connor Sullivan, Helen Krushinski, and Zachary Keller Photo by Matthew Murphy for MurphyMade

And Then There Were None Gets a Suspenseful and Atmospheric Production at Lyric Arts

Agatha Christie fans who are only familiar with the 1939 novel And Then There Were None should not avoid this under the assumption that they know how it ends. When Christie adapted her novel for the stage in 1943, she made a significant change to the outcome that most adaptations in other mediums have also utilized. I’ll just say it isn’t as bleak as the novel. Those who have seen previous productions, this is my third, should know that if you’re a fan, this is the best adaptation I’ve seen so far. I attribute that to a uniformly strong cast and excellent direction by Lee Hannah Conrads. Conrads and her cast find humor in the character banter and exploit our fear of the dark with well-designed sequences when the power goes out.

I read the novel in junior high for English class, but I was a Christie fan, and an And Then There Were None fan, long before that. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know who Christie was, and I must have been under ten when I first saw the 1945 film adaptation directed by René Clair. Somehow, a classic whodunnit always feels like it should be in black and white. All the best ones are: And Then There Were None, Green for Danger, The Thin Man. The great missed opportunity of British postwar cinema was that they didn’t make a series of Inspector Cockrill films with Alastair Sim in the 1940s after Green for Danger, one of the greatest mystery films of all time. If you haven’t seen it, seek it out. But I digress.

Christie’s plot will sound familiar to everyone, even those unfamiliar with the title. Ten strangers are brought together by an unknown host. Cut off from the rest of the world on an island, the “ten little soldiers,” as the rhyme goes, begin to find themselves murdered one by one. Each is accused of having murdered someone, and this is their host’s plan to even the scales. Is there a madman loose on the island, or is the killer one of them? It’s devilishly good fun, with a top-notch setup and payoff. Every single slasher movie ever made owes something to it, but don’t hold that against it.

The show does tip its hand a little in that there is a clear attraction between two of the ten, and you can pretty much guess they’ll make it to the final four. Beyond that, all bets are off. Nadya Dominique and Brendan Veerman play the would-be lovers Vera Claythorne and Philip Lombard. Dominique and Veerman perfectly capture the tone, sometimes serious, sometimes playful, of those classic movies I love so much. Bruce Abas gives an intelligent performance as the former judge Sir Lawrence Wargrave, methodical in his attempt to keep everyone safe and root out the true killer. David Denninger gives a very sympathetic performance, particularly in his character’s final scenes, as he seems to get lost in memories of his late wife. It’s disappointing to see Michael Quadrozzi in such a small role as Fred Narracott, who brings everyone to the island at the beginning of the play, and is never heard from again. But perhaps it makes sense, as he’s listed as an understudy, you want someone of his caliber when you need someone who can cover multiple roles. Also, a nod to understudy Sarah Furniss, who stepped in as Mrs. Rogers at the performance I attended and did a very nice job.

Justin Hooper’s set design is well constructed, with perhaps the exception of the glass doors to the patio, which looked to be made of loosely stretched cellophane. It may have been where I was sitting, off to the side of the stage, as the production photos don’t look chintzy, and they hint at a backdrop that adds interesting visuals I may have missed. What was on full display for all to see, or not, was the lighting design by Alyssa Kraft. It’s one of the more effective uses of candlelight I’ve seen in a show. Usually the designer or director is too timid to let the stage be lit solely by candles, but I’ll tell you, it is very effective. I applaud Kraft for going that route, and Conrads stages everything wonderfully, making full use of the darkness to ramp up the tension and play on our collective fear of it.

And Then There Were None at Lyric Arts is a top-notch mystery thriller for those of us who love a good whodunnit and a slap of suspense now and then. The production runs through March 22. For more information and to purchase tickets, go to https://www.lyricarts.org/then-there-were-none.

Men on Boats Is a Thrilling and Enlightening Journey Down River as Only Ten Thousand Things Can do it

Walken Schweigert, Karen Wiese-Thompson, Anya Naylor, Maureen Sherman-Mendez, George Keller, Ashawnti Sakina Ford, and Jay Owen Eisenberg Photo by Tom Wallace

Men on Boats is another brilliant example of what makes Ten Thousand Things (TTT) one of the best theater companies in the state of MN. This company is the epitome of creativity and performance-centered theater. They perform in the round with all the lights up, and they rely on the actors to create most of the world in which the shows take place, using minimal set pieces and props so that everything they need can fit in a U-Haul trailer. This allows them to travel with their shows, making theater available to all. They go everywhere from senior living homes to recovery centers and correctional facilities. As entertaining and creative as anything else you’ll see on any stage, their minimalist approach is never a shortcoming.

Men on Boats tells the story of an 1869 expedition by ten men down the Green and Colorado Rivers from Wyoming to Big Canyon (now known as the Grand Canyon). In a world that wants to whitewash our theaters, TTT offers up a diverse cast telling the story of white men naming things after themselves and claiming to discover places Indigenous people were already aware of and, in most cases, had already named. The cast of ten is made up entirely of female and non–cisgender male performers, which I believe is a stipulation of the script.

In one sense, this tells the adventurous story of intrepid explorers battling nature in a desperate attempt to survive… in order to name shit after themselves. There is commentary within the play, but it is this unique casting that really brings lines that could be played straight into sharper focus. The commentary on Manifest Destiny and the toxic masculinity that fueled it comes in part from the gender profile of the cast and their clear understanding of how to play up the characters’ unquestioning belief in their superiority and their unflinching stupidity in the face of reality. It speaks to how far we have regressed as a country, as much of it feels like commentary on our current leaders.

It takes creativity to transport an audience to four boats battling their way through the rocks and rapids of wild rivers in the late 1800s with only a few props, costumes, the actors themselves, and music composed and performed live by Walken Schweigert. The show is directed by Stages of MN favorite Joy Dolo. The cast is so strong that I cannot single anyone out as a favorite. That’s the thing with TTT, performance is so crucial that they invariably cast their shows with the best of the best. Even their understudies, Em Adam Rosenberg and Michelle De Joya, whom you would be lucky to see step in, are fantastic. Rather than attempt to detail how great they each are individually, I’m opting simply to list the cast. Trust me, there is no weakest link.

The cast: Jay Owen Eisenberg, Charli Fool Bear, Ashawnti Sakina Ford, Emjoy Gavino, George Keller, Elise Langer, Anya Naylor, Adelin Phelps, Maureen Sherman-Mendez, and Karen Wiese-Thompson.

Men on Boats runs through March 15. For more information and to purchase tickets, go to https://tenthousandthings.org/