Shows we love

This Valentine's Day we're reminiscing about our most loved shows, including recent crushes and lasting loves of the past. So we offer up a dozen roses and a big box of chocolates to everyone from Red Resurrected to Ruthless, from Spalding Gray to Shakespeare. Which show would get your conversation hearts?

Seven Shot Symphony
Photo by Eric Melzer

Candy

Recent crush:

This is a little older, but I loved Seven Shot Symphony by Live Action Set. It was so engaging, all the way through. I loved that they could make a believable horse galloping across the landscape out of fingers and some shoulders. They did all sorts of silly things (including slow motion) so earnestly and well; it made the whole production delightful. And the music? Heart-wrenching and gorgeous.

Long-time love:

I think the show that will stick with me the longest is the Minnesota Opera’s 2000 production of Turandot. It was the first live opera I saw, and it overwhelmed me a little. So much visual and aural beauty surrounding 15-year-old me felt like the best kind of magic. It really was a beautiful production, but the only specific thing I can remember was this huge staircase that rolled in for “Nessun Dorma”. They’re doing it again this year, and I wish I could see it.

---

Blake

Recent crush:

I saw The Idiot, an adaptation of Dostoyevsky, last summer in Seoul. Sublime choral movement, live instrumentation, lovely costumes. I started watching the play keeping one eye on the English surtitles, trying to follow the intricacies of plot, but ended up forgoing the story for the spectacle.

Long-time love:

The Wooster Group's House/Lights. I loved it because of the beauty in strangeness, a room full of echoes. The intersection of two disparate stories. And Kate Valk knocked my socks off.

Red Resurrected

Tanner

Recent crush:

I loved Red Resurrected, the 2011 Fringe entry from director/creator Isabel Nelson and the ensemble. With no set and a little lighting and sound design, this production established an incredibly textured and rich world. The performances and story felt very big and very immediate at the same time.

Long-time love:

In story, it’s not my favorite, but as far as a theatre-going experience, my all-time favorite was Kneehigh Theatre’s Brief Encounter. I had, for whatever reason, quite low expectations for this production, but from the first instant, when one of the main characters walked into a seemingly solid projection screen and magically popped up on a video projection. (That’s an awful description, but it was really amazing, and the production utilized technology to tell a very theatrical story.)

---

Amber

Recent crush:

The Water Play by Sarah Gubbins at Playlabs. I loved the realism with a burst of the magical.

Long-time love:

The Ice Fishing Play by Kevin Kling - it has such a distinctly Minnesotan voice.

Russ

Recent crush:

Seven Shot Symphony by Live Action Set. There are literally no words that can describe how that show grabbed me, shook me, and left me wanting more, more, more

Long-time love:

My favorite show of all time is still Fishtank by Jeune Lune. Before that show I had never had a new work move me like that. That show is what got me excited about creating something from scratch rather than working from a well-known script. I don't know how eager I would have been to work with Savage Umbrella if it wasn't  for Fishtank.

Untitled Feminist Show

Hannah

Recent crush:

Untitled Feminist Show by Young Jean Lee. I loved it because it had me falling in love while simultaneously breaking my heart over and over again. It’s the kind of thing that gets inside my bones and never lets go -- like, literally, I think about it every day. The production moved me from hysterical laughter to the verge of tears within seconds. That’s good stuff.

Long-time love:

Oof, this is a tough one. I think I fall in love with a new play every day. If I had to pick one right now, it would be Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman. I have never seen it, but just reading the text is an experience all its own. That script is definitely on my bucket list.

---

Heidi

Recent crush:

The Ravagers. I was amazed that even though I knew the basic plot I STILL was totally engaged. I also love watching all of my SU babies' successes on/off stage. Proud mama right here.

Long-time love:

Ruthless by Marvin Laird and Joel Paley. It started my love affair with dark comedy.

Laura

Recent crush:

Hands down, El Pasado es un Animal Grotesco by Mariano Pensotti. I can’t remember the last time I saw something that had innovative staging (rotating set!) plus playing with a format (narration) that wasn’t just formally interesting (it was), but also related to the theme and plot (how does telling the story tie in to your memory of the event?). And the narration allowed for some moments of really fine silent acting. Plus, hot Argentinians making out...

Long-time love:

I’ve been lucky enough to see tons of amazing shows. So. I kinda can’t believe I’m saying it, but the first thing that popped to mind was A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the RSC in 2005. It’s such an overdone play, but that was a really perfect production - magical, lush, and actually funny. I was rolling. Here’s a clip!

The Ravagers
Photo by Stacy Schwartz

Christina

Recent crush:

I know I'm a little bit biased but... I loved, loved, loved The Ravagers! Hands down! It totally rocked! I loved The Ravagers because it took heavy, politically charged themes, images, and metaphor and presented them in a beautifully constructed and executed story of life, death, and hope. It was full of stark images, graceful contrasts, and tantalizingly pointed audio. And... I loved that I was part of creating that!

Long-time love:

I love The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh! I have only seen the play performed once, and I was not that impressed with the execution and interpretation of that particular public performance, but it is still my most loved play! The Pillowman takes tragic, heart-wrenching content and themes, and very uniquely and slightly sadistically dares to answer the question of why. If you are unfamiliar, I apologize, but I can not bring myself to give away any more plot details, metaphors, or themes. It is just an absolute must read! If I have to choose my most loved play in script and public performance it would be the Guthrie's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf with Patrick Stewart. Why did I love Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf with Patrick Stewart? .... it's Patrick Stewart, man! Need I say any more?

---

Rachel

Recent crush:

My favorite play that I've seen in the last year was actually a student dance showcase at Hollins University last spring. It was weird, fresh, bizarre, inspirational, and the perfect lead-in to a year of movement-heavy shows with SU.

Long-time love:

My most loved play of all time (in this moment) is Nine Parts of Desire by Heather Raffo. I saw the original production in DC. Nothing like seeing a strong writer perform their own work, especially in a gorgeous production, and especially when you're Heather Raffo.


Carl

Recent crush:

There was a lot that I saw that I liked, but one that I really loved was the Penumbra Theater production of August Wilson’s Two Trains Running. That script. That script which is so heavy and sharp and funny and that cast who carried it all the way through in their bodies and in the slightest flicked hand and cocked head. If you are going to go for realism on stage, it takes a surreal amount of commitment from the actors and that was all there. Plus, it was just as the Occupy movement was kicking off and there were a lot of thoughts swirling around the correlations between those moments in time that I tried to articulate here in my blog, Cakein15.

Long-time love:

Spalding Gray’s Swimming To Cambodia. I wrote Beckett and Shakespeare first, other writers whose plays that I will get a chance to see performed by actors working from scripts, but I love Gray in the absence. With his storytelling, all I’ll ever have is the Jonathan Demme film and the book, yet I can imagine him doing the play with infinite subtle variations and insert myself and my day at an appropriate moment.