BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE
The northernmost part of Cedar Avenue vanishes into a small theater district. Three unique performance spaces in Minneapolis are there, two in Seven Corners, where Cedar Avenue actually terminates, and one a few blocks away. Just off Cedar in the other direction there is the U of M’s Rarig Center, which feels isolated by its academic status so you would hardly know it’s there, and in fact, in summer it’s pretty much elsewhere. Institution-ally connected to the Rarig Center, but down the bluffs and a way outside the gravity field of the West Bank, in fact all the way to Saint Paul, the U of M’s Showboat is playing the river this summer in its farewell season. Back on Cedar Avenue, the Cedar Cultural Center mostly sticks to music of an eclectic yet respectable kind. And if you didn’t manage to get tickets, there are still a few bars in Cedar-Riverside with good live music to hear or dance to.
On the basis of that tenuous connection to Cedar Avenue, we’ll start with the Centennial Showboat, so called because the original one was launched in 1958 as part of the statehood centennial celebrations. It’s not the original boat, though, which was already over 100 years old when it was refitted as a theater. In 1993, it was withdrawn from service for a total renovation, only to be burnt to the hull in a welding accident a few years into it. So a new boat was built in the 19th century style (sort of) and the Showboat was relaunched in 2002. But now, sadly, the Showboat just doesn’t pull in enough bums on the seats, so it’s being permanently retired after this summer. The last show is one that was presented in the inaugural season as well—“Under the Gaslight.” The farewell season will comprise 60 showings, from July 7 through Aug. 27. Tickets are on sale through the U of M website (www.theatre.umn.edu/showboat).
One of the Seven Corners theaters is even older than the Showboat. Theatre in the Round opened in the present building at 245 Cedar Ave. in 1969, showing the then cutting-edge drama “The Killing of Sister George” on opening night, but it was founded as a community theater in 1952, which makes it about 64 years old! Theatre in the Round Players, Inc., or TRP, was forced to move from their second home at 13th and Stevens (today the site of the Minneap-olis Convention Center), and leased (and later bought) the site on Cedar Avenue which had been a pizza parlor and warehouse until it was damaged in a fire. With design supervision from Ralph Rapson’s architecture firm (the designers of the original Guthrie Theater, and later to be associated with Cedar Square West) and many hours of volunteer work, the present space with its unique stage was built.
TRP was and is a “community theater.” There is no formal definition of “community theater”; as a working definition, it is theater in which actors are not paid. It encompasses groups in which no one is paid, to companies in which everyone is paid except the actors. TRP is neither extreme; it has a small paid staff, but no artistic director. A professional director is hired for each show. All front-of-house, all design and tech work, and a lot of the administration, is done by the huge volunteer base—nearly 400 current and active volunteers, putting on a year-round schedule of nine shows with performances on weekends. As for the acting, auditions are open to everyone, and the TRP maintains a database of actors numbering over 2,000, a great resource it shares with other performance arts organizations. Many people in acting, in other branches of theater, or even in other prominent endeavors, have been actors or volunteers at TRP. The board of directors chooses the shows and hires the directors for them. The board is elected at the annual meeting, open to any member. Membership is free, and currently includes about 800 people. Another feature of community theater prominent at TRP is teaching, with free monthly workshops in various theater arts.
TRP’s 64th season has one more show to go—“Jeeves Intervenes”—running July 8 through 31. The 65th season opens Sept. 9 with a subversive new version of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” which runs through Oct. 2. Other shows in the season will include some Shakespeare (“Romeo and Juliet”), some Noel Coward (“Private Lives”) and some Agatha Christie (“Murder on the Nile”).
The other theater in the Seven Corners area is the Southern Theatre. Although TRP is the oldest continuing company in the West Bank, the Southern is the oldest theater building to have been, at least most of its life, a theater. The Southern Theatre has a very different business and performance model from community theater.
Rather than have one company putting on many shows, the Southern hosts a plethora of companies—dance, performance art, physical comedy, etc., as well as traditional theater—each of which puts on one or two shows per year. Instead of having a free membership and a largely volunteer staff, the Southern offers a plan called ArtShare, where patron/members pay a fixed amount each month to see as many shows by the resident companies as they like for free, with a few guest passes and a deep discount for visiting companies’ shows. Patrons don’t need to join ArtShare to see shows, though, and ticket prices are fairly reasonable. Many shows also offer Pay-what-you-can to non-members on Tuesday nights.
The next show coming up at the Southern Theatre is a guest company—The One-Minute Play Festival—presenting a show of the same name on July 9 and 10 at 8 p.m. Resident shows still coming up this season include “A Hill in Natchez,” presented by Joe Horton (dance and music) July 14 – 17; “600 Years,” presented by Sandbox Theatre (theater) Aug. 26 – Sept. 18; “The Venetian Twins” by Theatre Forever (theater) Sept. 23 – Oct.16 (“plays like the love child of Monty Python, Jane Austen and the Princess Bride” one critic said of this obscure 18th century play); and “Crazy Glue,” by Single Shoe Productions (two-person ensemble, physical comedy, mime, 1930s soundtrack) Nov. 17 – 20.
The Southern Theatre is also the home of Balls Cabaret, hosted by Leslie Ball, every Saturday night at midnight. It’s “the longest running weekly midnight cabaret in the history of humankind, as far as we can tell.” Suggested pay-as-you-can admission is only $5, and to perform, you only have to call or email Leslie beforehand.
Mixed Blood Theatre, although not on Cedar Avenue, is a major part of the West Bank theater scene. It employs yet another unique business model, one it calls Radical Hospitality, which basically means free admission two hours before the show. Patrons may pay for a ticket in advance for a show, so this is essentially a rush line, but a totally free, most-of-the-seats rush line. However, in stark contrast to community theater norms, MBT pays Equity wages. As part of its mission of cultural pluralism, Mixed Blood also has numerous guest shows by the likes of Mu Performing Arts and Walking Shadow Theatre Company. The company in turn has satellite venues throughout the Midwest and does touring productions, including at workplaces.
Mixed Blood was founded in 1976 by Jack Reuler and he is still the artistic director to this day. It is also still in the same space, a former firehouse that recently experienced major renovations (and the capital campaign to pay for that is still ongoing). MBT recently completed its 40th season, which was playfully named WD40. MBT has had many “firsts” and won many awards, but what really distinguishes them is the intensity with which they advocate for change. Two initiatives are ongoing at MBT—a Latino Initiative and a Disability Initiative. They pull out all the stops for both of these, with captions and superscripts, large-type programs, ASL interpretation, audio description and tactile tours, bilingual shows in every season. MBT also collaborates with Bedlam Theatre to build relationships with all the communities in the neighborhood. As its website states: “The zip code in which Mixed Blood has resided since its 1976 inception, 55454, is the most ethnically diverse between Chicago and the West Coast. Four thousand people live on Mixed Blood’s block, hailing from 63 countries and speaking 92 languages.”
Another great performance space and West Bank institution doing a lot for cultural plurality is the Cedar Cultural Center. In addition to its usual Global Roots program culminating in the Global Roots Festival in September, this year the Cedar is celebrating an African Summer on the West Bank. Shows announced so far: Debo Band (7/8/16); Femi Kuti (7/15); Pape Diouf (7/18); King Sunny Ade (7/20); and Krar Collective (7/22.) With so much to choose from, we just might have to spend our summer on the West Bank.
