From 2004 through this past December, I was in a graduate program that had me spending my summers in Madrid, Spain.  During that time I became enamored with the art of translating.  And so, in addition to writing completely original works, I spend a great deal of my time running a theatre company that does translated works and also translating dramatic works from Castilian (Spanish) into English.  When I run across other theatre artists who are working on translated pieces, or translating the works themselves, I get excited.  There are a couple of pieces in this year's Fringe that are translated, or partially translated.  The Chasm: Two Prevailing Winds of Gabriela Mistral is, perhaps, the most notable.

More >>

Today is the day.  We've been looking forward to today with great anticipation, and it has arrived.  There is still a lot to do for all those involved, and I'm not excluded, by any means.  I've already been preparing.  I had to stop by the City Pages offices to pick up my press pass, and I had a lovely chat with my editor.  And now I'm sitting down to write this lovely little column.  But there's so much to do, still.  And so little time to do it.  I am a little worried that I may not get everything done.  Whether I do, or not, the festival begins at 5:30 p.m. today.

My charts are ready.  In fact, you can download today's charts through this link.  Handy, eh?  Now...let me explain how they work.  Essentially, what I'm going to do right now is test them out and take you through a hypothetical version of what the rest of my night could be like.  It's a little bit of role-playing.  So... open up the charts on your computer, or print them out, and grab a d20 (that's a 20-sided die).  That's all you need.  I suppose you could grab a pencil and a pad of paper if you wanted to more fully pretend that you're me.  There are other accouterments that would complete the ensemble, as well, but that's probably going too far.  So?  Got the charts and dice?  Good... so here we go!

The Minnesota Center for Photography, a space that proudly displayed both the work of world-renowned photographers and local amateurs since 1990, is closing. The board of directors blamed tough financial times, especially over the past six month, as the reason. On a sad/ironic note, in this week's paper I interviewed photographer Jaimi Novak who was set to have her first solo show open at MCP on Saturday. Check out a slideshow of Novak's work here.

Doomtree released their first full-length, full-crew album yesterday, and in preparation for their sure-to-be-monumental release show at First Avenue this Friday night, they posted this sweet new music video on YouTube:

In honor of bike riding season and this awesome new video, here's a rundown of some other great bike-related music videos:

David Lind has been a pillar of the theatre community in the Twin Cities for years now.  He is perhaps best known for founding TC Theatre and Film, the all-purpose resource for those of us in the theatre field.  He just recently sold the website in order to move on to other projects.  One of those projects is his theatre company, Zealots and Mystics.  Zealots and Mystics has been the subject of past preview articles that I've written, as David almost always has an interesting concept piece to throw into the mix during the Fringe.  He's put on a musical version of The Cat Came Back, and last year he did two one-acts called After Life, and this year he's branched out into the world of producing the work of outside artists. 

More >>

This week's extremely tall flyer is for a show with a killer lineup: Tomorrow night, the Epilepsy Foundation of Minnesota is hosting an evening with Andrew Broder (of Fog), Black Blondie, Mouthful of Bees and Romantica. All proceeds will benefit young adult programming through the foundation.

There comes a time when one runs up against deadlines.  Sadly, not every interview invitation I sent out to various companies got back to me as soon as I would've hoped.  Sadly, I cannot write these any more quickly.  Actually, I could, but I think my editor would hurt me if I did.  When it comes down to it, I'm still not used to the fact that what I write goes through an editor.  It doesn't bother me.  I kind of like having someone else having a vested interest in what I'm writing.  But, I'm also used to just posting my blog and having it instantly available to the public.  That isn't the way it goes here at City Pages.  I send all sorts of stuff to my editor, he deals with it, and then it gets put online.  If I cranked out stuff any faster, I'm pretty sure that Jeff (that's his name) would be buried under a mountain of my crap and nobody else's.  Last I checked there's a lot of other stuff on this website, so I'm guessing he wouldn't appreciate it if I kept spewing stuff forth in his direction.

What I'm trying to say here is that I'm up against a wall.  There are a number of companies who did get back to me, but I can't do full-length features on each of them.  Otherwise they won't get posted before the Fringe Festival starts.  And when it comes down to it, what good is a preview article if it isn't really before the event?

To do something about this situation, I'm going to compile many mini-previews in this one entry.  Ready?  Go!

Each year I put out a top-ten list of shows.  Most of the other Fringe bloggers do, too.  Mostly because we were required to by the Fringe back when we were hosted on their site.  Matthew A. Everett normally couldn't bring himself to keep his list concise and always publishes a top-twenty.  Others listed ten shows they'd like to see based on the previews they've seen, or who was in the shows.  I always liked to keep the "By Numbers" theme going, even in my Top-10 list.  I think I'll stick to what works with this year's edition:

One thing that is certain.  There is never a shortage of new oddball musicals in the Fringe.  You can normally tell them by their titles which are followed by the words "The Musical!"  In past years we've seen works such as Jaws: The Musical and Google: The Musical!  This year we have been blessed by a number of musicals in this vein.  There is even one titled Musical the Musical.  The musical that this particular entry is about, however doesn't have the words "The Musical" at the end of its title.  No.  It's missing the word "the".  I'm talking about Great American Horror Movie Musical.

If you've ever lambasted bureaucracy, experienced hubris or decried corruption, tovarisch,, I'm telling you, don't miss this one.