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Girl Scouts take on the zombie apocalypse

Juanita Vang, executive director of the Southeast Asian Diaspora Project, is looking forward to seeing Theater Mu's premiere of "Kung Fu Zombies vs Southeast Asian Girl Scouts." This is the third installment in local playwright Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay's trilogy of kung fu zombie plays. This time, Girl Scouts Samoa, Do-Si-Do and Thin Mint must protect their Mount Airy community of St. Paul during the zombie apocalypse. Directed by Theater Mu artistic director Fran de Leon, the play opens on Halloween night and runs through Nov. 15 at the Frey Theater in St. Paul. Tickets use the company's pay-as-you-are pricing, starting at $15.

Knowing that Vongsay is also a member of FAWK, the Funny Asian Women's Kollective, Vang is looking forward to a funny show. But there's more to it than that:

"The show is a mix of so many genres and loves. We've got inspiration from sci-fi, kung fu, like hip-hop, Southeast Asian culture, and we need the innovation in Asian American theater because we need our stories to reflect the diversity of our experiences."

‘Three Houses’ brings the wolf to the door

Megan Halloran wants people to know about Theatre Elision's current production of the musical "Three Houses." As the title suggests, this play is inspired by “The Three Little Pigs,” but it's not a play about architecture. Set in New York during the pandemic in what Halloran calls a "purgatorial karaoke bar," three women isolated at home must grapple with the wolf howling at their doors. The show runs through Nov. 7 at the Elision Playhouse in Crystal. This show is meant for an adult audience.

Halloran raves about Theatre Elision:

"The work they choose is so fresh and indicative of who we are as Minnesotans — it’s not just repeats of classic Americana, but a wildly beautiful tapestry of tales from every walk of life, every mood and mindset, every background and choice. Theatre Elision is the most intentionally and organically inclusive art space that I’ve ever been to — not just choosing shows from underrepresented playwrights, but casting and hiring tech folks who are predominantly women and gender-fluid folks of all body types and abilities, and always offering a range of ticket prices for financial access to live theatre. I’ve attended every show that they’ve done and I’ve never left a show that Elision does without having shed a tear and guffawed aloud, in turn."

An all-female cast steps into ‘1776’

Norah Long made her Guthrie Theater debut nearly 20 years ago playing Abigail Adams in "1776," a Tony-winning musical about the events leading up to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. She's happy to spread the word about a one-night-only version of the show this Friday, performed by an all-female cast. The hourlong performance presented as a staged reading is the work of Raison d’Être, an opera company for performers over age 55.

The timing of the show is purposeful: Oct. 30 is the birth date of founding father John Adams, through whose perspective anchors the musical. The show will be at Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis at 7 p.m.

Long says this performance has a powerhouse cast, and there's one casting choice she finds particularly interesting:

"There are four women who take one role apiece [John Adams, Abigail Adams, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson]. The other three women play dual roles, and I think it's very interesting that they have specifically given them roles where one of each set of two is on one side of the aisle and one is on the other. So we have a liberal and a conservative played by the same person … so that's kind of lovely, too. We get to hear and see that the same body can speak on both sides of the argument."

Collected from Minnesota Public Radio News. View original source here.