What surprised us most about Theater Latté Da’s “All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914” was its simplicity and spareness. The stage is almost bare except for gray-painted wood crates and platforms. There’s theatrical haze, and the occasional projection at the back. No bombs burst, no shots ring out. It’s entirely a cappella singing and speaking until the end, when a lone bugle sounds.

Yet for 65 minutes, “All Is Calm,” now at the Ritz Theater through Dec. 29, holds your whole attention. Last Friday’s sold-out house was still as stones. No coughing, no between-songs applause. It seemed the whole audience held its breath from the start, when the cast of 10 emerged singing from the darkness through the haze. On the way out, we heard one word over and over: “Incredible.”

In 32 songs and many spoken passages, “All Is Calm” tells a remarkable true story: of the call to enlist in a war everyone thought would be over by Christmas, young men who signed up and were sent to the Western front, life in the trenches, hardships endured, comrades killed. And an unprecedented impromptu Christmas Eve cease-fire between Allied and German forces that took place in No Man’s Land, where the men sang Christmas carols and shook hands and exchanged gifts and addresses before returning to battle.

The songs are traditional: “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary,” “God Save the King,” “O Tannenbaum/O Christmas Tree,” “Stille Nacht/Silent Night,” “The First Noel,” “Auld Lang Syne.” Some are war songs set to familiar tunes: “When This Bloody War Is Over,” sung to “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” “Raining, Raining, Raining,” set to “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Songs are sung in English, French, Flemish and German.

The spoken words are taken from soldiers’ letters and journals, poems of the time, war documents and gravestones. Most often, a spoken passage ends with a soldier giving his name and affiliation: “Private Frank Sumpter, London Rifle Brigade.” “Hugo Klemm, 133rd Saxon infantry.” You wonder – did he survive? What about him? “Oh, my,” one sings. “I don’t want to die … I want to go home.”

The show was created by Peter Rothstein, Latté Da’s founding artistic director, over years of research. The exquisite musical and vocal arrangements are by Erick Lichte and Timothy C. Takach, both formerly of the men’s a cappella group Cantus, where Lichte was a founding member and artistic director. It had its world premiere in December 2007 at Westminster Presbyterian Church, from where it was broadcast nationally over MPR, then moved in 2008 to the Pantages and became an annual holiday tradition. Cantus performed in the production through 2014.

Directed by Rothstein, “All Is Calm” has toured the United States and been broadcast on five continents. Last year, it ran for a few nights at the Ritz before going to New York City for an off-Broadway production that won a New York Drama Desk Award. Next week, it will be filmed for national broadcast over PBS in 2020.

In the years “All Is Calm” played the Pantages, we never managed to catch it. We all get busy during the holidays. We make choices about how we’re going to spend our time and our entertainment dollars. Do we want a night out of pure enjoyment? Do we want to laugh and clap and feel light on our feet as we head out the door into the snow? Or do we want to be moved, to think and feel and reflect? Cantus must have asked themselves those questions in 2007, when this was their Christmas show.

For your holiday fare, we might suggest a Christmas blend. Something sweet and/or funny, and also something poignant and pointed. “All Is Calm” is a visceral experience. It aims straight for the heart, and its aim is true. It’s filled with beautiful singing, strong emotion, and humanity. We wished, and not for the first time (or the last), that Latté Da had left the theater lights low a bit longer, to give us a chance to collect ourselves. It’s a powerful production. We’re very glad we (finally!) saw it.

It’s interesting that two important works for theater about the Christmas Truce of 2014 were both born here in Minneapolis. The opera “Silent Night” was commissioned by Minnesota Opera as part of its New Works Initiative, premiered here in 2011, and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for music in 2012. “Silent Night” has also been seen on PBS.

“All Is Calm” continues at the Ritz Theater through Dec. 29. FMI and tickets (start at $33).

The picks

Now at the Film Society’s St. Anthony Main Theatre: Pedro Almodóvar’s “Pain and Glory.” The legendary Spanish filmmaker, director and screenwriter (“Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,” “Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!,” “All About My Mother,” “Talk to Her”) returns with a story about a filmmaker in his physical decline, no longer able to continue his life’s work. The cast includes Antonio Banderas, a veteran of several films with the director, and Almodóvar’s longtime muse, Penélope Cruz. The house where Banderas’ character lives is Almodóvar’s house in real life. FMI and tickets.

Tomorrow (Wednesday, Dec. 4) at the Minneapolis Central Library: Talk of the Stacks: Dan Buettner. The New York Times best-selling author of “The Blue Zones,” Minnesota’s Dan Buettner will release his latest, “The Blue Zones Kitchen: 100 Recipes to Live to 100,” today (Tuesday, Dec. 3). So this Talk of the Stacks event will be a perfect time to pick up a copy and have it signed. Doors at 6:15, program at 7. Seating is limited. Overflow space with live feed will be available.

Saturday at SooVAC: Opening reception for “Let There Be Spaces in Your Togetherness.” Continuing its 20th anniversary celebration, Mizna, the St. Paul-based Arab arts organization, has joined with SooVAC for a juried group show. Participating local and national artists are from the Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) region or of SWANA descent. Following its stay at SooVAC, the exhibition will tour to St. Cloud State University and New York Mills Cultural Center. 6-9 pm. FMI. Free. Closes Jan. 9. Meanwhile, another Mizna-related exhibition, “History Is Not Here: Art and the Arab Imaginary” continues at the M through Jan. 5. FMI.

Holiday pick

At its annual meeting on Tuesday afternoon, the Minnesota Orchestra shared some very good news, some mixed news and some not-so-good news. In that order:

1. 1. A $50 million fundraising campaign launched in 2017 brought in $60 million in major gifts, a whopping $10 million over goal.
   2. The orchestra anticipated the campaign would generate $40 million in operating support and $10 million in endowed gifts. Instead, it received $20 million for operations and $40 million for the endowment.
   3. Because of the shortfall in operations-directed gifts, the orchestra has an operational deficit of nearly $8.8 million in FY 2019.

This is after four years of balanced budgets. It’s larger than the then-record operational deficit of $6 million the orchestra reported in January 2013 for FY 2012, three months into the lockout. A previous record $2.9 million shortfall was reported in December 2011 for FY 2011, a lead-up to contract negotiations with the musicians that ended badly.

The musicians’ contract comes up for renewal in 2020. Should we worry?

A big deficit is not good. But the Minnesota Orchestra is not the same organization it was in 2011. Not only did the orchestra survive the lockout, it emerged stronger, more passionate, more community-focused and more accessible. New leadership – beginning magnificently with Kevin Smith, who came out of retirement to serve as interim president and CEO in 2014, then stayed until Michelle Miller Burns took over in September of this year – has worked with the musicians, staff and board to create a climate of we’re-all-in-this-together collaboration.

In a phone interview Monday, Burns was upbeat about the orchestra’s long-term success and sustainability, and positive about plans to address the deficit. Here are some highlights from that conversation, edited and condensed.

Michelle Miller Burns on the good vs. not-so-good news:

We’re announcing the conclusion of a very successful, very focused fundraising campaign, and also a deficit for fiscal year 2019. How can that be? The campaign exceeded its overall goal, but we received many more gifts to the endowment than we did to operations. It is this shortfall in operations-directed gifts that accounts for the deficit.

We raised $60 million on a $50 million goal, which is such a testament to the generosity of this small circle of donors, and something that we celebrate, as you can imagine. [This] says to me that our donors were very generous in supporting the long-term success of the organization.

It is important to remember that the timing of this campaign came just a couple years after the lockout, so the fact that donors would be so generous is wonderful. I think [the timing] also helps to explain why more gifts came to endowment than to operations.

On whether she thinks this represents a trend in giving:

It is definitely different from what was anticipated when the campaign was launched. We certainly wish there had been some additional operating support. That is offset by my delight that donors chose to invest in the long-term future of this organization. That is the view we have collectively at Minnesota Orchestra. Let’s think about the long term. What’s best for the organization long term? Let’s make decisions taking the long view into account, every time that we have to make a decision. That’s why I feel this is such a positive move in that direction.

Particularly as we broaden our circle of supporters, I believe we will have donors who want to ensure that both the short-term and the long-term health of the organization are addressed.

On the overall financial strength of the organization:

We have a very high net asset base of $176 million. We also have a low debt position. Contributing to that, in fiscal year 2019 we made the final payment on the bond revenue funding that we received for Orchestra Hall. So that left the hall unencumbered.

Another indicator we look at is philanthropic support. In fiscal year 2018, we had total philanthropic giving of $19 million. That jumped up in fiscal year 2019 to $26.3 million.

On plans to address the deficit:

We have developed a multiyear financial forecast and a revenue growth plan to build both earned and contributed revenue on a going-forward basis. [The plan] envisions broadening our base of philanthropic support beyond the close circle of donors we have now to the community more broadly.

We’re identifying and pursuing some new earned revenue streams. We have had a committee in place over the past year that has taken that up as their charge. This is one of our collaborative committees that involves staff, board members and musicians.

An example of a new revenue stream:

We have a lot of ideas we’re pursuing and exploring right now. I’ll give you one example, relatively small-scale in comparison to others. It builds on a partnership we have already established, and we just rolled it out, so it’s brand new.

We’re partnering with MPR on a music travel program. This will be in the form of a cruise that takes place in October of next year. [Minnesota Orchestra violinists Michael Sutton and Natsuki Kumagai] will be involved. We think this will capitalize on our core competency of performing music at a high level. It will amplify our artistic excellence. It will also bring to us some new people who may not already be engaging with the Minnesota Orchestra.

On how the orchestra was affected by the recent shift in corporate funding:

We have experienced a decrease in support from the corporate community. That reduction in corporate support is important and it’s noticeable, but it is something we can move beyond. We will continue to engage with those corporations and foundations that continue to support us, and will, as always, identify new donors to come on board, whether corporate, foundation or individuals.

On whether it plans to make any cuts in response:

We do not have any budgeted cuts. We are very much united behind our revenue growth plan.

On how the $8.8 million deficit might shape upcoming contract negotiations with the musicians:

A collaborative model has been built here over the last several years, where board members, musicians and staff all work together to address opportunities and issues based in the organization. We will use that model as a foundation for our conversation about negotiations.

Thoughts in closing:

As I look at the finances of the organization, I think about three things: The strong financial foundation that we talked about. The fact that we have a revenue growth plan, and while we invest in that plan, we will continue to pursue our artistic mission, and prudently manage this organization and its finances.

Last thought – in my mind, most important – the collaborative spirit that has been developing in this organization in recent years has really come to life and come together in this moment. We have support for this revenue growth plan from board members, musicians and staff. … I feel we’ve joined hands as an organization and are moving forward together.

***

Besides the deficit, FY 2019 was a good year for the Minnesota Orchestra. Seven new musicians joined the band. An American Expressions festival in January showcased music by 19 American composers. Sommerfest celebrated Latin American music instead of Strauss. The orchestra held its annual weeklong Common Chords residency close to home, in north Minneapolis.

It released two more Mahler recordings on BIS and made an album with Dessa that was later released on Doomtree Records, a hip-hop label, almost certainly a first for a symphony orchestra.

More than 30,000 students from 285 schools in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa attended Young People’s Concerts at Orchestra Hall. Residents from every one of Minnesota’s 87 counties came to a performance there. In all, the orchestra performed live for nearly 250,000 people in and out of the hall. It had 42 million impressions on social media and 1.2 million video views on Facebook and YouTube.

The total number of donors grew to 12,600. Total capacity for all concerts was 86 percent, compared to 91 percent in 2018 and 87 percent in 2017 and 2016. Thirty-three percent of concertgoers were first-timers at a Minnesota Orchestra performance.

Announced Tuesday, a new initiative called Hall Pass may boost those new concertgoers numbers. Starting in January, people 18 and under may attend classical concerts for free. Hall Pass is being underwritten by the Bellwether Fund, a musician-led fund that supports education and community programming. The fund was begun four years ago, when the musicians dissolved a 501(c)(3) they had set up during the lockout for private donations and income from self-produced concerts. At the annual meeting on Dec. 2, 2015, they made a gift of $250,000 to the Minnesota Orchestra.

Hall Pass joins the orchestra’s existing $20under40 program in courting younger audience members. Except now, if you’re 18 or under, you (or your parents) can keep the $20.

The ambition, the invention, and the genre-bending, border-dismissing DNA of this event are what we’ve come to expect from Liquid Music, a series conceived and programmed by Kate Nordstrum since 2012 as part of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. They’re what we’ll miss when it’s gone. In May, the SPCO announced that because of  shrinking and shifting corporate funding, it would no longer sponsor Liquid Music beyond these final events. Nordstrum’s position at the SPCO was eliminated.

When we heard the news, among our first thoughts were: What about Kate? Will she stay, or will she go?

We’ve been learning about music and musicians from Nordstrum since her pre-SPCO days at the Southern Theater, where she worked for three years, turning the old theater into a new music hot spot. (She also helped create the great chamber music ensemble Accordo, whose first two seasons were at the Southern.) When the Southern imploded in a financial crisis, she carried on with her own Kate Nordstrum Projects until the SPCO approached her about staging concerts in its little-used rehearsal space in the Hamm Building. That plan morphed into Liquid Music, which became part of our cultural fabric and, before long, nationally known.

Nordstrum has contacts everywhere, from New York City to Washington, D.C. (where the Kennedy Center recently hosted Liquid Music’s TU Dance/Bon Iver smash hit project “Come Through”), Los Angeles (where she served as guest creative producer for the LA Philharmonic’s 2018-19 Fluxus Festival) and Reykjavik (where she knows everyone at the record label Bedroom Community and has featured several of their artists in Liquid Music performances).

But she’s not going anywhere, except to an office above Askov Finlayson in downtown Minneapolis. The Great Northern announced today that it has named Kate Nordstrum its executive and artistic director. In that role, she will expand and grow a festival set in the heart of our Minnesota winter.

The Great Northern was co-founded by Eric Dayton, son of former Minnesota governor Mark Dayton, co-founder of Askov Finlayson, co-owner of Bachelor Farmer and a true fan of winter. (The Star Tribune tells the story of a trip he took at age 16 with his dad and Arctic explorer Will Steger.) Dayton is board president and CEO of the Great Northern, which has gathered the Saint Paul Winter Carnival, City of Lakes Loppet and U.S. Pond Hockey Championships within the same giant snow globe and added original programming. It debuted in January 2017 and has returned every year since, getting bigger and bolder each year.

According to the press release, Nordstrum has been identified by the Great Northern’s board “as a visionary who could transform the festival into an iconic annual event for the Twin Cities region, an international destination for visitors, and an engine of economic and cultural development.”

Nordstrum said, “I see the Great Northern as the embodiment of Minnesota’s progressive Legacy Amendment, shining a light on the things we hold most dear: our natural environment, arts and culture, parks and rec. In winter I find – and through the Great Northern want to build – inspiration through unique cultural activities and creative social experiences.”

Her programming will begin with the 2021 festival, and “it will absolutely include music.”

Meanwhile, when Nordstrum left the SPCO, she took the Liquid Music brand with her. She has created an LLC to house her independent projects and contract work. For 2020, she already has engagements with the National Gallery, Kennedy Center, Cincinnati Symphony and Big Ears Music Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee.

The picks

Opens tonight at the Grain Belt Warehouse: “The Norwegians.” Dark & Stormy Productions continues its holiday counterprogramming tradition with a bringback of a play they first produced in 2017. The Norwegians imagined by playwright C. Denby Swanson aren’t ones you might meet at a local lutefisk dinner. They’re professional killers on the job for two jilted women who want revenge. And they seem like such nice men. 77 13th Ave. NE. Studio 202, Minneapolis. 7:30 p.m. FMI and tickets ($15-39). Closes Jan. 5.

Saturday at Magers & Quinn: “Closing Time” book signing with Bill Lindeke and Andy Sturdevant. If you’re a regular MinnPost reader, you know their names. Lindeke writes Cityscape, and for five years, Sturdevant wrote The Stroll. Together they’ve created a deeply researched, thoroughly enjoyable read about the Twin Cities’ most famous and infamous watering holes, some long gone and some still standing. You can read an excerpt here. 2-4 p.m. Learn about more signings here. History Revealed on Dec. 12 will be a signing and a talk.

Sunday at Icehouse: Zorongo Presents Ay Qué Calor (So Hot!). Flamenco music, song and dance, up close and personal on the small Icehouse stage. We haven’t yet seen Zorongo there, but we did see Kaleena Miller with a jazz trio, and it’s a different way to experience dance. Zorongo founder and artistic director Susana di Palmo directs. With live music by La Conja, Juanito Pascual and Ben Abrahamson. 6 p.m. FMI and tickets ($20 advance, $22 door).

Holiday pick

For many, Handel’s “Messiah” is a holiday must – a time to reflect, rejoice and relax as music and singing fill the air. You can’t go wrong with any of these choices.

On Friday and Saturday, Dec. 6 and 7, at Orchestra Hall, Nicholas Kraemer will conduct the Minnesota Orchestra, soloists, and the mighty Minnesota Chorale. 8 p.m. both nights. FMI and tickets ($30-135).

On Sunday, Dec. 8, at St. Olaf Catholic Church, you can sing “Messiah” with the Minnesota Chorale and everyone else who walks through the door. Music will be provided, all ages are welcome, and you don’t need a ticket or a reservation. A free-will offering will be collected.

From Thursday, Dec. 19, through Sunday, Dec. 22, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, soloists, and The Singers will perform “Messiah” four times. On Thursday and Friday they’ll be at the Basilica of St. Mary, on Saturday and Sunday at the Ordway Concert Hall. Jory Vinikour will conduct. 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. FMI and tickets ($11-50 adults, $5 kids).

‘A quiet sense of anticipation filled a far corner gallery on the third floor of the Minnesota History Center in downtown St. Paul Monday morning, as museum workers put finishing touches on the new exhibit “Our Home: Native Minnesota.” Surrounded by rare Native American artifacts, maps, and multimedia pieces, Mattie Harper talked about her and her colleagues’ work, and a legacy hundreds of years in the making.

“This is significant as the first permanent gallery devoted to Native American history and content, and I think, in a sense, it’s long overdue,” said Harper, senior historian at the Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) who grew up on the Leech Lake (Ojibwe) reservation, and taught indigenous studies at the University of California San Diego before returning to Minnesota. “It’s been able to happen now because MNHS has more native people on staff, and people who have more training in the area, and with the new Native American Initiatives division that was formed a few years ago, the institution has recently really been strengthening and building on ties to native communities and really working on building trust. There’s always been a request from teachers and visitors for more content on native history, but also at this time I think native communities feel ready to share stories here, and to give more input and feedback.

“That was a really large part of the process: We interviewed native educators, artists, activists, and community members and because of that, it makes it a really strong exhibit.”

The 2,700-square-foot exhibit employs maps, rare artifacts, interactive screens, multimedia pieces, and historic and contemporary photographs to tell first-person stories of the history of Minnesota’s first people. Saturday’s opening day festivities will kick off at 10 a.m., with music from Mitch Walking Elk, hoop dance performances by the Sampson Brothers, demonstrations of birch-bark biting artwork with Denise Lajimodiere and traditional games like kansu kutepi (dice), tasiha (ring and pin), and cankawacipi (spinning tops) with Jeremy Red Eagle.

MinnPost took in a preview of “Our Home: Native Minnesota,” in interviews and photos:

“Museums have a very influential role in how the public sees native people; a long history of perpetuating stereotypes and objectifying native people, and so now the institution is more committed to centering native perspectives, and doing outreach with native communities, so it’s more of a process of sharing authority. Native people have input on what sorts of objects are stored, taken care of, how they’re managed, and especially in this gallery, how what sort of narratives about native communities are shared.”

“I hope this exhibit is a place where we can build a little bit of cultural empathy, where non-native people might start seeing native people differently. Native people have stereotypically been romanticized, they’ve been looked at as victims of history and circumstance. So for me, as a non-native person, I like that with this exhibit we get to look at people and groups of people as human beings.”

Meanwhile, buckle up for “Six.” This is a revisionist take on a verse most of us know: “Henry VIII, to six wives he was wedded/One died, one survived, two divorced, two beheaded.” Except in “Six,” Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anna of Cleves, Katherine Howard, and Catherine Parr are alive and kicking, dancing and posing in sparkly platform shoes.

All are through with being “just one word in a stupid rhyme.” They want to tell their stories in song and let the world know who they really were. Backed by a rowdy live band on stage, they sing in the styles of today’s pop stars: Beyoncé, Adele, Rihanna, Ariana Grande. “Six” is all singing and dancing, more concert than musical. There’s no plot. It’s loosely framed as a “Voice”-type competition, where the queen who was treated worst by Henry will emerge as the winner.

Written by Lucy Moss and Toby Marlow, two Cambridge University students, “Six” took off like a rocket soon after its debut at the Edinburgh Fringe in Aug. 2017. A hit on London’s West End, it earned five Olivier Award nominations. The cast album is currently No. 10 on the Billboard chart and the second-highest streaming cast recording in the world. A recent headline in Playbill reads “Musical Continues World Domination.”

After “Six” closes at the Ordway, its next stop will be Broadway – a first for the Ordway. Creators Moss and Marlow will still be in their mid-20s.

If you don’t enjoy loud pop music and bright lights in your eyes, “Six” might not be for you. It’s being compared to “Hamilton,” but it’s not “Hamilton.” Still, there are plenty of reasons to go to the buzziest show in the Twin Cities. Here are six for “Six”:

1. It has a diverse all-female cast and an all-female band.
2. It has a clear girl-power message. If you have tweens or teens in your life, bring them to “Six” if you can.
3. The songs are catchy and the lyrics are smart and witty. “Haus of Holbein” is hilarious.
4. It’s fun and fast – 80 nonstop minutes, with no intermission.
5. If “Six” turns out to be a hit on Broadway, you can brag that you saw it here first. (People still say that about “The Lion King.”)
6. It’s exciting to be part of a revved-up crowd. We were seated by a couple who clapped, whistled, pumped their fists and shouted “Woo!” pretty much the whole time.

One wee caveat: There are some suggestive lyrics and moves. But these go by so quickly most kids won’t have time to ask “Hey Mom, what does ____ mean?”

People are saying that “Six” makes them want to know more about Henry’s wives. If “Hamilton” inspired readings of the Federalist Papers, maybe “Six” will drive fans to the library for David Starkey and Antonia Fraser.

“Six” continues at the Ordway through Dec. 22. FMI and tickets ($45.50-128.50).

The picks

Still at 2010 East Hennepin in Minneapolis: “Cabal.” Have you seen “Cabal,” Walking Shadow Theatre Company’s immersive play-with-puzzles? When it opened in July, tickets were available through Sept. 29. Plans were to keep it going as long as people kept coming. “Cabal” has been extended again, this time through Feb. 2. That’s a long run for a play, even when audience size is limited to 10. We saw it in September, and though the cast has since changed, this will give you an idea of what to expect. Maybe get together with friends and buy out a whole night? Or go on your own and experience “Cabal” with strangers. We did that and enjoyed it very much. FMI and tickets ($45).

Now at the Mixed Blood: “The Viking and the Gazelle.” Playwrights William P. Bengtson and Suzanne Bengston are a mixed-race Twin Cities couple, and this new play – which premiered at the 2019 Fringe to rave reviews – is based on their own lives and experiences. E.G. Bailey and Shá Cage, also a couple in real life, are the directors. Recommended for ages 15 and up. FMI and tickets ($35). Closes Dec. 15.

Monday at Icehouse: Great Black Music Monday. Mankwe Ndosi continues her monthlong residency for Monday Night Jazz with the debut of M4D, a new ensemble featuring poet Douglas Kearney, multi-instrumentalist Douglas R. Ewart, saxophonist Donald Washington, drummer Davu Seru and Ndosi on vocals. The evening will start with recorded music by pianist and composer Geri Allen and end with Ndosi’s version of a jam session. 7 p.m. FMI and tickets ($15 advance, $20 door).

Holiday pick: Historic house tours

The Minnesota Historical Society maintains two very fine houses loaded with history in St. Paul. Both dress up for the holidays. For adults and kids, it’s enjoyable and enlightening to walk through spaces where real families once lived and imagine how life might have been for them. The Gilded Age James J. Hill House, former home of the railroad magnate, offers guided tours and self-guided tours. The Victorian Alexander Ramsey House, former home of Minnesota’s first territorial and second state governor, has guided tours with cookies fresh from the wood-burning stove. Tickets $8-12.

The Prairie-style Purcell-Cutts House in Minneapolis was bequeathed to Mia in 1985. A lot of people don’t know about this gem east of Lake of the Isles. The home has been decorated for the holidays, and on Saturdays and Sundays through Jan. 5, costumed docents will lead 45-minute tours. Meet at Mia’s Third Ave. entrance and take the shuttle. FMI. $5.

Inspired by the Jesuit saying “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man,” the British documentary “7 Up” was supposed to be a one-off snapshot of class-torn England in 1963. The idea was to ask a group of 7-year-old children from various backgrounds – posh, poor, urban, rural – about their hopes and plans for the future and film their responses. This would give viewers “a glimpse of England in the year 2000,” said the trailer. “The shop steward and the executive in the year 2000 are now 7 years old.”

Filmed in black-and-white, “7 Up” featured 14 bright faces and piping voices. You could almost already tell whose dreams would come true.

Michael Apted, then 22, was a researcher on “7 Up.” In 1970, he was asked if he’d like to do a follow-up. He has since directed all the other films in what’s now known as the Up Series: 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 56 and the latest, “63 Up.” He has said, “When I film ’84 Up,’ I’ll be 99!” It seems more likely that “63 Up,” an Oscar contender for Best Documentary Feature, will be the final installment. Apted is now 78. Of the original 14 subjects, one has died. Two have dropped out. One has throat cancer.

Another has chronic mental health problems. At seven, Neil was an adorable Liverpudlian lad who wanted to be an astronaut. By “28 Up,” he was homeless. In “63 Up,” he’s a Liberal Democratic council member and a lay minister. Seven years from now, who knows?

Apted has had a successful run as a director of Hollywood films: “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” “Gorky Park,” “The World Is Not Enough.” But the Up Series is his legacy and his towering achievement, arguably one of the greatest achievements in filmmaking, period.

The first reality series, and the most real ever made, it’s a film franchise with no CGI and no superheroes – except maybe Bruce, already idealistic and compassionate at 7, who grew up to be a teacher, spent his sabbatical in Bangladesh and later helped Neil find a home. Or Lynn, a lifelong librarian.

What started out as a political statement became something much larger, enormous in scope and profound in meaning. The Up Series is about life itself: human striving and survival, dignity and disappointment, joy and grief, adaptability and determination. And the overarching importance of family.

The series has its flaws, the main one from today’s perspective being its lack of diversity. Among the cohort, there are 10 men, only four women, and aside from Bruce’s students, just one person of color. Apted himself has called this a “horrible error.” But nobody saw it that way in the mid-1960s.

As the series progressed, it featured more of the men’s wives, including strong and wise women. And it made space for one of the women, Jackie, to blast Apted for his lack of awareness. “I just didn’t feel that you had any idea of the changing role of women in the U.K.,” she says. “You asked us the most mundane, domestic questions.”

You don’t need to have seen any of the previous installments to connect immediately with the new film. Each looks back at the lives of the subjects, with clips from the past. They grow up, go to university or find jobs, get married, struggle, succeed, fail, adjust. They are amazingly resilient, especially Paul and Symon, who started out in a charity home, left there by their parents. Soon after “7 Up,” Paul’s father took him to Australia (and put him in another children’s home). But Paul and Symon managed to keep in touch and stay friends. They seem like good-hearted men, ones you’d want to know.

Apted is the interviewer for this film, as he has been for all but “7 Up.” You don’t see him, but you hear his voice, and the subjects call him Michael. The camera focuses on the subjects’ faces, often in close-up. Not all of the subjects enjoy these septennial get-togethers. Some actively dread them. But Apted treats everyone with tenderness and respect.

Some are more frank and open with him than others. Some hold him at arm’s length, having their own reasons for returning to the series. Litigator John, a member of the Queen’s Counsel, wants people to know about his charity work in Bulgaria. Peter wants to promote his folk-music band.

Appearing in the Up Series has made them all minor celebrities. They are recognized in the streets. They have been hounded in social media for expressing unpopular opinions. Cab driver Tony tells of driving astronaut Buzz Aldrin and being approached by an autograph seeker. The individual wanted Tony’s autograph, not the one of the man who had walked on the moon.

“63 Up” opens Friday at the Edina Cinema in an exclusive Twin Cities engagement. FMI including trailer, times and tickets. Drop everything to see it.

Holiday pick: Poinsettias in the Conservatory

Is it too soon to think about summer and opera outdoors? Not with temperatures hovering around zero. It’s something to live for as snowplows bump and bang down our streets and people waddle past like penguins.

Mill City Summer Opera has announced that Verdi’s “Rigoletto” will be its mainstage production for July 2020. Regularly listed among the 10 most popular operas in the world, it’s a story of love, death and vengeance with glorious music.

Stage director Katherine M. Carter, whose work has been seen at Santa Fe Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Boston Lyric Opera and Canadian Opera Company, among others, will set the action in a contemporary celebrity fashion product launch. Her production will be faithful to the original text and music while addressing issues of consent and power.

Six performances will take place in MCSO’s new home, Paikka in St. Paul’s Vandalia Tower complex, the old King Koil mattress factory that also houses Film North and the Gremlin Theater. A 200-seat performance and event space, Paikka has both a roomy interior and an outdoor courtyard.

Conductor Emily Senturia (Opera Philadelphia, Boston Lyric Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Washington National Opera) will lead an orchestra of 12. The cast will include baritone Eric McKeever, soprano Amy Owens and Metropolitan Opera star Renée Tatum.

Earlier this year, MCSO tried something new: a performance of Pergolesi’s one-act opera buffa “La serva padrona.” It will return to Icehouse in July with two performances of Mozart’s “The Impresario.”

“Rigoletto” will open July 17 for six performances, closing July 23. “The Impresario” will follow on July 27 and 29. Tickets go on sale to the general public on Monday, May 11.

MCSO spent its first eight seasons in the Mill City Museum’s Ruin Courtyard. Mill City is a museum of the Minnesota Historical Society, which chose not to extend MCSO’s contract beyond 2019.

The picks

Now at the Minnesota History Center: “Our Home: Native Minnesota.” We live on Dakota homeland. In a new permanent exhibit that opened last Saturday (Dec. 7), the History Center spotlights the stories of Dakota, Ojibwe and people from other tribal nations who have been in the Minnesota region for thousands of years. The exhibit is told in first person to demonstrate that native people are connected to their past and are still here in Minnesota today. Admission to “Our Home” is included with regular History Center admission ($12-6; MNHS members free).

Tuesday at the Lagoon Cinema: Royal Opera House: “Don Pasquale.” The great Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel, who has graced the Schubert Club’s International Artist’s Series twice and left miles of goose bumps in his wake, leads the cast in this new production of Donizetti’s comic masterpiece, recorded live in 2019. 7 p.m. FMI, trailer and tickets ($15). 

Holiday picks: Bach’s “Brandenburgs” and a re-imagined “Nutcracker”

It’s not really holiday music, but the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra has turned Bach’s lively “Brandenburgs” into a holiday tradition. They’ll play the first five concertos, but in their own order, with Jody Vinikour on harpsichord for No. 5. 7:30 p.m. tomorrow (Thursday, Dec. 12) at Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church in Apple Valley, 8 p.m. Friday at Wayzata Community Church in Wayzata, and 8 p.m. Saturday at the Ordway Concert Hall. FMI and tickets (start at $11 for adults, $5 for kids).

This weekend at Huss Center for the Performing Arts, “The Nutcracker” meets “Alice in Wonderland” in Ballet Co.Laboratory’s original ballet “Nutcracker in Wonderland.” It’s the music you love, with characters from both stories including Clara, the Cheshire Cat, Uncle Drosselmeyer, the White Rabbit, the Rat King and Queen and the Queen of Hearts. Two female dancers will perform the famous pas de deux. The production also includes collaborations with the Twin Cities Unicycle Club and Circus Juventas. Friday (Dec. 13) and Saturday at 7:30 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m. The Huss Center is at St. Paul Academy and Summit School. FMI and tickets ($22-35).

A Broadway musical that won 10 Tonys and the Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album, “The Band’s Visit” was not what we expected. There’s singing, but little dancing. No bright lights or big production numbers. (Well, one.) More play-with-music than musical, this is a small, quiet story that takes place over a single evening in the middle of nowhere, and nothing much happens.

How did it win so many Tonys, including the Big Six – Best Musical, Book, Score, Actor, Actress and Direction? By being about things that matter: hope, love, charity and having an open heart. Without hitting you over the head, resorting to clichés or being predictable.

Written by David Yazbek and Itamar Moses, this is also the first Broadway musical to play a Tiny Desk Concert. Yazbek, whose previous Broadway credits include “Tootsie,” “The Full Monty” and “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,” has written a moody, beautiful Middle Eastern-flavored score with smart, witty lyrics, memorable tunes and moments of poetry. “Honey in my ear, spice in my mouth,” to quote from one of the songs.

“The Band’s Visit” begins with these words projected on a screen: “Once, not long ago, a group of musicians came to Israel from Egypt. You probably didn’t hear about it. It wasn’t very important.”

We meet the musicians in a bus station in Tel Aviv. It’s 1996. Led by Col. Tewfiq, dressed in powder-blue “Sgt. Pepper”-style uniforms, the members of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra are en route to the bustling city of Petah Tikvah to play a concert. But Haled, the band member who buys the bus ticket, has a heavy Egyptian accent and flirts with the ticket agent. (His favorite pick-up line: “Do you like Chet Baker?”) She mistakes his P for a B, and the band ends up in the tiny, isolated desert town of Bet Hatikva.

They meet Dina, the owner of the only café in town, and Papi and Itzik, two café workers. Dina tells them there won’t be another bus until the next day, offers to feed them and arranges places for them to stay the night.

Slowly, like petals unfolding, Egyptians and Israelis who were strangers hours earlier reveal their stories to each other and in ways large and small, change each other’s lives. Haled helps anxiety-ridden Papi connect with a girlfriend. Band member Simon soothes Itzik’s infant son to sleep and helps him reconcile with his wife. Itzik helps Simon finish a concerto he’s been unable to complete. Politics and religion never come up.

Dina and Tewfiq have dinner together, walk through the town and visit the “park” – a solitary bench. He’s burdened by private grief. She longs for something in her life to change. In any other musical, sparks would fly. Here, they drift up slowly into the air.

The sand-colored set is on a turntable that changes scenes and doubles as a punchline to words from one of the songs: “Sometimes it feels like we’re moving in a circle/Around and around with the same scenery going by.” The lighting is subtle. Delicate projections appear and disappear.

The touring company is wonderful. Chilina Kennedy is Dina, lately Carole King in the epic run of “Beautiful.” Israeli film star Sasson Gabay is Tewfiq; on Tuesday, his role was played by James Rana, a member of the original Broadway cast. Most of the band members are musicians in real life, so they’re really playing their instruments, which adds to the enchantment.

Except for the turntable, “The Band’s Visit” is almost a minimalist musical. Instead of demanding your attention, it whispers in your ear. Rather than turn up the volume, it offers moments of silence. It’s one of the most exquisite and moving shows we’ve ever seen. We’re reminded of Theater Latte Da’s “All Is Calm” and the Moving Company’s “Speechless.” Shows, like this one, we’ll never forget.

“The Band’s Visit” continues at the Orpheum through Sunday, Dec. 15. FMI and tickets ($40-136). Run time about 100 minutes, with no intermission.

The picks

Tonight at the Milkweed Building: David Shove Midstream Reading Series. Hosted by Richard Terrill, tonight’s lineup of original poems read and performed by their creators will include Max Garland (winner of the Brittingham Poetry Prize, former poet laureate of Wisconsin), Bronson Lemer (“The Last Deployment: How a Gay, Hammer-Swinging Twentysomething Survived a Year in Iraq”), Anna George Meek (Brittingham Poetry Prize, Richard Snyder Prize), and Leslie Adrienne Miller, whose six books of poetry have been published by Graywolf and Carnegie Mellon University Press. At the corner of 39th and (3820) East Lake, upstairs. Entrance just west of Milkweed, the former Blue Moon coffee house. 7:30-8:30 p.m. Free.

Saturday and Sunday at the Film Society’s St. Anthony Main Theatre: “Ronia: The Robber’s Daughter.” Based on the children’s fantasy book by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren, which has been translated into dozens of languages, this hit 1984 Swedish film is a holiday tradition for many families. It follows the adventures of a robber’s daughter who becomes friends with another robber’s son, despite the fact that their fathers are sworn enemies. The story has also been made into musicals, stage plays, and an animated TV series. The Film Society will screen a restored and remastered digital DCP print from the Swedish Film Institute. FMI, times and tickets. Also Dec. 21-24.

Saturday at the Loft: “If: A Very Star Wars Cabaret.” Some of the Loft’s programming is organized by theme. This fall’s theme is “If,” an invitation to explore speculative work. The Skywalker Saga of “Star Wars” ends this winter (sniff, sniff), an excuse for writers and thinkers who are also fans to share creative work involving the blockbuster series. Like the Mos Eisley Cantina in Episode IV, the Cabaret will feature an eclectic bunch: Lao American writer Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay; Minnesota Book Award-winning author Shannon Gibney (“See No Color,” “Dream Country”); Matthew Kessen (“Reverend Matt’s Monster Science”); Latinx puppeteer and prose writer Luis Lopez; and author Jodi Byrd (“Transit of Empire”), a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma. 7-8:30 p.m. FMI and tickets ($10/$5 member).

Holiday pick: Not your same-old holiday music

Theater Latté Da spent part of this week with a film crew from New York Public Media (WNET). They were there to film Peter Rothstein’s award-winning “All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914” for national broadcast on PBS in 2020.

For three days, invited audiences watched as the performance started, stopped, resumed, stopped, and started again. Cameras (we counted six) were moved and repositioned. Makeup was fixed. Hushed voices conferred. The lights were brighter than usual, and the actors weren’t miked. A scene would be in progress when a disembodied voice interrupted to say “Hold.” Everyone froze in place. Then, after whatever needed doing had been done, “OK, actors, from the top” or “Please pick it up from the line about the Pope.” (The disembodied voice was Latté Da’s stage manager, D. Marie Long.)

Performed without intermission, “All Is Calm” is 90 minutes long. On Wednesday afternoon, we were there for two and a half hours, including a 10-minute intermission. There were cookies and hot cider in the lobby. We were told to turn our cellphones off. To refrain from coughing and moving around in noisy coats. To hold our applause until the very end, then give it our all.

We’re not 100 percent sure, but we think Laila Robins was in the audience, two rows ahead of us. There may have been other actors in the house.

Watching a film being made is a glimpse into what can be a tedious, laborious process. Actors make the same moves, put on the same expressions, say the same lines (and in this case, sing the same songs) over and over again. At least this was linear; the sections weren’t moved around, placing the truce before the boys marched off to war.

During pauses, some of the cast broke character and relaxed. Riley McNutt called out “Hi, Mom and Dad!” Sasha Andreev made certain every bit of his uniform was perfectly in place. Andrew Wilkowske cracked his knuckles. Some actors did facial stretches and vocal exercises. Then Long’s voice rang out and they snapped back to it.

We felt lucky to be there. We’ll never tire of the opening scene, when Andrew Hey steps out of the darkness and stage haze singing “Will Ye Go to Flanders?” And then, with a low hum, the rest of the cast emerges. It’s powerful, and we saw it three times in a row. The lush arrangement of “Stille Nacht (Silent Night)” that starts the Truce section, with voices twining in harmonies, becomes more beautiful with repeat hearings. The part where the soldiers bury their dead, singing “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen (Lo! How a Rose E’er Blooming),” and some drop to one knee, becomes more devastating.

We can all see the results around this time next year. Meanwhile, if you want to catch one of the final live performances, call the box office at 612-339-3003 for any available seats. Closes Dec. 29.

“Subversive Sirens” filmmaker among Jerome grantees

In August 2018, the Subversive Sirens, a Minnesota-based synchronized swimming team “committed to black liberation, equity in swimming/aquatic arts, body positivity in athleticism, and queer visibility,” competed at the Gay Games 10 in Paris. They won a gold medal for the Team Free Combo and a silver for Duet.

Serita Colette, Tana Hargest, Signe Harriday, Zoe Hollomon, Nicki McCracken, Suzy Messerole and Jay Hyun Shim aren’t through with the spotlight yet. On Wednesday, the Jerome Foundation announced the grantees in its Film, Video and Digital Production program. Among them is filmmaker Xiaolu Wang, who received $30,000 for “a documentary following the inner lives of seven community leaders who venture into the world of synchronized swimming as an act of political warfare.” Wang’s film will trace their journey of empowerment and celebrity through the 2018 Paris Gay Games, the 2019 International Gay and Lesbian Aquatics (IGLA) Championships and the 2022 Gay Games in Hong Kong.

Kiera Faber: $21,540 for “The Garden Sees Fire,” an animated narrative inspired by the frontier writings of Conrad Richter and her family’s struggle with bipolar disorder.

Alison Guessou: $30,000 for “Happily Married After,” which takes on the perfections and imperfections of marriage and individual vs. societal expectations.

Catherine Licata: $23,360 for “The Lobby” (working title), a narrative short film about a hotel housekeeper who tries to improve her life with a self-help audiobook.

Peter Nelson: $30,000 for “White” (working title), which weaves together five narratives of individuals reflecting on their whiteness.

The picks

Now at the Gremlin Theatre: “Dog Act.” On the Twin Cities’ landscape of theater companies, Fortune’s Fool is small but, um, dogged. They have produced plays now and then over the past 14 years, and their choices have been interesting: “YARRRH! The Lusty, Busty Pirate Musical,” by theater co-founder Daniel Pinkerton, Harold Pinter’s “A Slight Ache” and Caryl Churchill’s “The Skriker,” to name a few. This year it’s the Midwest premiere of Liz Duffy Adams’ “Dog Act,” a postapocalyptic vaudeville about a human (Zetta, played by Ariel Leaf) and a human undergoing a species demotion (Dog, played by – we kid you not – Joe Wiener), singing and dancing across the wasteland to a command performance for the King of China. It’s not “The Christmas Carol,” but that’s kind of the point. Ben Layne is the director. FMI and tickets ($20/18). Closes Dec. 22.

Now at the Bell Museum: “Wicked Plants: The Exhibit.” Based on Amy Stewart’s best-selling book “Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities,” this traveling show includes plants that stink, burn, and even kill. Housed in a derelict Victorian-era home, the family-friendly exhibit blends history, science and storytelling. FMI. Included in museum admission ($12-free). The Bell will be open late next Wednesday, Dec. 18, so you can see the show, stroll the famous dioramas, maybe do some stargazing (weather permitting) at night. FMI. 5-8:30 p.m. Closes Jan. 5.

Holiday picks: Music all over

Friday and Saturday: Border CrosSing: “El Mesías.” Ahmed Anzaldúa leads his Border CrosSing choir in a bilingual version of Handel’s Messiah combined with “Navidad Nuestra,” a cantata by Argentine composer Ariel Ramirez. Friday at Church of the Ascension in Minneapolis, Saturday at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in St. Paul. 7 p.m. both nights. FMI and tickets ($15-25).

Friday through Sunday: VocalEssence: “Welcome Christmas.” Philip Brunelle and G. Phillip Shoultz III lead the VocalEssence Chorus & Ensemble Singers in a joyous program of Nordic and American Christmas carols; the world premiere of “Nordic Christmas,” a suite of Norwegian carols arranged by Kim André Arneson; and two new carols by winners of VocalEssence’s 22nd annual Welcome Christmas Carol Contest. 7:30 Friday at Plymouth Congregational Church, 4 p.m. Sunday at Roseville Lutheran Church. FMI and tickets ($20-40). Tickets to both are sold by the Minnesota Orchestra.

Saturday at Crooners: Maud Hixson and Rick Carlson: “Happy Holiday: The Songs of Irving Berlin.” Berlin famously penned “White Christmas,” so of course you’ll hear that. But it’s not all he wrote, and in their trademark style, Hixson will introduce and sing other songs to make you happy, nostalgic or thoughtful, Carlson will accompany her on the Steinway, and you’ll enjoy an evening of cool, sophisticated music. In the Dunsmore Room. Two shows: 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. FMI and tickets ($20).

Monday at Chanhassen Dinner Theatres: JazzMN Orchestra: “Let It Swing: JazzMN Plays the Holiday.” Under new artistic director J.C. Sanford, JazzMN and guest vocalist Yolande Bruce (Moore by Four) will swing in the holidays with songs for the season. Many of the arrangements are those presented by Ella Fitzgerald, Stan Kenton, Eartha Kitt and other jazz legends. Choose concert only ($38/$33) or concert and dinner (add $15). Dinner seating at 5:30 p.m., concert at 7:30. FMI and tickets.

Minnesota’s governors did not have an official residence until 1965, when the daughters of lumber magnate Horace Irvine donated their family home to the state. Over the years, the house on Summit Avenue has provided Minnesota’s First Families with a comfortable home and has served as a ceremonial building for visiting dignitaries and the public alike, though not without controversy.

The effort to provide Minnesota’s governors with an official residence began in the 1940s, when the tax-forfeited home of Oliver Crosby, inventor and founder of American Hoist and Derrick, was repeatedly offered to the state. The legislature ultimately refused. Its members believed that the public would resent the governor living in such luxury during the post-World War II housing shortage. Rural legislators especially opposed the idea of an official residence.

The Minnesota governor’s residence at 1006 Summit Avenue in St. Paul began as the home of the Horace Irvine family. Irvine purchased the lot in 1910 for $7,000 and hired architect William Channing Whitney to design the approximately 16,000-square-foot Tudor-style house. When completed, the house cost $50,000. The Irvines took up residence in 1912.

Following the deaths of their parents, daughters Olivia Irvine Dodge and Clotilde (Coco) Irvine Moles deeded to the state of Minnesota on August 31, 1965. Governor Karl Rolvaag and family moved into the home on October 1. A mad scramble ensued to furnish the home in anticipation of a reception for their first state guest, Crown Prince Harald of Norway, just four days later.

Each successive governor’s family has added its own touches to the residence. In 1969, First Lady Iantha LeVander formed a committee of women to raise funds for a sculpture for a Vietnam Memorial Garden on the property. The committee held a competition for the artwork with a budget of no more than $10,000. It awarded the $5,000 prize to Paul Granlund for his sculpture Man-Nam. The finished piece, dedicated on September 27 the following year, remains a prominent feature on the grounds.

Governor Wendell Anderson and First Lady Mary Anderson remodeled the third floor into a family kitchen. Gretchen Quie established a First Lady’s portrait gallery in the lower level conference room. Governor Arne Carlson and First Lady Susan Carlson added a Peace Officers Memorial plaque in 1997 in honor of Timothy Bowe, a state trooper killed in the line of duty after leaving the governor’s security staff.

Open houses and public tours at the residence have become popular events. The Andersons welcomed 11,000 people at the first open house, held on July 4, 1973. The Quies held drawings with the winners given the opportunity to spend a night at the residence with the governor’s family.

The state legislature established the Governor’s Residence Council in 1980 to oversee the maintenance of the residence. The council includes both private citizens and state officials. To assist with raising funds in support of maintaining and furnishing the building, First Lady Gretchen Quie founded the 1006 Summit Avenue Society in 1982.

The state-owned property at 1006 Summit Avenue has not escaped controversy. Some Minnesotans have criticized the perceived “lavish lifestyle” of the governors’ families. In 1989, First Lady Lola Perpich went on the defensive by suggesting that the state sell the house and give the proceeds to the poor. In 2001, Governor Jesse Ventura asked the legislature for $4 million to either restore the residence or demolish it to make way for a new residence. The estimated value of the property at that time was $3.5 million. Governor Ventura closed the residence in April the following year after the legislature cut $175,000 from his personal security budget.

The residence operates with a full-time residence manager, assistant manager, housekeeper, chef, and groundskeeper, all appointed by the governor. The property is protected by a twenty-four hour security detail.

Over the years, the governor’s residence has hosted a wide range of visitors, including aviator Charles Lindbergh, Soviet official Mikhail Gorbachev, the families of Minnesota’s military men and women, and members of Minnesota’s sports teams.

The Irvine house celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2012. To mark the event, the 1006 Summit Avenue Society and Governor’s Residence Council co-sponsored public tours throughout the summer.

For more information on this topic, check out the original entry on MNopedia.

Irv Williams, a beloved figure on the Twin Cities music scene, died Saturday at the Episcopal Homes in St. Paul. He turned 100 on Aug. 17. He had been playing the tenor saxophone for almost 90 years.

Growing up in Cincinnati and Little Rock, he started out on violin, but the other kids teased him for playing a “sissy instrument.” He switched to clarinet, then tenor sax. By age 15, he was playing professionally. When World War II began, he joined the Navy and came to the Naval Air Station in Minneapolis with the U.S. Navy Band. On his first weekend here, he met bassist Oscar Pettiford, who introduced him to the local jazz scene.

Williams backed Ella Fitzgerald and Dinah Washington. He played with his friend Clark Terry. He took the occasional out-of-town gig, including the Apollo Theater in Harlem. He could have toured with Count Basie, Duke Ellington or Louis Armstrong and had a completely different life. Instead, he chose to stay here and raise his family.

Williams played every jazz club in the Twin Cities, most of them long gone, and taught in the St. Paul Public Schools. When he needed extra cash – he would marry twice and have nine children – he worked as a dry cleaner. Along the way, Williams picked up a nickname that stuck: “Mr. Smooth.” (According to jazz historian Jay Goetting, that came from Bob Protzman at the St. Paul Pioneer Press.) It was all about his tone. Once you heard it, you never forgot it. His tone was like a kiss on the cheek.

Pianist Bill Carrothers was 16 or 17 when he met Williams, and they played together often at a place called Farrell’s in St. Paul. By phone on Monday, Carrothers lingered on “that sound he had. The way he played. Warm, mushy, slightly sentimental. Musically speaking, that’s the greatest loss of Irv’s passing. He’s like a beautiful old ship from the past.

“His playing was sweet, heart-on-your-sleeve. Irv was all about storytelling. He had a very unhurried way of playing. He was the kind of player they don’t make anymore. It’s the end of an era.”

Williams had a good life here. In the early years, according to Goetting, racism and being new in town made it hard to find work. But he made a life in music. In 1984, he was honored by the State of Minnesota with his own “Irv Williams Day,” a first for a jazz musician. He was named an Arts Midwest Jazz Master in 1995, inducted into the Minnesota Music Hall of fame in 2014, then the Mid-American Music Hall of Fame in 2015. He was the first-ever inductee to the Minnesota Jazz Hall of Fame.

Williams also released about a dozen CDs, starting in 1994 with “STOP Look and Listen.” In the mid-2000s, they took on a teasing tone. For “That’s All?” (2004) he wrote in the liner notes, “This new CD has been such a joy to make, only God knows if there will be another.” For “Dedicated to You” (2005), the liner notes began, “As the sun goes down like a ton of bricks on my career ….” Along with giving “Finality” (2008) an ominous title, he signed our copy (and probably everyone else’s) “Thanks! Going fast!” His really, truly last CD, “Pinnacle,” came out in 2015. Sorry, you won’t find his music on Apple Music or Spotify.

For years, Williams was a fixture at the Dakota, playing Friday happy hours regularly through 2017, less often in 2018 and rarely in 2019. “We had an open door policy for him,” said club co-owner Lowell Pickett on Monday. “He could do Fridays as long as he wanted.” Williams held at least two “retirement parties” there, one in spring 2011 and one in spring 2012, but changed his mind both times.

The Dakota hosted birthday parties for Williams: his 96th, 97th, 98th, 99th, 100th. These were festive events filled with friends, long-time fans and admiring fellow musicians. Williams showed up and played his saxophone at every one but the last. “He said he wanted to come, his daughter said he wanted to come, and we arranged for someone [at Episcopal Homes] to help him get dressed and get ready,” Pickett said. “We sent somebody over to pick him up. But he just said ‘No, I’m too tired. Maybe I’ll go tomorrow.’”

“He was such a wonderful man. Warm and gracious, with a dry, humorous sparkle. Absolutely kind. I never heard him say anything mean about anyone. His playing reflected that. There wasn’t a mean tone in anything he played. It was the kind of sound that embraces you and lifts you up. Even at his 99th birthday, his tone was beautiful.”

Carrothers considers Williams “one of my first teachers of music … and a huge part of my love of jazz. He knew tons and tons of tunes.” He remembers a night at O’Gara’s when Williams taught him “Strike Up the Band.”

“Back then,” Carrothers said, “they didn’t have music or Real Books [collections of lead sheets for jazz standards]. They would just stomp off the beat and say the name of the tune, and if you didn’t know it, you learned it quickly. That was the old school way. ‘Strike Up the Band’ is a tune I’ve carried with me ever since. Every time I play it, I think of Irv.”

Pickett summed up the way a lot of us feel, now that Williams is gone: “He was one of those people that make this world a better place, in every conceivable way. His presence, his kindness, his music. We could use him for another hundred years.”

The holidays overflow with entertainments. Most are there to make you feel good. You don’t have to think too hard about what you see or experience.

And then there’s “What If,” the new play from The Moving Company. Actually, two plays, linked by Shakespeare and starlings.

Part 1 is a beautiful and touching solo performance by Steven Epp. Part 2 is a rowdy, bawdy romp with Sarah Agnew and Nathan Keepers. The two parts are Melpomene and Thalia, tragedy and comedy, the traditional masks of theater. “What If,” at its core, is about theater, defined in Part 2 as “the king who carves out his own eyes in order to see the truth.”

Epp, Agnew and Keepers are all veterans of the storied Theatre de la Jeune Lune, as are director Dominique Serrand, costume designer Sonya Berlovitz and lighting designer Marcus Dillard. “What If” is a devised work created by Epp, Agnew, Keepers and Serrand.

The house lights are on when Epp enters the Lab Theater’s vast stage, wearing a backpack. “Theater is a rather lonely thing without an audience,” he says. “You agree to let us stand before you, dreaming wide awake … The essence of acting is to inhabit someone else’s life. It’s a great act of empathy.”

He reaches into the backpack, slips on a jacket and a pair of glasses, rumples his hair and becomes a Syrian refugee. A gentle, philosophical, Shakespeare-loving former anthropology professor, he has lived alone through the years-long destruction of his hometown, Aleppo, and survived the perilous journey to Paris. He now works at Notre Dame Cathedral, opening boxes of communion wafers, which he calls “Jesus cookies.”

We meet him on the night Notre Dame burns. He hides beneath a pew. (“It’s a habit of mine to hide, learned in Aleppo.”) He remembers seeing a photo of an 11-year-old American girl, standing alone and defiant on a roof floating down the Platte River during the 2019 Nebraska floods. Pushing back his hair with a headband, reaching under his sweater to release a plaid skirt, Epp becomes the girl.

He alternates between the two characters, which have at least one thing in common: Both are places they shouldn’t be, and wouldn’t be, if humans hadn’t screwed things up. Then he adds a third character: a murmuration of starlings. For that, he crosses his arms on his chest and flutters his fingers. By now, we’re so thoroughly under Epp’s spell that this simple gesture is all it takes.

He’s a man who has seen the worst of everything and quotes Shakespeare. And a girl who insisted “Because climate change, Dad!” when her father blamed the heavy rains on tolerance for homosexuals. And an immense and wheeling flock of birds saying “We are all connected.” It’s powerful and moving.

After intermission, Keepers and Agnew stride onto the stage, dressed identically. “Here we are, all of us together, doing the imagining! This is not part 1!” Keepers proclaims. It’s as if he and Agnew are making fun of the first part. They’re buffoons, hilarious and sometimes crude. “How do actors memorize all those lines?” they ask. “How do they do all that thinking and feeling? It’s exhausting!” And “What if we have a collective colonoscopy?”

They go back in time 200,000 years, grunting and trying to eat each other. Agnew explains, “We evolved, but all that animal stuff is still in the lizard brain at the back of our skull.” Their dream is “about that part of yourself you don’t want to see.” It’s about power and nationalism.

They become God, twining around each other. They create the heavens and the earth, and humans. They build themselves a luxury hotel with a golf course. They speak in terrible Russian accents that “won’t offend anyone.” Agnew becomes a cockroach, scooting and skittering across the floor, a creature that will live through anything. Seeing that the world is a mess, God suggests we “go back to when it was great again.”

But they also quote Shakespeare. They exhort us “to work together whether you like it or not.” They remind us again of the importance of theater – and take a couple of jabs at the big Christmas play going on nearby.

And we’re not quite through with the starlings.

If you see “What If,” you’ll want to think about it, and maybe talk with other people who have seen it. The Jeune Lune mystique and magic are very much alive in this group of actors. We’ve asked several people what they thought of Part 2 and what it said to them. Everyone’s response has been different.

Maybe the second part is there because we have to blame something or someone for the state we’re in. Maybe theater is there not only for distraction, but for direction.

“What If” continues Thursdays-Sundays through Dec. 29. FMI and tickets ($38/$32/$20).

The picks

Now on your devices: “Long Lost: An Investigative History Series” podcast. In 1951, three young boys went to play in Farview Park in north Minneapolis. They never returned and were never found. Today the case is one of the nation’s oldest active missing-child investigations. Local author Jack El-Hai wrote a book about it, “The Lost Brothers: A Family’s Decades-Long Search,” published in October by the University of Minnesota Press. Twin Cities PBS has created a true-crime podcast hosted by El-Hai, with new episodes available every Thursday – six in all. FMI, episodes, and subscription links.

Saturday at Wing Young Huie’s Third Place Gallery: “Ricco & Sun Yun & Ed Bok Lee & DJ Manila Rice. It’s a party at Wing Young Huie’s place in Central. The occasion: a reading and celebration of L.A.-based writer Ricco Villanueva Siasoco’s debut collection of stories, “The Foley Artist.” From the Asian Review of Books: “[Nine] stories deftly give voice to the intersectional identities of women and men in the Filipino diaspora and queer community in America.” Also on the program: American Book Award winner Ed Bok Lee and Minnesota Book Award winner Sun Yung Shin. 3730 Chicago Ave. in Minneapolis. 7-9 p.m. Free.

Holiday pick: Free Songs of the Season Courtroom Concerts

Tomorrow (Thursday, Dec. 19): The Schubert Club’s popular and musically excellent Courtroom Concerts are usually held on Thursdays at noon in Landmark Center’s Courtroom 317. The holiday program has performed to overflow audiences for the past seven years. New this year, an evening performance has been added and will take place at the historic Central Presbyterian Church just a few blocks away. Curated by Abbie Betinis, featuring soprano Carrie Henneman Shaw, mezzo soprano Laura Betinis Healy, tenor Nicholas Chalmers and bass Timothy Takach, the program will feature winter songs and carols by more than a dozen Minnesota composers and songwriters. Both the daytime and evening concerts are free. 12 p.m. at Landmark Center, 7:30 p.m. at Central Presbyterian. FMI.

When the Bad Plus announced in May 2017 that pianist Ethan Iverson would leave the band at year end and pianist Orrin Evans would step in, a lot of people wondered how that would work.

The Bad Plus had been the same three people since late December 2000, when they played their first gig at the old Dakota in Bandana Square. For thousands of shows, the band was always Reid Anderson on bass, Iverson on piano and Dave King on drums, with only the rare guest and never a sub.

From the start, the band had its own sound. Would it change with Evans on the bench?

In December 2017, the original trio had their final Christmas residency at the Dakota. They still played at a high level, but they were ready to go their separate ways. Those were the first Bad Plus concerts we heard where the band repeated sets and played nothing new.

By then, Anderson and King had already recorded their first studio album with Evans. “Never Stop II” came out in January 2018. It sounded like the Bad Plus, but with more blues. More bounce. More softness around the edges of the notes. Iverson’s notes have gleaming, polished edges.

The new Bad Plus came to the Dakota for Christmas 2018. They had been touring for a year. They were happy to be together and it showed. Their playing was bright and optimistic. More than once, Evans laughed out loud from the piano.

In October 2019, they released their second studio album, “Activate Infinity.” The first track, “Avail,” bursts forth with a kind of infectious joy. “Slow Reactors” skips down the sidewalk. “Looking in Your Eyes,” penned by Evans, is a beautiful, melancholy ballad.

The band revisits two tracks from earlier albums, “Thrift Store Jewelry” from “Prog” (2007) and “Love Is the Answer” from “The Bad Plus,” also called “Motel” (2000 – the original group’s debut album). If you’re a Bad Plus nerd, listening to both versions of each is an aha experience. Iverson’s notes are individuals, with spaces between them; Evans’ are more fluid and shoulder-to-shoulder. Evans adds more ornaments, small pianistic flourishes that embellish a melody.

And they’re still the Bad Plus. Since the last time they were here, they have toured even more furiously, playing multiple dates nearly every month, hitting clubs and festivals across the U.S., Europe and the Middle East. Now seasoned road warriors, they’ll be back next week for their 20th annual holiday residency at the Dakota. Four nights of music, starting on Christmas night. FMI and tickets ($40/45).

The picks

Saturday at the Parkway: “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Business is up at the Parkway Theater as people have discovered it’s just more fun to watch movies in community. Eddie Landenberger and Ward Johnson did a great job with the renovations, adding a classy Art Deco vibe, ample leg room and a bar with custom cocktails. Sniffle along with a crowd when Clarence earns his wings. 12:30 p.m. doors, 1 p.m. screening. FMI and tickets ($8-5).

Saturday at the Black Dog: Raymond/Morrissey/King and the Zacc Harris Group. John Raymond and Chris Morrissey both grew up in the Twin Cities before heading out – Raymond to New York, then Indiana University as professor of jazz trumpet, Morrissey to New York and a career as an in-demand bassist and music director. King still lives here but spends much of his time on the road with the Bad Plus. Lucky for us, they all come home for the holidays. For Steve Kenny’s ongoing Saturday Night Jazz at the Black Dog series, those three will play the opening set at 7 p.m., followed by the Zacc Harris Group at 9 p.m. with Harris on guitar, Javier Santiago on piano, Chris Bates on bass and JT Bates on drums. No cover, but show some love to the tip jar. Or reserve a seat for $20.

Sunday at the Jimmy Wilson Gallery in Linden Hills: Jim Bohen. St. Paul poet Bohen (“I Travel in Rusting Burned-Out Sedans”) will launch a new poetry series called “Poetry and Pillows.” Bring a pillow to sit on, but please, no portable chairs. Seating is limited. 4304 Upton Ave. S. 1:30 p.m. P.S. This gallery is in the same neighborhood as the Wild Rumpus bookstore.

Holiday picks: winter lights and gingerbread houses

Norway House is hosting its annual “Gingerbread Wonderland” display of crunchy frosted structures made by community members and local bakers. You’ll recognize familiar buildings and landmarks from the Twin Cities and beyond. In the Gallery. $5 for 12 and older, free for members and under 12. FMI. Closes Sunday, Jan. 5.

A performance by the George Maurer Group is always so much fun. That’s why Monday night will be their 21st holiday show in a row at the Dakota.

What’s the Maurer magic? A mix of wit, sophistication, humor and keeping it fresh. Musical knowledge both deep and wide. And Maurer’s personal commitment “to be innovative always.” A pianist, composer, arranger, producer, restless seeker and serious biker – come February, he’ll be pedaling across Patagonia – Maurer has said, “I’m not just contained to one style of music. I’m not contained to one way of being an artist.”

And he’s not contained to one country. His current projects include working with a Greek theater company in Cyprus, an indie Russian filmmaker, and musicians in Berlin and Mexico City. Plus he’s starting a song cycle based in part on Will Steger’s journals from the Antarctic and the North Pole.

With Monday’s show coming up, we talked about that.

MinnPost: Has the group stayed essentially the same for all these years?

George Maurer: Absolutely. Muggsy Lauer [guitar], Jeff Engholm [bass], Scott Chabot [drums], Ann Michels [vocals], Richard Witteman [trumpet], Rich Manik [saxophone], Jim ten Bensel [trombone, bass trumpet]. For this show, we’re adding Al Asmus on bari sax and alto flute.

MP: What keeps you together?

GM: The fact that we don’t perform with each other year-round. When we get back together, it’s like a family reunion. We all have other projects, and we’re in each other’s projects, but we never wanted to do just this. Everybody has always brought a different angle on jazz or music to the group. Those styles have only grown and amplified.

MP: For people who have never seen the George Maurer Group before and are coming on Monday, what are some highlights of the show?

GM: We treat Christmas music with a certain degree of irreverence. We’ll mesh Herbie Hancock’s “Driftin’” with “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” We’ll mix Miles Davis’ “So What?” with “O Tannenbaum.” We found that “Sleigh Ride” fits over Thelonious Monk’s “Well You Needn’t.” We call that “Sleighride With Monk.”

Four songs are so popular we have to do them every year. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” “My Favorite Things” with different time signatures, “The Grinch Song” – we play the hell out of that. And Joni Mitchell’s “River,” with three-part vocal harmonies and just piano. [Note: That song should come with a warning label. Bring Kleenex.]

MP: For fans who return year after year, what’s new?

GM: Rockabilly. We’ll do JD McPherson’s “Hey Skinny Santa” from the Christmas album he released last year. We’ll be dialing him in more and more in the next couple seasons.

We’ll also do a Christmasfied “My Baby Just Cares for Me,” with new lyrics. “My baby don’t care for snow … My baby don’t care for Donner or Blitzen, Donald or Nixon.” Kenny Loggins’ “Celebrate Me Home.” Claude Thornhill’s “Snowfall,” which I’d never heard before. The Temptations’ “This Christmas.”

And the official debut of [local artist] Jim Payne’s “Christmas at the Cabin.” It’s a beautiful original about folks who go up North to the cabin, but somebody is missing this year. We’ll cover a lot of different song styles.

***

The George Maurer Group’s 21st Annual Holiday Show will take place at the Dakota on Monday, Dec. 23, at 7 p.m. FMI and tickets ($30/25/20). They’ll be back Feb. 13 for their Annual Valentine’s Show. Those tickets are on sale now.

Why is Maurer going to Patagonia? This will be his seventh long-distance adventure bicycle trip in memory of Carolyn Held, a close friend who died of cancer in 2012. Each year starting in 2014, he has traveled a different route to raise money for cancer research. His trips have taken him across the lower 48 states, from San Francisco to Denver and Vancouver to San Francisco, to Iceland, Sri Lanka, Canada and Vietnam. So far, he has raised more than $50,000.

Liquid Music announces first event at the Parkway

We were hoping this would happen, but we thought it would take a lot longer.

On Sunday, Jan. 12 at the Parkway, a little over three weeks from today, Liquid Music will present its first event in Minneapolis as an independent LLC. The innovative series was formerly part of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, which discontinued its sponsorship earlier this year due to cutbacks in corporate funding.

And what an event it will be: an evening with Finnish violinist/conductor Pekka Kuusisto and American composer/pianist Nico Muhly. The two have been close friends for years. Both will already be in the Twin Cities for a series of concerts with the SPCO, where Kuusisto is an artistic partner. One of the pieces on that program is Muhly’s Violin Concerto, “Shrink,” which will have its U.S. premiere here.

When the SPCO dropped Liquid Music, it allowed series creator and curator Kate Nordstrum to take over ownership of the brand. During its seven years with the SPCO, Liquid Music often included SPCO musicians and guests in its programing. This concert signals that relationship can continue. Why compete when you can collaborate?

Though the Jan. 12 program hasn’t yet been decided, Nordstrum says to “expect some Muhly and some Glass and some traditional folk music Pekka will bring to the table. And Bach. It’s going to be a really cool program that’s traditional classical and new music, beautifully blended.”

And expect some personality. “They have such fun banter,” Nordstrum said. “They’re hilarious people.”

“Liquid Music Presents: An Evening with Pekka Kuusisto & Nico Muhly” will take place Sunday, Jan. 12, at the Parkway. Doors at 6 p.m, show at 7, (The Parkway is general admission.) FMI and tickets ($19 advance, $24 door).

The picks

The next Artscape column before we go on holiday break will be a year-end wrap-up on Dec. 24. The column after that will appear Jan. 2.

Today (Dec. 20) and Sunday (Dec. 22) at Highland Park Community Center: “Hanukkah Lights in the Big Sky.” Based on true events that occurred in Billings, Montana, in 1993, Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company’s production of Buffy Sedlachek’s play is a story of tolerance and peace. 9:45 a.m. and 1:45 p.m. Friday, 1 p.m. Sunday. FMI and tickets ($20). Closes Sunday.

Today (Dec. 20) and Saturday (Dec. 21) at the Fitzgerald Theater: A Christmas Celebration with the Steeles. “The first family of Twin Cities music,” siblings J.D., Fred, Jearlyn, Jevetta and Billy are beyond compare. This will be their 35th annual Christmas show. Doors at 6, show at 7. FMI and tickets ($40.50).

Saturday (Dec. 21) at the O’Shaughnessy: “A Nutcracker Story (2019).” In St. Paul Ballet’s “Nutcracker,” Marie has a brother, Frank, T. Mychael Rambo is our guide, and the dancers include the company of the James Sewell Ballet. Performances at 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. FMI and tickets ($22-44).

Monday (Dec. 23) at Icehouse: Mankwe Ndosi Presents Great Black Music Mondays. Ndosi is having a very good run of Monday nights at Icehouse this month. Tonight’s musical centerpiece features New York City-based cellist Tomeka Reid, spoken word artist Tish Jones, multi-instrumentalist Douglas R. Ewart and Ndosi on vocals. Out-of-towner Reid is a fast-rising star, and this will be a rare appearance. 8 p.m. FMI and tickets ($15 advance/$20 door). Note the time change: This series was previously announced for 9 p.m.

Wednesday (Christmas Day, Dec. 25) at the Film Society’s St. Anthony Main Theatre: “Little Women.” Writer-director Greta Gerwig’s (“Lady Bird”) adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s novel is being hailed as a new classic. The cast includes Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Timothée Chalamet, Laura Dern and Meryl Streep. FMI including trailer, times and tickets.

Thursday (Dec. 26) at Crooners: Peg Carrothers “Beyond the Blue Horizon” CD release. Her voice is like a watercolor, both vivid and translucent. Her accompanists are her husband, the superb pianist Bill Carrothers, bassist Billy Peterson and guitarist Dean Magraw. The songs on her new album – only her third in 20 years – include jazz standards, gems from the Great American Songbook, and a reinvention of Trent Reznor’s “Right Where It Belongs.” Doors at 4:30, show at 6. In the Dunsmore Room. FMI and tickets ($20).

The news that St. Cloud State and University of Minnesota Crookston planned to drop their football programs for financial reasons hit close to home for Minnesota State Athletics Director Kevin Buisman. He and St. Cloud football coach Scott Underwood were high school best buddies in Marion, Iowa. And Buisman knows the factors that led St. Cloud to cut football and two other sports — declining enrollment and its troublesome corollary, declining revenue — could just as easily surface at his university in the coming years.

“If it can happen at St. Cloud, it can happen anywhere,” Buisman said. “I think it is a bit of a wakeup call for all of us.”

Higher education is in the midst of an enrollment crisis, with declining birth rates and other factors contributing to fewer high school graduates attending American colleges and universities. Nationally, more than 2.9 million fewer students enrolled in college last spring than in fall 2011, per the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

That’s particularly worrisome for athletic directors and coaches in NCAA Divisions II and III, where lucrative television rights fees are nonexistent, and athletic departments rely on institutional financial support to balance their budgets.

From 2010 to 2019 enrollment in the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system fell 14%, with the seven universities down almost 9%, according to a St. Cloud Times analysis. (The University of Minnesota and Minnesota-Duluth are not part of the system.) St. Cloud State enrollment dropped an alarming 25% percent, the largest in the system, falling from 21,938 in 2010 to 16,326 in 2019.

St. Cloud planned to lay off eight tenured faculty and four librarians before announcing the athletics cuts. Losing a Title IX lawsuit filed by former SCSU student-athletes (the school is appealing) factored somewhat into the athletics decision, which included adding men’s soccer.

Downward enrollment trend likely to continue

Future enrollment projections are not encouraging. In his 2018 book “Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education,” Carleton College economics professor Nathan Grawe predicted a 15 percent drop nationwide in students attending college from 2025 to 2029, based on declining birth rates at the outset of the Great Recession (2008-11). He expects Minnesota schools to lose between 7.5% and 15%, with the entire West North Central area — including Minnesota, Iowa and the Dakotas — down 11.3%.

With fewer students providing tuition revenue, some institutions may go out of business. Moody’s Investors Service reported more than double the number of small U.S. colleges closing in 2015-17 over the previous decade. That may not be the worst of it.

“If you’re not attached to enrollment trends the last five years, you’re missing the boat,” Buisman said. “Because you’re so profoundly impacted by enrollment trends, in terms of student fees support and the overall financial health of the university, you have to be conscious about what’s going on with that.

“This whole northern tier of the country is experiencing declining enrollment. The pie is shrinking, and it just means we’re fighting each other for what’s there and what’s available to your institution.”

Buisman said this before leaving for Texas, where Saturday the 14-0 Mavericks football team faces West Florida (12-2) for the D2 national championship. “We like to say playing a national championship game on the ESPN networks is a 3½-hour commercial for Maverick athletics and Minnesota State University,” he said. “We’ll see how that translates into future fund-raising support.”

Steady enrollment at Minnesota State

Minnesota State has been fortunate. Enrollment at the Mankato-based school where the Minnesota Vikings used to train is holding steady at about 17,300, almost exactly the same as in 2010. It’s been a successful fall for Mavs athletics. Besides football, women’s soccer reached the NCAA Tournament quarterfinals, and men’s hockey spent five weeks at No. 1 in the USCHO.com Division 1 national poll before falling this week to No. 2.

Many universities believe thriving athletic programs can attract students whether they play sports or not. Minnesota State is one. Last year Buisman and school officials agreed to a novel proposal: For every four athletes recruited in baseball, women’s soccer, men’s & women’s track and field and swimming, the university funded one full scholarship to be divided among them. That added about 150 athletes to those rosters, all contributing a fair amount of tuition to the revenue pot.

“As we face these enrollment challenges, part of the solution might be growing athletics,” Buisman said. “As long as we’re generating positive public notoriety for the programs and the university, there’s a willingness to invest the right kind of resources into making this successful at a championship level.”

Farther north, the University of Minnesota Duluth faces $5.2 million in campuswide budget cuts for 2020 that almost certainly will impact athletics. UMD, which hasn’t had a balanced budget since 2011, plans to merge its School of Fine Arts and College of Liberal Arts as part of a 3% reduction in operational spending. A slight enrollment uptick since 2010 — 10,858 now, 10,725 then — only helps so much at an institution carrying $6.8 million in debt, per the Star Tribune.

“When our campus has navigated some financial challenges, including one more recently, we (in athletics) have to be part of those solutions,” said Bulldogs Athletic Director Josh Berlo. “We’ve been really focused on shifting the paradigm to generating as much external support as we can. There was a time where the athletic department was by and large funded by the university. That has changed quite a bit.”

While difficult to quantify, the profile of UMD’s two-time defending NCAA champion men’s hockey team may have contributed to an increase in applications the last two years. Former women’s hockey coach Shannon Miller’s protracted and recently settled discrimination lawsuit against the university brought a different kind of notoriety. Yet Berlo helped raise at least $1 million each of the last six years in support of athletics.

“When the university has to make decisions on allocations and they have to pull back the financial piece, we’re part of that,” Berlo said. “That percentage comes out of the institutional support we receive, and we’ve got to be able to navigate that and figure that out. Last year we finished a little bit in the black, which is great. We try to supplement the marketing effort with the visibility of our programs.”

Division III dynamics

In Division III, the absence of athletic scholarships reduces expenses significantly. But funding athletics, and everything else, remains an issue. Enrollment at Bethel University in Arden Hills, which belongs to the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, dropped from 4,860 to 4,387 in four years, prompting layoffs and a 10% reduction in its operating budget to counter a projected $11 million budget shortfall the next three years. How that impacts athletics is uncertain; Athletic Director Bob Bjorkland did not respond to an emailed interview request.

Enrollment is also down at Hamline University in St. Paul. Despite five consecutive years of record first-year student enrollment, Hamline’s overall enrollment of 3,404 is still significantly less than its high of 5,166 in 2009. That’s partly because of the 2016 merger of the law school with William Mitchell. Hamline Athletic Director Jason Verdugo said there are no plans to cut any of Hamline’s 20 intercollegiate sports because its administration believes athletics can drive enrollment. That’s why it added women’s lacrosse in 2017.

“I’d be lying to say in years past we haven’t looked at that, and potential trends,” he said. “We added lacrosse, which has been a good add for us. You’ll start to see that as a strategy.”

Yet as budgets tighten, Verdugo expects some schools to go the other way and offer fewer sports. That’s already happening in the MIAC. St. Mary’s in Winona, the conference’s smallest school (undergraduate enrollment: 1,089), recently dropped men’s and women’s swimming and men’s and women’s golf because of small rosters. St. Olaf College in Northfield, even with a stable enrollment of about 3,000, dropped wrestling, a sport the MIAC no longer sponsors, for the same reason.

“I think institutions will be faced with the dilemma of asking themselves, what can we continue to offer? What can we offer that will continue to attract students?” said St. Olaf Athletic Director Ryan Bowles, formerly an athletics administrator at Division 1 Maryland. “Many institutions rely on athletics for enrollment purposes. It certainly helps us here at St. Olaf, but we’re not reliant on athletics to hit our enrollment numbers. But I certainly worry about it.”

Verdugo believes football, even with shrinking youth participation numbers, will survive as an incentive to attract male students. Most coed MIAC schools have more women than men; Hamline’s student body is 63% women.

Still, shrinking enrollment suggests major changes ahead for college athletics, not all of them good.

“It would not surprise me if you see more schools move toward Division III, whether NAIA or potentially some D2 schools coming down, just because it’s still an opportunity for them to offer athletics maybe at a more affordable price and deliver that experience,” Verdugo said. “And you’ll have others that will say, ‘we’ll just consolidate our resources, we’re going to be good at these four sports or five sports’ or what have you. I can see that happening more often now than ever before.”

Before looking back at art we loved, a moment to remember artists we lost over the past year. Most recently, the prose poet Louis Jenkins, who died Saturday. A man of rare insight, wry humor, and a deceptively plainspoken way of tackling big subjects, Jenkins gained fame beyond the poetry world for writing a play with Mark Rylance, “Nice Fish,” based on one of his books. We saw him most recently at Plymouth Congregational Church on Oct. 28, his 77th birthday. He read from his latest, “Where Your House Is Now.” Afterward, we shook his hand and shared some memories. He signed two books for us.

Just last week, jazz saxophonist Irv “Mr. Smooth” Williams died. On Thanksgiving morning, Marion McClinton, director, playwright, actor, founding member of Penumbra, and frequent collaborator with August Wilson. A week earlier, blues-soul singer Wee Willie Walker. Arts writer, theater lover, and friend to many John Townsend in October. Blues hero Tony Glover in May. Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Dominick Argento in February. Earlier that month, dapper jazz booster, writer, man-about-town and DJ Larry Englund. And on Dec. 31, 2018, the profoundly influential potter Warren MacKenzie. Seismic changes on our arts landscape.

Of the many arts events we attended in 2019, these rose to the top. They are listed in roughly chronological order, with no ranking implied.

“Star Wars: A New Hope” with Live Orchestra at Orchestra Hall. Sarah Hicks, reigning queen of the film-in-concert genre, led the Minnesota Orchestra in a stellar performance of John Williams’ epic score. Storm troopers hung out in the lobby before the show. Overheard on the way out: “That was cool!”

Robert Bly’s “Collected Poems” book release at Plymouth Church. Bly wasn’t able to attend (he sent a recording), but a long line of friends and admirers came to read his poems and share stories. They included Bly’s children and grandchildren, friends, poets Freya Manfred and Louis Jenkins (to name just two), Rain Taxi publisher Eric Lorberer, Loft director Britt Udesen, and more who have been touched by Bly’s Colossus-like presence on the literary scene.

Celebrating Henry: A Threadgill Festival at the Walker. The Pulitzer Prize-winning jazz composer performed with his quartet on Saturday night. That was a thrill. So was Friday night’s concert, curated by cellist Michelle Kinney, in which 24 Minnesota musicians played Threadgill pieces from the past 40+ years. A special shout to Milo Fine, who brought the Walker’s Steinway to a point of near combustion.

Unnamed solo exhibition by Eric Rieger, aka HOTTEA, at Burnet Fine Art & Advisory. Revealing a different side of the artist known for his yarn-graffiti fences and colorful yarn installations, this gallery-filling show was personal and generous, exploring losses Rieger had experienced and giving space to others’ expressions of grief. And nothing was for sale.

Cosmo Sun Connection: Celebrating the Life and Musical Legacy of Sun Ra at the Cedar. Five ensembles of local, national, and international improvisers marked the 105th anniversary of Sun Ra’s arrival on Planet Earth. Queen Drea conjured up Black Girl Magic during the band changes.

“Museum of the Moon” at the Bell Museum. Created by British installation artist Luke Jerram, a giant, glowing moon balloon nearly 23 feet in diameter hung in the Bell’s lobby for for almost three weeks. Covered with high-resolution NASA imagery, lit from within, it was magical, especially at night. You could see it from all sides, even the dark side.

Mixed Blood Theatre’s “Autonomy” at Saint Paul RiverCentre. Set in 70,000 square feet with a cast of 20 actors, a supporting cast of 40 classic cars, and three scenes running simultaneously, with the audience shuttled from scene to scene in golf carts, this was a wild ride with a solid story. The sheer chutzpah of this production made it a must for our year-end list.

“Hearts of Our People” at Mia. Groundbreaking, game-changing, respectful and powerful, this exhibition made history and raised the bar. The 115+ works spanned 1,000 years of art by Native women artists. Whenever possible, the artist was named, and the label was translated into her Native language. No more “anonymous.” The importance of that is staggering.

“La Pasión según San Marcos” at Orchestra Hall. The Minnesota Orchestra wrapped a Latin American-flavored Sommerfest with fire and passion. Its first-ever performances of Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov’s masterpiece overflowed with percussion, dancing, choirs, vocalists (including Grammy winner Luciana Souza) and several music styles. When Venezuelan singers couldn’t get visas in time, St. Paul’s Border CrosSing came to the rescue.

“Jimmy & Lorraine: A Musing” at Pillsbury House Theatre. Playwright Talvin Wilks used James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry’s own words to tell the story of their friendship, their struggles and their times. Part play, part history lesson, his “musing” is exquisitely crafted, lyrical and affecting. Jon-Michael Reese was Baldwin, Vinecia Coleman was Hansberry, and Sasha Andreev was everyone else – five characters, each one distinct.

Ashwini Ramaswamy’s “Let the Crows Come” at the Lab Theater. A fascinating evening of transfer and transformation, and a celebration of dual identities. Ramaswamy’s opening Bharatanatyam solo was interpreted in turn by contemporary dancers Alanna Morris-Van Tassel and Berit Ahlgren. Meanwhile, the music passed from a Carnatic trio to experimental cellist Brent Arnold and DJ Jace Clayton.

The Danish String Quartet at the American Swedish Institute. The Schubert Club’s featured ensemble for 2019-20, the award-winning DSQ played a program of Scandinavian folk tunes from their recent album “Last Leaf.” Their virtuosity, warmth, emotional expressiveness and lush, sensuous harmonies were teasers for the Beethoven Quartets series they’ll perform here in May.

Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Dona Nobis Pacem” at Orchestra Hall. A gorgeous program, a gigantic chorus (actually three choruses: two from South Africa and the Minnesota Chorale) and superb soloists (including glorious South African soprano Goitsemang Lehobye) came together under Osmo Vänskä’s baton for one of the best concerts we heard all year. The stage was extended to hold all the singers and musicians.

“All Is Calm” at the Ritz. Theater Latté Da brought last year’s award-winning off-Broadway production home for several holiday performances and three days of filming. Next year around this time, Peter Rothstein’s tremendously moving show – the true story of a World War I Christmas truce in the trenches – will be broadcast nationally on PBS so everyone can appreciate this masterpiece of music-theater.

The Bad Plus at the Dakota. We haven’t seen this year’s show yet. But it always comes too late in the year to make a year-end list, so it never gets mentioned. That’s just not fair. We’ve seen TBP every year for 20 years, and there are reasons we keep going back: great players, creative music, fun times. Even with a major personnel change – on Jan. 2018, pianist Orrin Evans took over from Ethan Iverson – it’s still the trio we know and love. Dec. 25-28.

We looked back at 2019. Some looked forward into 2020. But today, on the second day of the new year and the new decade, we’re ready to be in the present. Because January, traditionally Minnesota’s coldest, snowiest month, is also one of the busiest and richest in the arts. What’s happening tonight, this week, this month?

For starters, the Walker’s January calendar is jammed. Six exhibitions are on concurrently. If you can only see one between now and Jan. 12, make it “Theaster Gates: Assembly Hall,” an eclectic and provocative look at reclaiming, collecting, conserving and sharing what others have cast aside.

Gates is an artist with whom the Walker is building a relationship. His first permanent outdoor commission, “Black Vessel for a Saint,” is in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, and “Assembly Hall” is his first major U.S. exhibition. Working with curator Victoria Sung, Gates turned four rooms into four distinct but related experiences.

One features projections of glass slides formerly used to teach art and architectural history at the University of Chicago, interspersed with photographs of black Chicagoans. A second is a reading room created from furnishings and other artifacts from the Johnson Publishing Company, once publishers of Ebony and Jet. A third – and most disturbing – includes glass vitrines filled with racist and dehumanizing consumer items that were once widely sold. A fourth is a display of Gates’ own studio pottery: plates, bowls, vases, cups and pitchers. Useful everyday objects made by hand.

The rooms are glimpses into Gates’ vast collections. The University of Chicago slides number 60,000. The Johnson Publishing Archives & Collections comprise 15,000 objects; the Edward J. Williams Collection of “Negrobilia,” 4,000. Everything in the show is on loan for the first time outside Chicago, where Gates lives and works (and salvages whole buildings on the South Side). “Assembly Hall” closes on Jan. 12.

On four weekends in January, the Walker’s Out There festival, its annual dive into experimental performance alternatives, will make it worth braving the weather to experience … who knows what? Out There shows are unpredictable, push-the-envelope events. Two this year are Walker commissions, so we’ll all be seeing those for the first time. Some may enlighten and/or transform you. Others may leave you wondering what just happened. If you resolved this year to try new things, it doesn’t get much newer.

Jan. 23-25 will bring the premiere of Berlin-based choreographer Ligia Lewis’ Walker commission “Water Will (In Melody),” a dark meditation on show business, the surreal, sensuality and the end of times. And on Jan. 30-Feb. 1, Out There will close with the return of Back to Back Theatre, Australia’s leading independent theater company, and “The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes.” Back to Back was previously here in 2013 with “Ganesh Versus the Third Reich” and in 2008 with “Food Court.”

FMI and tickets ($26, $20.80 Walker members). All but “Is This a Room” are mature content/subject matter.

Tuesday, Jan. 14, kicks off the 2020 Film Independent Spirit Awards, three weeks of acclaimed indie films, free to Walker members at any level. If you’re a Walker Film Club, FilmNorth or Film Independent member, you can reserve tickets in advance. Otherwise, free tickets are available first-come, first-served (again, to Walker members) an hour before the first screening. Two films will screen each day.

The 16 films on this year’s schedule include “Honeyland,” “Booksmart,” “Apollo 11,” “A Hidden Life,” “The Last Black Man in San Francisco,” “For Sama,” “Marriage Story” and “Island of Hungry Ghosts.” FMI. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays through Jan. 29.

The picks

Tonight (Thursday, Jan. 2) at North Community High: First Thursday Films: “Love Them First: Lessons from Lucy Laney Elementary.” Directors Lindsey Seavert and Ben Garvin will be present to talk about their highly praised documentary, which follows a charismatic principal who’s determined to change a north Minneapolis elementary school and the lives of its students. Co-presented with MSP Film Society and the Minnesota Historical Society, this film was a double 2019 MSPIFF winner. 7 p.m. FMI including trailer and tickets ($5).

Friday at Crooners: Jon Weber’s “History of the Piano from Joplin to Jarrett.” Weber is a gifted pianist and former host of NPR’s “Piano Jazz” (after Marian McPartland). He has a mind like a steel trap; he knows everybody’s birthday and can play any song in any key. And he’s totally charming. On Friday, from the Dunsmore Room’s nine-foot Steinway, he’ll take you on a merry ride through a century-plus of jazz in words and music. 6 p.m. FMI and tickets ($20). Later that night, Weber will return to the Dunsmore with vocalists Connie Evingson and Andrew Walesch for songs by Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Dave Frishberg and more. You might want to stay for that, too. 7:30 p.m. FMI and tickets ($15-25).

Sunday at a movie bigaplex near you: “Doctor Who” Live Q&A and Screening. You know the 13th Doctor is a woman? Jodie Whittaker (“Broadchurch”) first appeared as the ancient Time Lord in the 2017 Christmas special. This event will include the Season 12 premiere, the new season’s second episode and a live Q&A with Whittaker, Tosin Cole and Mandip Gill. 1 p.m. FMI and tickets; enter your ZIP to find the nearest theater.

Sunday at the Southern: Katha Dance Theatre Presents “Shaamya – Of Equality.” Inspired by the poetry of Bengali “rebel poet” Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899-1976), Rita Mustaphi’s new creation draws parallels between oppressed communities then and now. Set to original music by J.D. Steele, it also includes poetry by Ifrah Mansour. This will be a work-in-progress performance of a production set to debut at Park Square Theatre in October. Patrick Scully will moderate a post-show Q&A. 2 p.m. FMI and tickets ($10 to $5). Pay-what-you-can option at the door.

Outside of New York, Minneapolis has had the longest love affair with choreographer and dancer Merce Cunningham (1919-2009). It began in 1948, five years before the founding of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, when Cunningham wrote to the Walker about a possible tour stop in Minneapolis. The Walker first presented him in 1963 and again the following year.

In 1969, Cunningham had his first artist residency here; he would return in that role eight more times. In 1994, the Walker produced the final performance of Cunningham’s “Ocean” in a granite quarry in central Minnesota. In 2013, the Walker acquired the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s archive of sets and costumes (some 4,300 items); in 2017, “Merce Cunningham: Common Time,” the largest survey of his work yet mounted, opened in multiple galleries, accompanied by a massive catalog.

Given our history with the iconic artist, it’s no surprise that a producer of the new film “Cunningham,” which opens tonight (Friday, Jan. 3) at the Uptown Theatre, is based in Minneapolis. Kelly Gilpatrick will be at the Uptown tonight for a Q&A following the 7:30 p.m. screening.

Dance is such an important part of the arts in the Twin Cities, of our cultural fabric, there should be a line out the door and down Lagoon tonight to see this film. And for days after. Everyone who makes dance or watches dance should go. Anyone who is mildly curious about dance should see it, because it’s so beautiful, so joyous, enlightening and approachable. The language of dance can be daunting. “Cunningham” shows, not tells, why dance matters. And why Merce Cunningham was such a big deal.

Russian director Alla Kovgan’s film is more narrative than documentary. There are no talking heads in empty rooms. The story of Cunningham’s approach to art, rise to prominence, company, tours, challenges and successes is told in filmed excerpts from performances and rehearsals, restaged excerpts, and visual collages of ephemera: letters, programs, photographs and sentences that write themselves on the screen. We see short and long, archival and contemporary segments of 25 dances Cunningham created from 1942-72. In frame-within-a-frame segments, Cunningham dances alongside contemporary performances of his work. He was a brilliant dancer.

Throughout, his philosophy is revealed in his own voice and words. Asked to describe himself, he responds, “I’m a dancer. That is sufficient for me.” And “Dancing does not refer. It is what it is.” And “We don’t interpret something. We do something. Interpretation is left up to the audience.” And “Any movement is possible for dancing, ranging all the way from nothing to the most extended kind of movement.”

The new sequences in “Cunningham,” including the restagings of “Summerspace” (with Rauschenberg’s spotted costumes and pointillistic backdrops), “Rainforest” (with Warhol’s helium-filled Mylar balloons) and the surprisingly violent “Winterbranch,” were filmed in 3D. The Uptown is showing the 2D version. Don’t let that stop you from seeing this film. And if it returns in 3D, see it again.

FMI including trailer, times and tickets.

The picks

Opens tonight (Friday, Jan. 3) at the Gremlin Theatre: “Becky Shaw.” Gina Gionfriddo’s “ferociously funny” comedy opened off Broadway in January 2009, amid the doom and gloom of theater closings. It was a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play turns on what happens when a newlywed couple arranges a meeting between two friends, snarky Max and sexy Becky. Ellen Fenster directs a cast that includes Kevin Fanshaw, Jodi Kellogg, Chelsie Newhard, Logan Verdoorn and Olivia Wilusz. 7:30 p.m. FMI and tickets ($28; under 30, pay half your age). Closes Jan. 26.

Sunday (Jan. 5) in MacPhail’s Antonello Hall: The Bakken Trio: Triptych featuring Hanna HyunJung Kim. Joined by pianist Kim, a newcomer to Minnesota, the Bakken – Stephanie Arado, violin; Hyobi Sim, viola; Pitnarry Shin, cello – will perform a lovely late-afternoon program of Schumann’s Piano Quartet in E-Flat Major, written for Clara Schumann; Austro-Hungarian composer Hans Gál’s Divertimento for Violin and Cello; and two works by contemporary Russian polymath Lera Auerbach, Piano Trio No. 2 and “Triptych: This Mirror Has Two Faces.” 4 p.m. FMI and tickets ($25 adults). Children and students free; call 612-54-1967 for availability.

Tuesday at St. Anthony Park United Church of Christ: “Something New, Something Borrowed: An Evening of Chamber Music.” A specialist in new music, composer, violinist and pianist Brian Krinke grew up in Minnesota, earned degrees at Juilliard and the Curtis Institute, and teaches in Colorado. His many performances in the U.S. and South America have included appearances with the SPCO and the Plymouth Music Series. He’ll be here to play his own compositions, including a world premiere, with Minnesota Orchestra oboist Kathy Greenbank and cellist Laura Sewell. The concert will also include solo and chamber works by Bach, Ravel and more. 7:30 p.m. Free admission; suggested donation $15 adults, $5 seniors and students.

Almanac quietly celebrated its 35th anniversary last month.

The Friday night public affairs show on Twin Cities Public Television debuted on Dec. 7, 1984, a date that will live in infamy, according to Almanac producer Brendan Henehan, who has been with the show since the beginning.

The Reagan era was in full bloom, and there was certainly much political and cultural upheaval, including Walter Mondale’s presidential flop; the Bhopal disaster in India; Prince’s three Grammys; and the debut of Miami Vice. Oh, also: It was George Orwell’s fictional year of the Thought Police.

But none of that led to Almanac, according to those who were there. Instead, public television executives at KTCA, then usually referred to as “Channel 2” — now TPT or Twin Cities PBS  — say they fought for a chance to build a new type of public affairs show, with a format that would inform and entertain. And they wanted an hour each week to do it. 

That format hasn’t changed much over 35 years, and there’s been an astonishing continuity of staff and hosts over its tenure. Besides Henehan’s continuous presence, Eric Eskola has co-hosted for 33 years, while the “new” co-host, Cathy Wurzer, just completed her 25th year on the show.

Here, a look at the founding of the show and its evolution, in the edited words of those who were (and are still) there.

Bill Hanley, former TPT executive vice-president: I was in charge of projects at the time, and Channel 2 was kind of a stodgy place. Wonderful in many ways, but in ’84, Public Television had a stodgy image: white shirts and narrow ties. 

Jim Russell, then KTCA news director, had previously been a UPI correspondent in Vietnam, an NPR correspondent and executive producer of “All Things Considered,” and would later go on to start public radio’s “Marketplace.”: I was sort of the Lou Grant of KTCA. I had no prior television experience but I did know journalism. We didn’t do news, per se, at the time, but did have two public affairs shows on Friday nights. And they were both dry as dust. We got a new boss, who said those shows were boring and obligatory. Hanley and I agreed with him on both counts.

Hanley: Those two words — boring and obligatory — dumbfounded some, but I was ecstatic. This gave us tremendous running room to do almost anything that wasn’t boring and obligatory.  

Brendan Henehan, Almanac producer: We’d been doing the half-hour, traditional Washington Week in Review type of show, with journalists sitting in, so it was time to find something more lively.

Hanley: We had a limited amount of money, enough to start a small documentary unit, or try to fix the Friday night [public affairs shows] problem. WCCO was already doing documentaries and I thought: There’s no way we can compete with those guys. So I decided we’d go after Friday nights. But there was only enough money for a half hour. I spent the summer of ’84 in my backyard, with a legal pad, thinking.

Russell: Bill came back with some ideas that were deep, diverse and diverting. 

Hanley: I told him we could do the show he wanted, but it had to be an hour and at 7 o’clock. There was no way we would do this in a half-hour and no way we would do this much work and not be in prime time.

Russell: We had battles over that. He could be a real pain in the ass but he was a smart kid, and eager. The show would never have evolved if not for his bravado. He always refused to let any of his bosses do anything to hurt Almanac.

Hanley: In the end I ended up winning on both points. [Without the hour in prime time] we couldn’t have the diversity and depth that would give viewers a chance to kick back and learn about Minnesota that week.

Hanley: Public affairs and politics were to be at the core, but we also wanted a monologue, something funny at top of program, to make it easy for viewers to sit down and watch. And I’d heard something on CBC radio that had a quiz element, so we wanted that, and also a commitment to history and music.

Hanley: On my legal pad that summer, I wrote the name Joe Summers. He was a sitting Ramsey County judge. I’d interviewed him years before and remembered that he was colorful and had great quotes. I knew I wanted to do something with this guy who is so interesting and knows the history of Minnesota and is so well-versed in the news.

Russell: A motorcycle-riding judge with an off-beat sense of humor. I liked him from the beginning.

Hanley: He didn’t agree at first. He kept demurring; something about the Board of Judicial Conduct. He was worried that a show like this might cause him to say things that might get him into trouble. At one point, Brendan said: “He’s not going to do it.” I said: “Let’s bring him in for auditions,” saying he’d be helping us find another host. I was betting on the fact that his ego would engage once he was in front of the camera and it would be easier to negotiate with him.

Jan Ingrid Smaby, former host: They’d wanted Joe from the beginning, and then Brendan came up with my name. I was with the [Hennepin County] Welfare Department at the time; I’d made news from time to time and been on television.

Hanley: We had a short list of other co-host possibilities; Brendan sat with them for interviews in front of my home video camera. We felt strongly that we did not want a journalist. Joe [Summers] sure wasn’t. Jan did quite well on camera so we brought her back to audition with Joe. [TPT executive] Gerry Richman ran up afterwards and said: “If it was up to me, I’d say hire her.”

Henehan: It was like TV 101. A green producer, green talent; we were all learning together and not smart enough to know what we were getting into. A week before we aired, we wanted to see if Joe could read a teleprompter. He couldn’t. But Jan could.

Smaby:  Joe and I had known each other professionally. We were on the sentencing guidelines commission and our paths had crossed a number of times. He was so brilliant and funny. They wanted him to do the opening monologue for the show, and were going to pay him more than me, because of that. But Joe said no. Pay her the same as me or it’s no go. 

Hanley: For the show’s title. I wanted an allusion to a print vehicle, and was fixated on the word “journal.” And I wanted Minnesota in it: Minnesota Journal. That wasn’t quite it, though, and I developed writer’s block, or titler’s block. Finally, I got a call from Brendan who said he had the title. He said it with such a level of certainty: “Almanac.” Minnesota Almanac? No. Just Almanac.

Russell: The first shows? They felt pretty good. We were tapping a very young and ambitious staff and even though we were in a studio, there was lots of camera movement. We had a good set and good rapport between hosts. People liked them; both were quirky. 

Henehan: We ran the first three pilots on Friday nights on Channel 17 [the less-watched sister channel to 2] but it also aired Sunday morning on Channel 2. In January, we switched over to Friday nights on 2.

Smaby: I was so jittery that first show. They told me, just relax; we’ll take care of you. And they did. I was always uncomfortable that we got so much attention [as hosts.] There should be more  recognition of all the people behind us.

Henehan: After the first show, Jan asked how many people were watching, I said maybe 10,000-15,000. She thought it was going to be more like 100, and said: “I’m glad you didn’t tell me.”

Russell: I had wondered whether authentic news makers would come on the show — with this informal setting and longer than usual interviews. Would they let their hair down, play along with the conversational approach where anything can come up? Joking and telling stories? But there was a hunger among the news-making community. They wanted to give more than sound-bite clips to TV news. And it turned out, if it was important, thoughtful and in-depth, the only place to go was our show.

Smaby: As we went along, Joe’s wife, Carol, realized that Joe, coming directly home from the show on Friday nights, so high strung, was not a good idea. So every Friday night after the show we went to a pizzeria in Highland Park to decompress with the crew. We formed a real sense of family.

Hanley: Joe always told us that he’d probably die at age 48, because that’s when his father died. Sure enough, when he was 47, after doing the show more than a year, he had a heart attack. Just when we thought he might be ready to come back on the show, he died suddenly.

Smaby: Everyone on the show was just devastated. To me, Joe was the show. I was the sidekick. We had such a good friendship. We sang together to quell our nerves and shared private jokes about people in politics and government. 

Hanley: The whole show had been based on Joe. He was the primary host, always did the monologue. He was the known commodity. We had a lot of input. Some said the show has to end. [General Manager] Dick Moore said the show was succeeding on his own, and we shouldn’t let this slow us down. He was such a beloved figure, so it was tough, so we did what we thought Joe would want and we had a show that week. The last 15 minutes were about Joe.

Eric Eskola, Almanac co-host since 1986 and retired WCCO radio political reporter: I’d watched the show occasionally in its early years, did some sports commentary on it in 1984, and covering the Capitol, anytime a legislative item was on, I paid attention. But I can’t say I was a devoted viewer.

Smaby: Eric became indispensable. We had immediate chemistry, just like I had with Joe.

Eskola: It was impossible to replace Joe; he was a fixture in the community. But the show must go on. I’d done TV in Duluth in the ’70s, so I could read the teleprompter. Daunting? Sure. This was before there were 300 channels and the internet, so there were not as many places to get the news.

Hanley: In 1994, I got a call from Jan. She was running for Lt. Governor [with gubernatorial candidate Mike Freeman.] I told her: “You can’t do the show.” She said: “Yeah, I know.”

Smaby: It was just shy of 10 years on the show that I left. Not because I didn’t love it, but I knew I wanted to be more politically active and didn’t want to hurt the reputation of Almanac.

Cathy Wurzer, Almanac co-host and MPR morning news anchor: I was in college when Almanac began, majoring in print journalism, so it wasn’t on my radar. I first learned about it in 1985-86 when I was covering the Legislature for KSTP radio. I’d met Eric at the Capitol, so I’d hang out Friday nights after the show with him and the gang. I was a groupie. When Jan left, they were auditioning guest hosts and I asked Eric if I could try hosting one night with him. It was a bucket list thing, and I figured it would be one and done.

[Wurzer and Eskola, once married, announced their divorce in 2014.]

Henehan: The boilerplate we started with has really held up. From the first show, we’ve had  half a dozen topics, with discussions, sometimes with both hosts, sometimes one. We still do the monologues. A history question at the end of the show, where people call in with the answers, has been a fixture. I write the questions and have never knowingly repeated one. Some weeks people don’t get the answer, so it runs again.

Hanley: In the VCR age, we ran data bursts, quick images of documents or exhibits at an art museum, which viewers could freeze frame and look at. We added live music at one point, and had to learn how to stage it.

Hanley: We’d try to keep diverting even while doing serious public affairs stuff. Once we were celebrating literacy, and had viewers read a favorite poem from their car. 

Wurzer: The formula does work — newsy things at the top, then to the couch for sort of newsy; middle of the show with music or history and the end is usually a political panel. We don’t get bored and hope the viewers aren’t bored.

Russell: Stations around the country noticed the show and it’s been copied and admired nationwide. We showed that public affairs didn’t have to be boring. And the longevity is astonishing. They’ve got the secret sauce figured out, because in this business, nothing lasts that long. 

Henehan: Nielsen numbers are proprietary and usually not shared. So, forgive me for not doing that. But I’m comfortable saying that Almanac is routinely the most-watched show on TPT Friday nights. It’s also not unusual on a Friday night for us to have more viewers than offerings from 7-8 on at least one major network. Some weeks we beat two networks. Other weeks, of course, we’re left in the dust. We crunched some numbers and come to the conclusion that people have watched Almanac over 90 million times during its run. 

Wurzer: The most tension-filled, and ultimately, sad segment was with [Sen. Paul] Wellstone and [Sen. Norm] Coleman [in 2002.] It was quite a debate and both were amped up. Guests usually stay around and shake hands afterwards, but Wellstone was not happy and he left. It was very soon after that he died in a plane crash.

Hanley: Martin Sabo resigned suddenly [from Congress in 2006] and a dozen candidates lined up to succeed him and they all wanted to be on the show. What could we do with that? Brendan and I lined the black floor with white tape to separate them, and put Mary Lahammer up in a crane. It was a gimmick, but surprisingly useful.

Wurzer: Our last interview with Rudy Perpich was memorable. Both Eric and I knew him and had covered him at the Capitol. His wife, Lola, came to the studio with him for the show. We had a great conversation, and he actually said, on the air: “I love you guys.” Then he thanked us profusely. It seemed odd. At the time, no one knew he was sick, but he died shortly after this [of colon cancer in September, 1995].

Eskola: I love interviewing [children’s author] Kate DiCamillo and loved talking with [the late historian] Hy Berman. We had Hy on many, many times and he was always great. I remember at his 85th or 90th birthday party, Hy cornered me and said: “I haven’t been on Almanac in more than a year.”

Wurzer: I loved the panel of defense attorneys we used to have, people like Ron Meshbesher and Bill Kennedy. They were always lively. And our political scientists at the end of the show; they’re not as partisan [as politicos on earlier in the show] and give a neutral look at what’s happened.

Henehan: The big Hormel strike [in 1985] came in our very early years and was an important story for us. We had good access and got union and management to sit down together in our studio. We had a central role in the reporting and made us a venue to see some important conversations covered.

Henehan: There’s no big shift coming. We’re eager to incorporate Greater Minnesota coverage over the long term. The coming election year will offer fun challenges. What can we do differently to get our arms around the hyper-partisan world we live in. Almanac’s goal is to have respectful conversations but that can be challenging these days.

Eskola: It’s going to be a very active year and I’m very much looking forward to it. I always say my favorite guest is the next one. The main thing we have is credibility, and we have a devoted audience. We’re still a destination for folks who want to hear from the decision makers.

For our first play of the new year, we wanted something smart and unpredictable, preferably with a wicked edge. No residual holiday sweetness, please. We found it in Gina Gionfriddo’s “Becky Shaw,” which opened at the Gremlin on Jan. 3.

The Becky Shaw character doesn’t even appear until the first act is nearly over. (The play has two acts, separated by an intermission.) She arrives as a blind date for Max, set up by newlyweds Suzanna and Andrew. By the time we meet Becky, we have learned quite a lot about Max, Suzanna and Andrew, and also about Susan, mother to Suzanna. (Note: Even if Gionfriddo had a really good reason for using similar names for two of her five characters, it wasn’t worth the confusion this causes at first.)

We know that Suzanna and Max aren’t related but were raised by Susan as brother and sister. That their relationship is more complicated. That Suzanna’s father died recently, leaving the family in financial straits. That Max is a skilled and wealthy financial manager who can help them. That Suzanna is a warm, loving person who met her new husband, Andrew, on a ski trip. That Max can be an acerbic, self-centered jerk. That Andrew is the opposite of Max. That Susan has MS, and a new boyfriend, which infuriates Suzanna, who’s still mourning her father.

In sum, Act One does what first acts do: It introduces the characters and their relationships so the real story can be told in Act Two. We almost always wish first acts could be shorter, and this was no exception. “Becky Shaw” is a play of much conversation and little silence. And there’s laughter, once the audience figures out that it’s OK to laugh at Max’s insensitivity and lack of compassion or empathy. The things he says are so outrageous you simply have to laugh.

We learn some things about Becky in the final moments of Act One. That she overdressed for the evening. That she wants to make a good impression. That she’s quick and bright, but at a low point in her life. She’s also a careful listener and astute observer. Nothing gets past her.

As Max, Logan Verdoorn has all the best, nastiest lines. Kevin Fanshaw’s Andrew is so good, so sensitive and sincere that you kind of want to slap him. Olivia Wilusz’s Suzanna is genuine and appealing – someone you’d want for a friend. Jodi Kellogg’s Susan is imperious in her illness and determination to live how she pleases. Becky, artfully portrayed by Chelsie Newhard, is not as sweet as she seems. Every character is more layered and needy than these summary statements imply.

The play gains momentum in Act Two. Act One has two scenes; Act Two has seven as the action moves from a coffee shop to Max’s hotel room, Becky’s apartment and other locations. Becky is the fulcrum around which the play now turns. (Here it helps to know that Becky Shaw bears similarities to William Makepeace Thackeray’s scheming, social-climbing heroine Becky Sharp, and that Gionfriddo was reading “Vanity Fair” while she was writing “Becky Shaw.”)

Ellen Fenster is the director, Carl Schoenborn designed the sets and lighting, Emmet Kowler the projections that help us mentally move from place to place. This is a relatively rare Gremlin play in which founder and Artistic Director Peter Christian Hanson isn’t part of the cast. He’s the producer.

FMI and tickets ($28/25; under 30, pay half your age). Closes Jan. 26.

The picks

Opens today (Tuesday, Jan. 7) at the Minnesota African American Heritage Museum and Gallery (MAAHMG): “8 Seasons of Art: Exhibition + Documentary.” Centered on the documentary “8 Seasons of Art: A Black Arts Story” by St. Paul filmmaker Phillip McGraw, curated by McGraw, this new exhibition spotlights Twin Cities painters, musicians and poets who use their art to address issues of social and economic injustice, racism and violence. See the film and view works by Ta-Coumba Aikin, Kenneth Caldwell and Broderick Poole, and poetry by writer Joe Davis. FMI. Free admission. Free parking in the ramp. Closes May 31.

Wednesday at Milkweed Books: Katie Shireen Assef. A literary translator who lives between Los Angeles and Arles, France, Assef will read from her translation of Valérie Mréjen’s “Black Forest.” Mréjen is a visual artist, filmmaker and writer based in Paris. Milkweed Books is on the first floor of Open Book. 7 p.m. Free.

Friday at Orchestra Hall: MusicMakers with Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra. Formerly called Future Classics, this annual event features new works by the gifted young composers of this year’s Composer Institute. By Friday, all seven – four men and three women – will have spent a week working with Institute director and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts, Vänskä and orchestra musicians, learning about the industry and preparing their music for a public concert conducted by Vänskä and broadcast live over Minnesota Public Radio. As one young composer said, “It’s a whole bunch of exciting nervousness all wrapped into one.” MPR’s Fred Child will host a program that includes on-stage interviews with the composers. 8 p.m. FMI and tickets ($20-63; 18 and under free).