Photo Courtesy of the Minnesota Fringe Festival
From Broad Sex in the Twin Cities
From Broad Sex in the Twin Cities
The annual Minnesota Fringe Festival will be taking over the Twin Cities theater scene from August 3–13. And, unless you’re a superhero like a character in a few of this year’s plays, you can’t see them all. In fact, Minnesota Fringe Executive Director Dawn Bentley says seeing 56 shows is the closest you can get to a “Perfect Fringe,” because of timing and locations. So pick a neighborhood, or pick a genre, and settle in for as many hour-long performances as possible. In Fringe tradition, we don’t know much about the shows, but here are a few we’ve got our eyes on.
Thor: Jurassic Park
By Access World Productions | Playing at Theatre in the Round
Leave it to the Avengers (starring a recently-out-of-the-closet Hawkeye) to save Jurassic Park after a tragic accident. Superheroes and dinosaurs, together at last. That must count for something.
It Can’t Happen Here
By Sinclair Lewis Productions | Playing at the Ritz Theater Studio
The theater adaptation of Sinclair Lewis’s classic novel is already giving us chills. In the play, a small-town news editor must come to grips with the election of a fascist demagogue-turned-U.S.-president, and what will happen to his community as their freedom starts to slip away.
What You Will
By Jammed Desk Productions | Playing at Phoenix Theater
What You Will, created and performed by a group of University of Minnesota students, explores Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night through a transgender lens. In this version, Cesario is not a cisgender woman but a transgender man, bringing Shakespeare’s own exploration of gender even further.
PHD (Po H# on Dope) to Ph.D.: How Education Saved My Life
By Give Us Free Records, LLC | Playing at Phoenix Theater
Dr. E Richardson will perform her one-woman show (based on her memoir) about escaping teen sex trafficking, abuse and addiction and finding self-love and acceptance through music. It’s Dr. E’s first time performing at Fringe, but she’s familiar with the Twin Cities crowd: She used to be a University of Minnesota professor.
Ronald Reagan: Time Traveler
By Katherine Glover Presents | Playing at Strike Theater
Can a time-traveling Ronald Reagan save the 2016 Republican Party? Or will he learn a valuable A Christmas Carol-esque lesson? There’s only one way to find out. Writer Katherine Glover is a Fringe veteran and a 2013 Ivey Award winner, and we can’t wait to see what she has in store now.
Slaughterhouse Five: A Musical
By Clevername Productions | Playing at the Jungle Theater
Dresden bombing survivor Billy Pilgrim is “unstuck in time” and lives, dies, and lives again. But hey, this time it’s in song. Kurt Vonnegut’s novel is adapted for the stage in this twist on a classic.
Making It Home
By Delve Theatre | Playing at Theatre in the Round
Did you know the Twin Cities house the largest population of Somalis in North America? In this performance, a group of Somali storytellers will take the stage to talk about the triumphs and hardships of making the Twin Cities home.
Broad Sex in the Twin Cities
By GIRL Theatre | Playing at Strike Theater
What happens when you mix Broad City, Sex and the City, and our two beloved cities? A fun comedy about best friends Marisa and Hope as they stumble through notable Twin Cities landmarks (like light rail stops and breweries, naturally) on their way to—full circle here—their Fringe performance.
MEDUSA
By Vox Medusa with Infiammati FireCircus | Playing at Boom Island Park
It’s probably a good thing this one isn’t in a theater. Dance, fire performance, music, and video come together to tell the story of Medusa’s transformation from Athena’s priestess to a snakes-for-hair monster.
