Month: February 2002

  • Slap Shot: 25th Anniversary Special Edition

    A video rite of passage for anyone who’s ever donned a pair of breezers and nearly had his or her teeth knocked out of his or her head, Slap Shot is to the sports comedy what The English Patient is to the teary wartime epic. You’ll find more than a few non-hockey-buffs who’ll vouch for…

  • Proof, by David Auburn

    Proof covers all the big themes: death, depression, the relationship of intellect to madness, professional success and personal failure, seduction and deduction, memories of the past and dreams of the future, and does it in a scathingly witty and highly pleasurable evening on a back porch. It is the story of Catherine, whose genius father…

  • The Music Man, by Meredith Willson

    What makes commercial theater commercial is the way it delivers the reassuringly familiar, and Chanhassen’s current revival of The Music Man does not disappoint. The audience for this show expects to see a stage version of the movie version of the original Broadway musical, so that’s what director Michael Brindisi and his cohorts have put…

  • The History of Bowling, by Mike Ervin

    Although the American theater has spent the last 30 years exploring issues of group identity, until recently the agenda has not included folks with disabilities. This show, which originated in Chicago in 1999, takes a step in that direction. The History of Bowling pulls together a collection of monologues and scenes in order to tell…

  • Michael Moore

    You’d think the corporate-HQ-storming antics depicted in Michael Moore’s breakout feature Roger & Me (and his too-short-lived TV Nation) would be enjoying a full-on revival in this heyday for reality–TV and Enronic corporate America. But no—this relentless agitator’s most regular exposure comes by way of his much-forwarded Internet missives in the wake of 9/11. (The…

  • Rag Man, by Pete Hautman

    A month after we bought a house from Pete Hautman in South Minneapolis, he slyly asked “Have you found the secret door yet?” and we’ve been looking ever since. This town’s most deserving and least celebrated mystery novelist recently published his eighth novel (three of them are “young adult titles”), a terrific little number called…