Year in Review 2007
Genderbending in Twin Cities theater had a field day in 2007. An all-male cast of Richard III by 10,000 Things and an all-female cast of Anton in Show Business at Starting Gate were exceptional. With The Deception, Theatre de la Jeune Lune gave us its most satisfyingly gender-ambiguous and erotic-ambiguous production ever. Theatre Unbound’s Frankenstein Incarnate was given a sturdy turn by Laura Wiebers as philosopher William Godwin and Katie Guentzel’s flickering portrayal of decadent poet Lord Byron. Sonja Parks and Jamila Anderson crossed gender divides seamlessly in Pillsbury House’s Home. Monte Wheeler as Frank ’N’ Furter led a kinkily genderbent cast in Ordway’s sizzling Rocky Horror Show. Fashion 47 at Children’s Theatre glistened with male fashion models in drag. Illusion’s Act A Lady scoped the dangers of crossdressing in 1920s rural Minnesota.
Iconic lesbian playwright Carolyn Gage’s The Anastasia Trials in the Court of Women from Theatre Unbound and her classic solo play The Second Coming of Joan of Arc from 20% Theatre both were staged cracklingly. 20% was named among the Best of Lesbian Regional Theatre by Curve Magazine.
Homophobia in college athletics blistered in Penumbra’s Red Shirts. Queer as Folk’s Randy Harrison intuited gay undercurrents as Tom in Guthrie’s The Glass Menagerie. Ditto Richard Iglewski’s Antonio in Guthrie’s The Merchant of Venice. Nathan Christopher and Patrick Bailey probed paranoia of hustler and John in Jungle’s Shining City. Miriam Must and Sandy’Ci Moua elicited sublime moments of lesbianic emotion in Red Eye’s Dead City. Though not homoerotic, Nicholas Harazin and Nicholas Freeman plumbed male intimacy bravely in Minnesota Jewish Theatre’s skinhead drama Cherry Docs. Katie Melby was fluid and hilarious as a woman who attracts both genders in 3 Sticks’s delightful Melancholy Play. Family conflict with gayness was dealt with movingly in Illusion’s Iron Kisses and Theatre Mu’s Bahala Na (Let it Go).
In dance, Ananya Dance Theatre’s Duurbaar gloried in tender images of female intimacy. Choreographer Matthew Janczewski’s UGLY by Arena Dance revealed intense depersonalization in anonymous sex, mostly homo. FootHolds Project’s Cri de Coeur and DOING or NOT were visions of physical isolation and transformation. Metro Ballet’s Paul Sutherland re-created joyously the original 1942 Martha Graham choreography to gay composer Aaron Copland’s Rodeo.
Best Productions
1. 1776, Guthrie Theater
2. The Deception, Theatre de la Jeune Lune
3. Speed the Plow, Jungle Theater
4. Richard III, 10,000 Things
5. Red Shirts, Penumbra Theatre
6. Anton in Show Business, Starting Gate Productions
7. Fat Pig, Walking Shadow Company
8. War With the Newts, Sandbox Theatre
9. The Glass Menagerie, Guthrie Theater
10. (tie)
The Anastasia Trials in the Court of Women, Theatre Unbound
Hot ’N’ Throbbing, 20% Theatre
Shining City, Jungle Theater
Theater Artist of the Year
Peter Rothstein
For soulful direction of Theater Latte Da’s Susannah; pitch-perfect direction of master gay playwright Noel Coward’s Private Lives at the Guthrie; pushing the gay envelope in Children’s Theatre’s Disney’s High School Musical; sensitivity to transphobia in Ilusion’s Act A Lady; directing Sally Wingert’s provocative Woman Before a Glass solo role for Minnesota Jewish Theatre.
Theater Hero of the year
Guthrie’s Artistic Director wowed us by pulling the new Guthrie space into sharp artistic focus with numerous wonderful productions over the past year, many of them daring in subject matter. Moreover, local theater artists are employed there significantly, and local performance companies are provided opportunities to play there—all with a clear eye to cultural diversity. Dowling’s direction of The Glass Menagerie and The Home Place showed his scrupulous instinct for specific feelings beneath the written dramatic word. Topping it off, Ian McKellen and the Royal Shakespeare Company’s King Lear graced the Big G this year, plus Tony Kushner was commissioned to write The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures.
Best Director
Michelle Hensley
Richard III
10,000 Things
Best Music direction
Anita Ruth
A Little Night Music
Bloomington Civic Theatre
Best Solo Performance
Katie Kaufmann
The Second Coming of Joan of Arc
20% Theatre
Best Actress (musical)
Jamecia Bennett
Get Ready
Penumbra Theatre
Best actor (musical)
Edward Williams Jr.
Kiss of the Spider Woman, Minneapolis Musical Theatre
Best Actress (nonmusical)
Beth Gilleland
Iron Kisses
Illusion Theater
Best Actor (nonmusical)
(tie)
Jim Bovino
Coriolanus
Flaneur Productions
Richard Ooms
Trying
Park Square
Best Supporting actress
Mo Perry
Anton in Show Business
Starting Gate
Best Supporting actor
Richard Iglewski
The Merchant of Venice and The Home Place
Guthrie
Funniest Performance
Stacey Poirier
The Anastasia Trials in the Court of Women
Theatre Unbound
Best Choreographer
Michael Matthew Ferrell
Disney’s High School Musical and Fashion 47
Children’s Theatre
Superior achievement in dance
Germaul Barnes and Jim Lieberthal
Cri de Coeur with DOING or NOT
FootHolds Project
Superior achievement in performance Art
Hidden Yearning, Niaz-E-Nahan
VSA Arts & Intermedia Arts
Persian dance, ritualized movement, song, violin, masks, video, storytelling, and poetry integrated by director-choreographer Leili Tajadod Pritschet courageously defied patriarchal Islamic brutality, and cried for all religions to reclaim love, care, and compassion as core values.
Superior achievement in Opera
The Grapes of Wrath
Minnesota Opera
Fresh from his Broadway triumph of Grey Gardens, composer Ricky Ian Gordon hit St. Paul with The Grapes of Wrath. It traveled the uglier back roads of economic breakdown, from suicide to mob violence to the startling breast-feeding moment you won’t see in the movie.
Susannah
Theater Latte Da
Carlylse Floyd’s incendiary opera draws parallels between McCarthyism and erotophobia in Appalachia. Director Peter Rothstein’s cast was resplendently vocal. With John Donahue’s cryptic set design, the year’s best, the opera’s natural setting itself was drained of vibrant color, just as the townsfolk had replaced healthy passion with hatred of all things physical.
