Passage of Dreams / Through Apr. 5 / Southern Theater, 1420 Washington Ave. S., Mpls. / (612) 340-1725 / www.southerntheater.org
/March 26, 2009.By John Townsend, Lavender Magazine.
Minneapolis’s Theater Latte Da and New York’s Write/Act Festival are collaborating in three musical one-acts that traffic in aerial feats you typically expect at a Cirque event. A past/present/future montage starts in 1930s Paris, moves to a backyard barbecue in Wisconsin, and concludes with a drought where both faith and water have dried up.
Director Peter Rothstein explains that playwright Baldwin Eng and composer Jeff Tang “are stretching the boundaries of musical theater in dynamic ways.”
Actor Fred Wagner, who wowed audiences last year in the trans drama Looking for Normal, calls Passage of Dreams “a dreamlike excursion. It’s like An American in Paris meets Hairspray, with a little bit of Waiting for Godot in musical form thrown in for fun. This is not your father’s musical comedy.”