Destination

I’m new here—to this land of 10,000 lakes. I grew up in the mountains of North Carolina and lived several years in New York and New England, but nothing prepared me for these Minnesota winters.

Right now, it’s -8 outside (with a wind chill of -30 something). It is cold. But people are out there biking on top of the snow. Seriously. People bike all year round here. Even now, they go for cold morning jogs and cross-country ski down neighborhood sidewalks and through public parks. There’s ice fishing, and even a frozen lake, where every year artists build a shanty town complete with a post office and traffic light. There are forests full of aspen and birch trees, poetic little towns that cling to the riverbanks of the Mississippi, the Iron Range, and Lake Superior. And yes, it gets cold, but the sun is out (nothing like those dark by early afternoon, New England winters).

There’s the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in the northernmost part of the state—it’s practically, Canada. When I first moved here, I had the fortune of spending a week at Norm’s Fish Camp at Tofte Lake Center, a multi-disciplinary artist residency on a pastoral piece of land, with plenty of beauty and space and inspiration, and a fire-powered sauna that’s only four feet from a cold plunge in the crystal clear waters of the lake. There are lakes everywhere—and trees—and it smells nice. And space—there is so much space to think and daydream, and space to create and make. Beauty is abundant.

That sort of collaboration happens here in the Twin Cities – artists and audiences making events happen together. Perhaps it’s possible because, as Cory said, it’s a live-able city, or because we don’t have a giant metropolis to distract us, or because of the funding, the presence of empty space and abandoned warehouses that beg for creative use, or because an array of institutions are prepared and ready to support local talent.

What impresses me most about this incredible artistic environment are the audiences. People—real people, as in people that are not necessarily artists or friends of the presenting artists—attend the theatre. In fact, they attend everything; they are adventurous and generous patrons of all genres of art. They are at a Walker exhibit one day, a dance performance the next night, a reading at the The Playwrights’ Center a few days later, and walking into the haunted basement/art installation at the Soap Factory for Halloween. People show up, and events sell out. When I lived in New York, I remember going to shows and seeing the same people in the audience night after night. Friends or frien-emies or enemies or strangers, you kinda knew everyone. The diversity became homogenous, because ultimately we were just a theater-making/theater-going group. I didn’t become a writer to only share stories with my friends. I write because there are stories and ideas I want to share and exchange with communities I haven’t met yet.

That sort of collaboration happens here in the Twin Cities—artists and audiences making events happen together. Perhaps it’s possible because, as Cory said, it’s a live-able city, or because we don’t have a giant metropolis to distract us, or because of the funding, the presence of empty space and abandoned warehouses that beg for creative use, or because an array of institutions are prepared and ready to support local talent.

Several companies, like Mixed Blood and Ten Thousand Things, are making good on their missions, accessing new audiences and bringing theatre to real people. Mixed Blood’s Radical Hospitality program makes tickets available at no cost to its audiences for every show. No longer financially inaccessible, new audiences are attending the theatre, and often returning to see a show multiple times. And the best part: it’s not temporary. It’s part of their mission, deeply engrained into every fiber of their programming. If they can’t produce it for free, then they won’t do it at all. Another company, Ten Thousand Things, eliminated the geographical and financial barriers of theater-going by taking theater to communities and spaces that wouldn’t normally have access—libraries, schools, community centers, correctional facilities, shelters, and prisons. Their productions, stripped of any ostentation or artifice, place few inhibitors between the performance and the audience. It’s raw, immediate, arresting, and truly classical. You have to check it out; you’ll fall in love with theater all over again. There are other companies: Red Eye Theater, Children’s Theatre Company,Open Eye Figure Theatre, The Illusion, Penumbra Theatre, Pillsbury House Theatre, to name a few.

I’m sure I’ve left some out; I’m new here. But, as Cory says, there are few homes for new plays. The playwrights in the Twin Cities need, and are hungry for, new theatres dedicated to the development and production of new work.Workhaus Collective, an incredible and playwright-operated company, cannot carry the weight alone; and our largest theatre, the Guthrie, does not focus on the development or production of new plays, much less those by local playwrights. However, there is a strong and diverse community of playwrights living in the Twin Cities, where in the middle of the harsh sub-zero temperatures we are hard at work, creating and developing material inspired by our surroundings and our audiences.

Come visit, and bring a good winter coat—and some gloves, and a hat, and maybe a thermal shirt, some boots, your skis, snowshoes, and a sled.