Minnesota

The Commonweal Theatre Company acts as a model for thriving theatre in a rural setting. Robert Hubbard details the ways the company’s resident ensemble operates, highlighting their artist/administrator doubling, artistic excellence, and embeddedness in the surrounding community.

Fifty Boxes of Earth at Theater Mu was a maximalist play that combined Western and South Asian theatrical styles, choreography, and puppetry. Lianna Matt McLernon and playwright Ankita Raturi talk about the show’s collective approach and how it was created to be reproduced for any specific community.

Although theatres depend on front-of-house workers for a smooth audience experience, these employees are often isolated from the rest of the theatre’s staff and subject to mistreatment by patrons. Taylor Hunsberger advocates for organizational changes to promote respect, dignity, and professional development for front of house.

The partnership between Twin Cities Theatres of Color Coalition (TCTOCC) and the Racial Equity Funders Collaborative (REFC) has become a groundbreaking model in sustainable, socially engaged relationships between theatres and funders. In part two of this two-part essay, kt shorb offers up experiences from the partnership as best practices that other initiatives tackling issues around race and equity might learn from. 

The partnership between Twin Cities Theatres of Color Coalition (TCTOCC) and the Racial Equity Funders Collaborative (REFC) has become a groundbreaking model in sustainable, socially engaged relationships between theatres and funders. In part one of this two-part essay, kt shorb traces the formation of both groups and the TCTOCC-REFC super-coalition.

The former community engagement director of the Guthrie Theater, Rebecca Noon, reflects on the early years of the theatre’s Native Advisory Council and the steady relationship building that led to powerful collaborations with Indigenous communities across the Twin Cities. 

Ifrah Mansour creates performance art that explores joy and healing while connecting communities. In this essay, she illuminates the connections between her work and her experiences as a Somali American, a refugee, and a Muslim woman.

Alberto Justiniano and Milta Ortiz, artistic leaders at Teatro del Pueblo and Borderlands Theater, respectively, have to balance organizational leadership and prioritizing their art. They discuss this work and the ways they engage their Latine communities while providing them with avenues to reflect on social justice issues. 

When Ty Defoe and Larissa FastHorse’s For the People premiered at the Guthrie Theater this fall, it became the theatre’s first mainstage production by Indigenous authors. Robert Hubbard reviews the play, lauding its comedy, spectacle, and commitment to the Native community of the Twin Cities.

After three decades of working together as playwright and director, collaborators and friends Carlyle Brown and Noel Raymond are trying something new: co-creating a theatrical work and performing in it. They sit down to discuss the project’s genesis in their friendship and the research, questions, and experiences that are shaping their generative process.

Theatre artist Elle Thoni shares their experience working on the outdoor theatre production of a futuristic musical, Queen B, and challenges institutional ideas on how and where theatre can take place.

Jack Reuler, artistic director of Minneapolis’s Mixed Blood Theatre, reflects on how the pandemic might just be the great equalizer in the American theatre and how it’s time for theatre to move from being something nice to being something necessary.

Michelle Hensley and Abe Rybeck—former founders and artistic directors of Minneapolis’s Ten Thousand Things and Boston’s the Theater Offensive, respectively—discuss their leadership transition, including knowing when to step back, succession planning, fears of leaving, and more.

Lisa Channer, professor at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, talks about her school’s work in crafting a pledge to join the JUBILEE—a yearlong, nationwide theatre festival featuring work by traditionally excluded artists.