What’s that rumbling sound we hear, growing louder by the minute? It can only be the vast and teeming carnival wagon known as the Minnesota Fringe, our annual festival of performing arts, now in its 20th year.
From Thursday, Aug. 1 through Sunday, Aug. 11, tens of thousands of people will attend 896 performances of 176 different productions on 16 stages in the metro area. Last year, 46,284 tickets were sold. Two new venues have been added this year, the New Century Theatre and the James Sewell Ballet Tek Box in the Cowles Center, both on Hennepin Ave. in downtown Minneapolis. All other venues are in Minneapolis as well: downtown, Uptown, in the Loring neighborhood and on the West Bank.
If you’re a Fringe regular, you can skip ahead. If you’re a newbie with some time on your hands, some money to spend (tickets are $12) and an open mind, here are four Fringe facts that should help you enjoy this sprawling, exhilarating celebration of all things theater.
Fact 1: The Fringe is not juried. All shows are chosen by lottery. In other words, it’s a total crapshoot. The artists are taking risks, and so, my friends, are you. Is this a bad thing? Certainly not. It’s what art, especially live art, is supposed to be about. While some shows will be amazing, others may be clunkers. C’est la Fringe.
Fact 2: You are not signing up for three-hour plays or Wagner’s “Ring” cycle. All shows are 45-60 minutes long. They start and end on time. There’s no late seating, and there’s a 30-minute break between shows.
Fact 3: The Fringe website is very sticky. That means well-organized, rich in content and features, and easy to use. This is a website you’ll want to cover in kisses because it gets your heart pumping with possibilities. Start by watching a trailer or two. (Is that an R.T. Rybak action figure? Can you really summarize 50 years of “Dr. Who” in 50 minutes?) Look around the Postcard Table, where a picture is worth … you know. (“The Forger’s Apprentice” must be about painting. “Stuck in an Elevator With Patrick Stewart” makes us worry about the guy in the red shirt.) Jump into the schedule and click on show titles. Descriptions are short and sweet. Content tags below the descriptions tell you more. Go to the “Shows A-Z” page and notice “Filter by genre” at the side. Now you can look for things that interest you most. Figure out what days you can go, then start creating a queue and a schedule – all on the website.
Fact 4. Other Fringers are there for you. They love spreading the word about good shows – and not-so-good shows. They post reviews on the website quickly. They are not attention-seekers or trolls. Heed them. New this year to the Fringe website: My Fringe 5, where Fringe users share what they can’t wait to see. (Seth Lepore has a thing for one-person shows; Gregory Abbott likes dark comedy.) You can also talk to people in line at shows about what they have seen or plan to see. Look for lanyards. Orange = Ultra Passers, or mega-Fringe-bingers. Blue = Artists, eager promoters of their own shows. Stop by Fringe Central (Crooked Pint Ale House) for a drink, some food, and the skinny on the day’s shows. The Strib’s Rohan Preston spoke with a couple in their 50s who’ve been coming for years and have seen hundreds of Fringe performances. Find them and follow them around. (OK, don’t do that last thing.)
Offered purely in the spirit of fun, here are our Top 12 Favorite Fringe Show Titles: 1) “Arts Administrators Got Talent!” (sorry, we couldn’t resist), 2) “Don’t Fake Your Own Death: Shakespeare’s Rules of Love,” 3) “Four Humors’ Lolita: A Three Man Show,” 4) “Gwen and Mary at Glen Ross” (a David Mamet parody), 5) “How to Swear Like a Minnesotan” (a Joseph Scrimshaw show), 6) “It’s Raining Inside Again: The Arts Administrators Show,” 7) “Lord of the Files,” 8) “Promiscuous Fiction: The Runaway Stories of Jonathan Lethem,” 9) “RT + MPLS: The Legend of RT Rybak,” 10) “Shelly Bachberg Presents: How Helen Keller and Anne Frank Freed the Slaves: The Musical,” in which Shelly Bachberg looks a lot like Michelle What’s-her-name, 11) “Stuck in an Elevator with Patrick Stewart” and 12) “Yelling at Bananas in Whole Foods.”
Tickets, passes, and buttons ($4, required for everyone except kids 12 and under for entrance to all shows) online or at any Fringe venue.
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In “A current snapshot of the Minnesota Orchestra, by the numbers,” published last week, we named eight musicians who have requested a leave of absence or resigned from the orchestra since Oct. 1, 2012, when the lockout began. We have since learned that while Sarah Kwak (Associate Concertmaster), Vali Phillips (First Violin) and Matt Young (Viola) all requested leaves during the 2011-12 season, before negotiations for a new contract began in April 2012, they resigned in March 2013, after the lockout took effect. Additionally, Mina Fisher (Cello) resigned in November 2012 following a two-year leave. So eight becomes 12.
In 2011, Garrison Keillor told the AARP Bulletin that he would retire from “A Prairie Home Companion” in the spring of 2013. File that under “News from Lake Wobegon” – eloquent, touching and fictional. The show’s 39th season starts Saturday, Sept. 14 at the Fitzgerald with Keillor at the helm. The season opener will be followed by the annual Street Dance (free) and Meatloaf Supper ($5). Show tickets go on sale today (Tuesday, July 30) at noon through Ticketmaster or in person at the Fitzgerald box office, 10 East Exchange St. in St. Paul. MPR members may order by phone at 651-290-1200.
How would the Wall Street Journal spend a weekend in Minneapolis? By dining at Burch, drinking at Icehouse, visiting the Mill City Museum and the American Swedish Institute (“a model for how a small institution can draw visitors with exciting programming”), stopping in at Forage Modern Workshop, hearing a concert at the Lake Harriet Bandshell, taking a self-directed architectural walking tour of downtown, checking out First Ave and the Dakota, and more.
We know when the first same-sex marriage in Minnesota will become official – sometime very shortly after midnight this Thursday, Aug. 1 – but where? City Hall or America’s largest mall? The first wedding in downtown Minneapolis, where Mayor Rybak will officiate, will begin at 11:45 on July 31 and count down to midnight, when Hizzoner will seal the deal for two couples, Cathy ten Broeke and Margaret Miles and Al Giraud and Jeff Isaacson. Meanwhile, at the Mall of America, the Chapel of Love will perform its first-ever same-sex wedding, for Holli Bartelt and Amy Petrich of Wykoff. According to the press release, the MOA wedding won’t actually start until 12:01 on Aug. 1. Someone there must know it’s not nice to trump the Mayor of Minneapolis.
The City Hall marriage marathon will be an artsy affair, with more than eight hours of music curated by indie musician Jeremy Messersmith. MCAD is contributing limited-edition serigraphs created by MCAD artists. Each is hand-printed, numbered, and signed. Each couple will be presented with the print of their choice as a wedding gift; family members, friends, and well-wishers are also welcome to take a print. Participating artists are Christopher Alday ’13, MCAD faculty member Diana Eicher, Kara Faye Gregory ’14 and Ben Proell ’13.
Graphic designers, this is for you: on Wednesday (July 31) at SubText, U of M design professor Steven McCarthy will discuss and sign copies of his new book, “The Designer As … Author, Producer, Activist, Entrepreneur, Curator and Collaborator: New Models for Communicating.” We wish he had communicated that title in fewer words, but you’ll probably want to hear what he has to say. 7 p.m., 165 Western Ave. (corner of Selby) downstairs from Nina’s in St. Paul.
Our picks for the week
Any day but Monday: “Pull, Twist, Blow – Transforming the Kingdom of Crystal” at the American Swedish Institute. Presented in partnership with The Glass Factory of Sweden, one of Scandinavia’s largest glass museums, this a major art glass show that will only be seen here, nowhere else. It transcends the pieces on display to touch on many topics: how younger artists are shaking things up, what’s happening with glass in Minnesota, the decline of the art glass industry in Sweden (beset by financial woes, Orrefors Kosta Boda, names you might know if you’ve ever bought a wedding gift, has closed factories, laid off workers, and will outsource 70 percent of its production), how the future of glass might look.
Start with “Homeland,” Ingalena Klenell’s glittering forest of seven lacy glass trees, each 6 feet tall, suspended from the ceiling of the ASI’s new Osher Gallery in the Nelson Cultural Center. Also in the gallery: Klenell’s large, impossibly thin sheets of glass printed with landscape scenes, each like a dream remembered. To the right of the door as you’re leaving the Osher: a selection from the Institute’s large collection of Swedish art glass. Lining the Link (the ground-floor “skyway” between the contemporary Nelson Center and the historic Turnblad mansion, aka the castle) are pieces by eight Minnesota glass artists including Michael Boyd, Todd Cameron and Fred Kaemmer. Displayed throughout the castle– the turn-of-the-20th-century building filled with carved woodwork, ornamented plaster ceilings, and Swedish tile stoves – are 40 works by 11 mostly young and hotshot Swedish artists, all making their U.S. debut. Those are presented side-by-side with historic works from the Glass Factory’s collection that served as reference points for the modern pieces (much like the castle did for the Nelson Center). Objects include glass dentures, a glass suitcase, a jar of glass heads in green gel, a tongue pickler, a tear bottle, and large installation pieces, some moving, some disturbing. As you take in the show, knowing the plight of Orrefors Kosta Boda, you might wonder if you’re looking at an endangered art form. Closes Sunday, Oct. 13. Museum admission required ($7 – $4, free to members).
Tuesday (July 30) at the Artists’ Quarter: Adam Meckler Orchestra. Composer, trumpeter, and bandleader Meckler is a true Twin Cities musician, meaning he’s in about 12 different bands. For the past two years, he’s been leading his own big band, an 18-piece ensemble that plays all original music composed and arranged by Meckler. After a long run at Jazz Central, the Adam Meckler Orchestra is moving to the AQ on the last Tuesday of every month, starting tonight. 9 p.m., 408 St. Peter Street (in the basement of the Historic Hamm Building), St. Paul ($10).
Wednesday and Thursday at the Walker: Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The Act of Killing.” Some films aren’t made for amusement or diversion. They’re made because film is still the best way to tell a story. You’ll need a strong stomach to sit through this award-winning documentary about Anwar Congo, mass murderer and death squad leader during Indonesia’s communist purge of 1965, now a national hero. Oppenheimer challenged Anwar and his friends to reenact their real-life killings in the style of the American movies that inspired their methods, and this film is the chilling result. Errol Morris and Werner Herzog are executive producers. Here’s the trailer. Theatrical version Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., director’s cut Thursday at 7 p.m. Oppenheimer will be present at both. 7:30 p.m. in the Walker cinema. FMI and tickets.
