Theatermaker Joe Hendren wants people to know about History Theatre’s Raw Stages new works festival, taking place through Sunday in St. Paul. There’s a reading of a new work-in-progress each day.

These are plays and musicals commissioned by the History Theatre, and this festival is an opportunity for the shows’ playwrights and artistic team to see how an audience reacts, and for the audience to ask questions and offer feedback in a Q&A following each performance. Find the line-up here.

Hendren is especially interested in seeing “Secret Warriors,” a new play written by Rick Shiomi, a founding member of Theater Mu and co-founder of Full-Circle Theater. The play is about the nisei (second-generation Japanese Americans) who worked with the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II as translators, codebreakers and interrogators. The show highlights a piece of Minnesota history: the Military Intelligence Service Language School at Fort Snelling. That reading is Saturday at 2 p.m.

St. Paul artist Stuart Loughridge is looking forward to the opening this Saturday of David Cunningham’s exhibit “City Life” at Gallery 360 in Minneapolis.

Cunningham’s oil paintings focus on urban landscapes and on liminal times of day when the light of dusk or dawn does magical things to a city. Loughridge says Cunningham’s paintwork is “exciting and active,” with elements of abstraction, and he appreciates the mysterious narratives of the people who populate his canvasses.

Visitors can expect to see familiar Twin Cities sights in a new way. The show runs through Feb. 25. 

St. Paul playwright Kyle B. Dekker is a big fan of the Minneapolis band Sycamore Gap, who he always enjoys seeing perform at the Renaissance Festival.

The group sings old world, revival and original folk music about working people, with sea shanties and some yodeling thrown in for good measure. Dekker loves their harmonies and bass rhythms.  

This Saturday, Sycamore Gap will be the closing act in a four-band local concert in South Minneapolis. The event is a fundraiser for the Arbitrarium, an artist coop that is raising money to buy their building and create housing for low-income artists.

The show starts at 7 p.m. and will be livestreamed on YouTube.  

Maricella Xiong of St. Paul admires the work of Urban Roots, a nonprofit community and safe space that serves local youth.

This November, around the Hmong New Year, local Hmong youth dressed in their traditional Hmong clothes and took photograph portraits at the Urban Roots’ Rivoli Bluffs Farm. Youth at Urban Roots then selected the final pictures for the show. 

“I thought it was a phenomenal expression of cultural revitalization, indigenous solidarity, and Hmong indigeneity in general," says Xiong. 

The photo exhibit “Rooted Legacy” is on view now in the front window display of Indigenous Roots, which is a center for arts and activism dedicated to “Native, Black, Brown and Indigenous peoples” in St. Paul.

Xiong also recommends stepping inside to enjoy Indigenous Roots’ excellent café and programming. 

Rachel Mock of Duluth’s Magic Smelt Puppet Troupe has long been a fan of Bold Choice Theatre Company. Its veteran stage actors are all adults with disabilities, and they’ve been working for more than a year on this Saturday’s country western musical “Sundown on the Jasper County Jewel.”

The original show has songs and music by Duluth’s Toby Thomas Churchill. In the show, a traveling band shows up for their booking at the Jasper Jewel, a grand old country music hall that has most decidedly seen better days.

Based on past experiences, Mock is looking forward to a high-caliber event with good music and some classic western danger, romance and intrigue. 

The musical is one night only, this Saturday, Jan. 6 at 6:30 p.m. at the Duluth Playhouse.  

Improv actor and comedian Bailey Murphy of Minneapolis is glad that “Off Book” is back at HUGE Improv Theater this weekend. The half-improv, half-scripted show is a long-running HUGE Theater favorite.

Murphy has acted in the show several times over the years, but every night is different. The performance is adapted with permission from Upright Citizen Brigade's Gravid Water. In it, one actor goes on stage with a memorized script for a show, and the other must improv their way through.

No matter what the improv actor throws at them, the scripted actor must stay on script. Murphy says the show always gets huge laughs.  

“Off Book” opens Jan. 6 at 7:30 p.m. and runs Saturdays through Feb. 24. 

Skylark Opera Theatre performs “The Gift of the Magi” this weekend, and members of the Armstrong High School Opera Club from Robbinsdale will be in attendance. Opera Club adviser Mark Mertens and student officer Grace Pawlak recommended this show for Art Hounds.  

They appreciate Skylark Opera Theatre for its short, accessible operas, typically sung in English. This 90-minute opera, based on the O. Henry story, tells of a newlywed couple who each make sacrifices to try to buy the other the perfect Christmas present.  

The theater stages operas in intimate settings, so you can see the orchestra and performers up close. “The Gift of the Magi” will be at the 150-seat Lowry Lab Theater at the St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Arts.

Shows are Friday, Dec. 15 at 7 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. 

Sontha Reine and her 96-year-old mother, actress Vivian Fusillo, are superfans of Johnson Street Underground, a local four-man a cappella group. The singers are all current or former educators who met singing choir in the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.

Reine loves the group’s energy and their wide range of songs, from the Beatles to Jason Mraz. This Saturday, they’ll be donning Santa hats for their holiday concert, which takes place at the Winona Arts Center at 7 p.m. 

Winona has a great music scene, and Reine gave a shout-out to an additional event: the Sleepy Weekend Festival. It’s a two-day music festival, new this year, featuring and curated by Sleepy Jesus, all-local line-up of including eight other bands. Events take place Friday, Dec. 15 at 7 p.m. and Saturday, Dec. 18 at 5 p.m. at No Name Bar in Winona. 

Mixed Precipitation founder and artistic director Scotty Reynolds says there’s still time to catch the play “A Christmas in Ochopee” in its final weekend.

Reynolds says New Native Theatre originally commissioned the play by Miccosukee playwright Montana Cypress for its 10-minute playwriting festival. COVID delayed its production, giving Cypress time to create a short film of the piece and expand it into the full play that’s currently on stage.

There’s plenty of drama and laughs, as well as some alligator wrestling, in this story set in the Everglades about a Native American college student who surprises his family by showing up for Christmas with his new fiancee. 

The final shows are tonight through Sunday, Dec. 17 at Red Eye Theater’s new performance space in the Seward Neighborhood of South Minneapolis. Tickets are pay-what-you-can, with a suggested price of $35. 

The upcoming evening performances are theme nights. Thursday is Family Night, with crafts and snacks in advance of the show; Friday is Ugly Sweater Night, and Saturday’s performance invites the audience to “wear your Christmas Best, whatever that means to you!”  

Singer and retired vocal teacher Mary Heston Dahl of White Bear Lake has a special place in her heart for the St. Croix Valley Chamber Chorale. She sang with them for about eight years, but this year she’s looking forward to hearing the performance from the audience.

Now in its 49th season, the VCC is the longest-running amateur choir in the Twin Cities, and in that time it’s only had two artistic directors. The chorale includes some 40-50 singers across a range of ages.  

This weekend is “Christmas with the Valley Chamber Chorale,” with four performances Fri., Dec. 8 through Sun., Dec. 10.

Dahl says the audience can look forward to some familiar carols, beautifully arranged and sung, as well as an opportunity to sing along with a few of them.

Performances are Fri. Dec. 8 – Sun. Dec. 10 at the St. Croix Prep Performing Arts Center at St. Croix Prep Upper School. This is a change from the chorale’s typical venue, the historic Washington County Courthouse, which is under renovation. '

Audience members are seated at tables, so buying tickets in advance is best to ensure your party can sit together. 

Classical music lover Pauline Marlinski of Gaylord plans to be in St. Peter tonight for a performance by the Gaylord-based ensemble La Grande Bande.

Now celebrating its fifth season, La Grande Bande specializes in music written from 1600-1800 (Early Music and Baroque). Their instruments, including harpsichord and viola da gamba, are original to the period. Marlinski appreciates the group’s focus on education as they perform in schools and communities across southern Minnesota.  

This weekend’s French Baroque Christmas will include eight singers and six musicians, with artistic director Michael Thomas Asmus on organ.

The performance will include a selection of works written for Christmas by French composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704). Marlinski is looking forward to singing along (in English) to some traditional French carols as part of the performance.  

Performances are Thursday, Dec. 7 at 7:30 at First Lutheran Church in St Peter. Sunday, Dec. 9 at 7:30 at Church of the Assumption in St. Paul. Each performance includes a short pre-concert talk at 6:45 to guide the audience through the music and composers. 

Not all annual holiday shows are serene and thoughtful. If Klingon battles are more your style, then actor and physical comedian Gregory Parks of Minneapolis recommends that you check out “It’s an Honorable Life” at Historic Mounds Theatre in St. Paul.

In this telling, Bailey is a Klingon warrior who has a high standing in the empire because of his bravery and his feats in battle. He fears that because he is so skilled, he will never meet a glorious death in battle, which is a great problem for a Klingon.

Enter the mysterious Q, who guides Bailey through many possible scenarios of his life. (Parks originated the character of Bailey but for the past three years has enjoyed the show from the audience seat.) 

Written by local Star Trek fans, with a local make-up artist ensuring that each actor has a proper Klingon forehead, this play is filled with references familiar and obscure. The show is not endorsed or affiliated with any Star Trek enterprise. 

“It’s An Honorable Life” runs Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30, and some Sundays at 2:30 through Dec. 23. Trekkie uniforms of all empires are encouraged but not required. Masks are requested when not eating or drinking. 

Art lover Bill Adams was delighted to visit the Kaddatz Galleries to see Charles Beck: Rarities and Masterpieces. The Kaddatz and other Fergus Falls venues have been celebrating “A Year of Beck” throughout 2023, marking what would have been the Minnesota artist’s 100th birthday.

Charles Beck (1923 – 2017) created woodcuts, paintings, and other artworks that often celebrated the landscape of Ottertail County in west central Minnesota. 

This is the final show in the series, and it runs through Dec. 23. The pieces in this exhibit include works from private collections that would not otherwise be available, spanning from Becks’ college drawings to his final piece. 

“I would say that Charles Beck's works are quintessential Minnesota pieces,” says Adams, who was thrilled to encounter new works of Beck’s at this show. “Yesterday when I was driving home from Fergus, I looked through some bare trees and in the background was a blue sky with white clouds above it, and I thought to myself, ‘Wow, that looks just like a Beck piece.’” 

Don Fortner has retired as music director from First Presbyterian Church in St. Cloud. Still, he wants everyone to know about the wonderful music series that Granite City Folk Society hosts at the church and at Bo Diddley’s Deli every month.

Fortner was involved in connecting the Granite City Folk Society with the church as a venue during Covid, and he’s delighted to see how the First Fridays concert series continues to grow in popularity. He says the 100-year-old church has excellent acoustics.  

Folk artist John Gorka will perform December’s First Fridays concert, Dec 1 at 7 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church. Rupert Wates will be at Bo Diddley’s on Friday, Dec. 15 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are available at the door. Find the concert series schedule here.  

Oil painter Laura Lindquist of Stillwater says her favorite holiday show each year is “Letters to Santa,” a one-woman show that had her “hooting and hollering” when she first saw it last year.

Actor Janelle Ranek transforms into 10 characters, each writing letters to Santa. Sitting in the intimate setting of Bryant Lake Bowl, Lindquist was astounded by Ranek’s versatility and humor. Each year’s show is different.  

This year’s version, “Letters to Santa: Shaken, Not Stirred,” runs at Bryant Lake Bowl in Minneapolis from Dec. 2 – 23. 

Artist and photographer Theresa Drift of Cook, Minn., and theatermaker Payton Counts of Net Lake, Minn., both saw the “Native American Art: Past and Present” gallery show at the Northwoods Friends of the Arts in Cook.

It’s a mixture of contemporary and historical pieces by local artists, including paintings, metalwork, birchbark baskets, beadwork and quilting. The show also includes a few pieces from Grand Portage artist George Morrison, a well-known mid-century painter. 

Counts appreciated the range of the show, which is presented in one room. “I thought it was nice to see a mixture of contemporary as well as older pieces of work, kind of this like partnership of art connecting to the community." 

“It definitely shows the changing culture and [that] it's not a static thing,” agrees Drift. “It's constantly evolving and growing.” 

The exhibit runs through Sat., Nov. 25. The gallery is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays. 

Art teacher and illustrator Heather Zemien of Brooklyn Park, Minn., has been following Off Leash Theater Productions for the past year, ever since she saw their original “Off-Kilter Cabaret.”

She’s looking forward to seeing the second annual production this weekend. The cabaret features seven artists living and making art with a range of mental and physical abilities.

The performance includes dance, comedy, puppetry, musical composition, spoken word and storytelling. The show is emceed by storyteller Amy Salloway, whose work Zemien has followed since seeing her on stage last year. 

The show strikes a special chord for Zemien, whose late partner was in a wheelchair. She says she’s excited to see and support this all-inclusive show.  

“Off Kilter Cabaret” will be performed at the Cowles Center for the Performing Arts in Minneapolis Fri., Nov 17 and Sat. Nov 18 at 7:30 p.m. and Sun., Nov 19 at 2 p.m. 

The building is fully accessible. All three shows have American Sign Language and audio descriptions available. Masks are required. 

Please note: the accompanying music in the radio piece is “Interlude 4” from A.J. Isaacson-Zvidzwa’s composition “Angels Sang to Me.” Isaacson-Zvidzwa is one of the seven artists featured in this weekend’s “Off Kilter Cabaret.” 

Philip Muehe, managing director of the Rochester Repertory Theatre, suggests a romantic comedy musical in Lanesboro, Minn., for your entertainment this holiday season. The Commonweal Theatre Company in Lanesboro is staging the musical “She Loves Me” through Dec. 23. 

The show features cheerful, catchy numbers about two shopkeepers who get on each others' last nerve. Secretly, though, they’ve become pen pals through a lonely hearts group.

When they finally find out that the person with whom they’ve fallen in love over letters is, in reality, the person right across the shop, heartwarming hilarity ensues.  

If that plot sounds familiar, the Commonweal put on an adaptation of the play “Parfumerie” on which the musical “She Loves Me” is based back in 2011.

The story was the inspiration for several movies, including the 1998 romcom “You’ve Got Mail” with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.  

"History repeats itself,” says Twin Cities actor James Craven. That was one of his takeaways after he saw a workshop of Combustible Company’s production of “The Hairy Ape” last summer.

Written in 1922 by Eugene O’Neill, this play about labor rights and immigration feels just as timely today. Combustible’s production, staged with the company’s signature focus on actors’ physicality, will be performed Nov. 10-18 at the Center for Performing Arts in Minneapolis. 

“It aggravated me. It aggrieved me. It made me fearful. It made me sit on the edge of my seat because I realized that the same things that were going on in 1922 are going on in 2023,” says Craven about the version he saw. “That is to say, the rise of Make America Great Again, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, the rise of political violence, all these things are on stage done by the Combustible Company." 

Sarra Beckham-Chasnoff has followed Fortune’s Fool Theatre for years, particularly the shows they’ve done at the Fringe Festival. This week, she’s looking forward to attending their production of a new musical, “Cold Planet Warm Heart” at Crane Theatre in Minneapolis.

The script and lyrics are by producing artist director Daniel Pinkerton and the show features his fellow producing artist director — and daughter — Ariel Pinkerton, who is part of an all-female cast. 

“Cold Planet Warm Heart” is billed as a family-friendly sci-fi musical: A spaceship has landed in a small Minnesota town, carrying with it a being from another galaxy, which prompts misadventures and eventually a pageant.

The score is by Robert Elhai, whose wide-ranging by-line spans Broadway’s “The Lion King,” six of the Fast and Furious movies and many works for Minnesota theaters.

“I’m sure it will be really quirky,” Beckham-Chasnoff says. “Fortune’s Fool Theatre does a great job with very adventurous plays.”

Twin Cities actor and director Ansa Akyea recently saw Full Circle Theater’s production of Naomi Iizuka’s play “Anon(ymous)” at Park Square Theatre in downtown St Paul.  

“Anon(ymous)” is a take on Homer’s “The Odyssey” and is the story of a young man who is a refugee. He crosses the Atlantic as he seeks to reunite with his mother in the U.S.  

“You’re sitting there and you’re wondering, what does that have to do with today,” says Akyea. “And right away, they make it clear that this is about immigration, immigrants, and they’ve done the specific work of placing Liberia also in that narrative. And so you know, which has resonance for our community, in the Twin Cities in particular.” 

The play was directed by Stephanie Lein Walseth and continues through Nov. 19.

Minneapolis art lover Ali Kennedy is a huge fan of the DaDa Duende Record Club, a subscription box by Twin Cities creators Chris and Hannah Lynch. Each quarter, subscribers receive a lathe-cut record hand-made by the Lynches, a glossy zine containing photography, poetry and other visual arts and a limited edition 8x8” print of one image from the zine.  

“It looks like something you’d buy in a museum gift shop because it’s so beautifully put together,” says Kennedy.

According to Hannah Lynch, subscriptions are still available, and Volume Two will be released in late November/early December. The theme will be “Duende,” featuring the Minneapolis-based tango quartet The Charles Gorczynski Tango Quartet.

The accompanying book will feature work and photography by Alessandra Sanguinetti, Daniela Spector, Rachel Elise Thomas, Ashima Yadova, Dawn Surratt, paintings by Minneapolis artist Megan Bell and poetry by Kelly Gray.

To hear the music from the record club or to subscribe, visit the website.

Duluth-area artist and curator Wendy Savage is looking forward to the exhibit that opens at AICHO this weekend. “Mazinibii’igewininiwag: Two Woodland Artists” brings together the work of two Minnesota artists painting in the Woodlands Style, a style of art with brilliant colors that shows animals, plants and people as though through x-ray vision, revealing the internal organs.

Savage likens the effects of the color to stained glass, adding that the works often have religious connotations.  

The two artists featured approach this style through different media. Gordon Coons is a self-taught painter and an enrolled member of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe. He is a fumage artist who paints with smoke from burning cedar.

Paired with his work is digital art created by Steven StandingCloud, an enrolled member of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians. Savage appreciates this combination of painting and digital work, all of it brilliantly colored.  

There’s a catered artist reception this Saturday, Nov. 4, from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. The exhibit runs Monday through Friday, Nov. 6 – Dec. 29. It’s free and open to the public, and Savage says there’s easy parking, too. 

John Sievers, trombonist of the jazz band the D’Sievers is looking forward to Mayo Clinic Presents: An Evening with Michael Feinstein on Saturday, Nov. 4. Sievers appreciates that this joint performance and learning opportunity celebrates the power of music for everyone, particularly for people living with dementia.  

Feinstein is a singer and pianist an Ambassador of the American Songbook. He will perform and participate in a panel discussion called “Your Brain on Music,” which includes a neurologist and an Alzheimer’s researcher from Mayo Clinic.

Also part of the panel is Suzy Johnson, artistic director of Resounding Voices, a Rochester-based chorus for people living with dementia and their supporters. Resounding Voices will give a demonstration, and other dementia choirs, including the Minneapolis-based Giving Voice, will lead the audience in a sing-along. 

The event is free, but space is limited and registration is required. Sat., Nov. 4 from 6 – 8 p.m. 

Maria Asp is the director of education and community engagement with the Speaking Out Collective. She’s a huge fan of Frank Theatre, which for more than 30 years has focused on mounting plays that address social, cultural and political issues.

The theater is staging its first live production since the onset of the pandemic, and the new play by former Twin Cities resident Trista Baldwin is certain to spark discussion. 

“FETAL” is set in a clinic that provides abortions in Texas on June 24, 2022 — the day the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the right to an abortion through the Dobbs ruling. The show focuses on three women in the waiting room that morning, each with a radically different reproductive journey, as well as a female health care provider.  

Asp is excited to see both the show and the space: Frank Theatre is staging this show in an intimate setting within their rehearsal space on the second floor of the Ivy Building for the Arts in south Minneapolis. The show runs Oct. 27 through Nov. 19. 

Artist Preston Drum of Burnsville says his whole family was drawn in by the Chronicles of the Chronic exhibit at the Rochester Art Center.  

Curated by Zoe Cinel, this group show celebrates the creativity of people living with chronic illness.  

The exhibit includes works by local, national and international artists, responding to the subject of chronic illness through a range of media, including 2D, audio, film and interactive works.  

“One might walk into the show and see it as a disparate pairing of artworks because they are all different media and all different colors and all different types of expression,” says Drum. “But I think that variety brought a sense of cohesion to the show because everyone lives with their own chronic illness in their own way.”

Drum says his children liked the color and tactile experience of the show. He also noted that one corner of the one-room exhibit offers a place to sit and rest, engage in a weaving activity, read literature and take in the view. 

The exhibit is open through April, 2024. The next virtual program, including Cinel and three of the artists, will be Dec. 2 at 1 p.m.

Art lover Veronica Bedon recommends a visit to two arts-driven Minneapolis events on Saturday for Día de Muertos. At the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, there will be a community altar created by local artist Mónica Vega. The free, family-friendly event Saturday includes music, dance, art-making and food. That event runs from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. 

That event is in partnership with Minneapolis-based Latine organization Centro Tyrone Guzman. Vega has created ofrendas at Mia and Centro for Roxana Linares Arrieta, former Centro executive director, who passed away in August. 

A mile and a half away is a celebration at the Midtown Global Market, which features live music, dance, ofrendas, activities and food for purchase. That event runs from noon to 3 p.m. 

Twin Cities arts enthusiast Florence Brammer loves Girl Friday Productions and Open Eye Theatre’s production of “Life Sucks,” a play she called “smart and funny and poignant.” 

The play was loosely adapted by playwright Aaron Posner from Anton Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya.”

“First of all, when I walked into the theater, I was blown away by how gorgeous the set design is,” Brammer says. “And the performances are so good.”

Brammer was struck by the broadness of the performances — but says it became obvious that this was a decision on the part of the playwright, as well as director Joel Sass. “Because as the play continues, the characters become more and more layered and complex. It's sort of like us, isn't it?“ 

Brammer says that the play made her laugh and cry, “which is my very favorite theatergoing combination.” 

“Life Sucks” runs through Nov. 5 at Open Eye Theatre in Minneapolis.

Eric Heukeshoven is the director of worship music and arts at Central Lutheran Church in Winona, Minn. He's looking forward to this Saturday’s Winona Symphony Orchestra performance, which features work by three contemporary Minnesota composers — and one Mozart symphony for good luck.

Included is the premier of a new piece by Minnesota composer Libby Larsen. Titled “Haying,” the composition will feature local baritone soloist Alan Dunbar. “On the surface, it's about the toils and rigors of bringing in the harvest,” Heukeshoven explains. “But it gets into some other interesting areas of about war and distress and it's incredibly visceral — very vivid.”

Additionally, the orchestra will perform “Minnesota Suite” by Reinaldo Moya and “Superior” by Katherine Bergman, along with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Symphony No. 41.” The first two are Minnesota composers; Mozart hailed from Austria.

The performance takes place Oct. 21 at 7:30 p.m. at DuFresne Performing Arts Center, Main Stage, Winona State University.

Bassoonist Tracy Carr is looking forward to hearing the bassoon shine in the Bakken Ensemble’s upcoming performance this Saturday. 

Carr is particularly looking forward to hearing them play Wynton Marsalis' composition “Meeelaan” for bassoon and string quartet, written for renowned bassoonist Milan Turković (also from Austria).

“It really features the bassoon in a unique way,” Carr says. “It leverages the instrument in a way that's outside of a typical orchestral setting. And also is playful with the instrument in a way that you don't usually see.”

The performance features Fei Xie, principal bassoonist of the Minnesota Orchestra. Also on the program: Sergei Prokofiev’s “String Quartet No. 2 in F Major, Op. 92” and Jean Françaix’s “Divertissement for Bassoon and String Quintet.”

The performance will be Oct. 22 at Antonello Hall at the MacPhail Center in Minneapolis.