Author: Christy DeSmith

  • You’re My Favorite Kind of Pretty

    Recent conversations with Jon Ferguson, that rising star of the local theater scene, revealed a topical theme: The man is headlong in love. Since he and his partner, performer Megan Odell of Live Action Set, recently welcomed a baby boy into the world, Ferguson—formerly an itinerant, couch-surfing bachelor—finds himself an unlikely inhabitant of a state…

  • Eurydice

    Sarah Ruhl, Sarah Ruhl, Sarah Ruhl. We’ve been writing up, and seeing, our fill of plays by this hotshot. Still, we’d be fools not to note the occasion of the regional premiere of Eurydice, the play that made Ruhl a certified superstar (thanks to last summer’s extended Off-Broadway run). This production marks Ten Thousand Things’…

  • Framing Suzan-Lori Parks: Directing Challenges and Discoveries

    Things could get interesting when the English and Theater departments at the U of M embark on a joint investigation of Suzan-Lori Parks’s oeuvre. This Pulitzer- and MacArthur Genius Grant-winning playwright boasts a body of work that’s rich in poetics and historic awareness, yet audacious enough to confront issues of emotional brutality head-on. (In other…

  • Ways to Behold and Sentry

    One of the most literate, thoughtful choreographers in town, Stuart Pimsler presents a double bill of protest art late in the month. Ways to Behold, a world premiere with accompaniment by spoken-word artist Tiyo Siyolo, juxtaposes the realities of a U.S.-initiated—yet somehow invisible—war overseas with the comforts of daily life on our own shores. Sentry…

  • Creep Show Couture

    “Do you ladies sew?” asked Rae Lundquist, a five-foot, fifty-something with a confident manner and long, silvering brown hair falling past her waist. Lundquist serves as costume director of MarsCon, a sci-fi convention that celebrates its tenth anniversary this month. As part of her duties, she had organized an educational field trip for her fellow…

  • Fashioning a Movement

    To highlight our semi-annual selection of new fashion, we turned to a population that—let’s face it, unfair as it seems—looks delightful no matter what they’re wearing. Our models are four dance students at the University of Minnesota and their choreographer (who moonlights as The Rake’s stylist); we captured them during a rehearsal at the Barbara…