Shannon Fitzgerald here with Episode # 14 of the Underground Arts Club, a feature for the readers of Minneapolis Voices. The club is a recommendation, not a review. My goal is to introduce you to all of the Twin Cities art that you haven't yet discovered.
The Must-See
Ghost Quartet
The idea for the Underground Arts Club formed because I saw the Ghost Quartet for the first time at the North Garden Theater on Halloween in 2018 and wanted everyone else in town to see it. This show is hard to describe - it’s soulful and beautiful and bewildering and they serve whiskey to the audience during the show. It’s the only live show that I’ve paid to see multiple times (this year will be number seven, I think?)
Theatre Elision now has their own Playhouse in Crystal, and produces a variety of shows that fights a straightforward description. I’ve never been disappointed by a show there, but Ghost Quartet remains my favorite. This year, it’s a reunion show for one weekend only. From the website:
Ghost Quartet is a song cycle about love, death and whiskey from Dave Malloy, the Tony-nominated creator of the Broadway hit “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812.” A camera breaks and four friends drink in an interwoven tale spanning seven centuries, with a murderous sister, a treehouse astronomer, a bear, a subway, and the ghost of Thelonious Monk. The story draws from several fairy tales and "ghost stories", including Snow White and Rose Red, Edgar Allen Poe's Fall of the House of Usher, and One Thousand and One Nights (commonly known as Arabian Nights). There may also be some Legend of Zelda references you might recognize. Cast members present the story and music as a "concept album" and accompany themselves on a wide variety of instruments, including keyboard, ukulele, guitar, mandolin, banjo, autoharp, dulcimer and more percussion instruments than you can count.
Website: Buy tickets here
Who: Theatre Elision
When: August 21-23
Where: Elision Playhouse
Things to know
- Parking: The Playhouse has a parking lot, with overflow info here.
- Dining: Every time I’ve been to Elision, I’ve gotten a plastic bag of incredible steamed cajun seafood at the wonderful Cajun Kitchen. Highly recommend the Seafood Deluxe. It’s anti-fancy and super delicious.
- Attire: It’s a Ghost Quartet with whiskey. You can wear whatever you want, but I also think that there is a wardrobe choice that meets the moment. It’s up to you to decide just what that is.
- Accessibility: The Playhouse is fully ADA accessible
The Discovery
As I was writing this episode, I noticed that the Playhouse also hosts a number of other arts organizations, including Centerstage Children’s Theater performing Moana, Jr, this weekend (August 6-10).
I have a history in children’s theater, both as an orphan in Oliver at age 9 and as the managing director of a performing arts school that included a ballet company and children’s theater company. I love watching kids perform, even when they aren’t my kids. The unbridled energy, untrained belting, and absolute love pouring from the audience (there is nothing in the whole world like a stage mom) creates a show that is unlike any pro production out there. I always try to go to a final performance because these kids know it’s the last and they just lay their whole life down on that stage, and then they all cry during curtain call because they have built something that they are really going to miss when they have to go back to real life. $12 gets you the show on stage and the show in the audience, and you don’t have to go to Crystal - they’re all over town. Ask your coworkers and neighbors for some recommendations.
Field Notes
In the last episode, I talked a bit about the value of being an adventurous theater goer, and the value of trying out theater that might be bad. This week, I’m going to follow that with encouraging you to see theater that you might not understand. I have a degree in English Literature, and I’ve seen a lot of theater, including Ghost Quartet 7 times, but if you asked me to tell you what it’s about, I wouldn’t have anything to say.
I don’t always love abstract theater or dance. Sometimes I just want it to tell me a story and to make sense - I want to tell my friends about exactly what they’re going to learn if they go. But every once in a while I’ll find myself in a room with a bunch of strangers experiencing something indescribable, and I leave knowing that we’ve all come away with a truly completely different story to tell. There’s a unique magic to be found here.
