One word: Wow. As part of its 2020-21 season, the Guthrie will produce the entire Henriad. For the first time since 1990. Directed by Joseph Haj, the Guthrie’s artistic director, who was a member of the Guthrie’s acting company and performed in the original productions.

And what, you might reasonably ask, is the Henriad? This is a word Shakespearean scholars use for a particular cycle of Shakespeare’s history plays: “Richard II,” “Henry IV” Parts I and II, and “Henry V.”

A sweeping saga and a massive undertaking, the Henriad is rarely performed because it’s demanding, exhausting, and big: “nine hours of Shakespeare,” as the New Yorker described a 2014 production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. (It can run longer.) “The sheer number of lines is daunting,” the New Yorker went on to say, “and the actor playing Prince Hal must turn himself from a rakish layabout enthralled by his lowlife friend Falstaff into Henry V, who has inherited the heavy crown his father has wrenched from the head of Richard II.”

The Guthrie’s 1990 production, directed by Garland Wright and Charles Newell, was hailed as “an extraordinary achievement in almost every way. It bowls you over with its sheer scope and ambition. … With this cycle, the Guthrie company takes a huge step forward.”

The new production will run in repertory on the Wurtele Thrust Stage in spring 2021. It will be produced with one company of actors. You’ll be able to see it over the course of the run (chronological order is recommended) or, depending on your stamina, in a single weekend.

The Henriad deals with leadership, politics, power and the cost of war, so this undertaking “offers meaningful opportunities for a national symposium among industry professionals, Shakespeare scholars and our local community,” according to the Guthrie’s press release. It seems we can expect events, discussions and conversations related to the plays and their topics.

In the 1990 production, Haj played Bagot, one of King Richard’s friends. The cast also included Stephen Yoakam as Bolingbroke/Henry IV, Stephen D’Ambrose as Green, Sally Wingert as Queen Isabel, Nathaniel Fuller as Lord Marshal and Richard Ooms as York.

The Guthrie’s complete season will be announced in March.

Winter Jazz Festival will pop up in Uptown

The summer Twin Cities Jazz Festival, which turns 22 this year, was born as a one-off, one-day event on Peavey Plaza in 1999. In 2004, it expanded to Mears Park in St. Paul and had a foot in each city through 2008. That was the year the festival almost died. It was the height of the Great Recession, and funding had dried up. Then St. Paul rolled out the welcome mat. Jazz Fest has been held in Mears Park and its surroundings ever since.

But don’t we need hot music even more when it’s cold? Founder Steve Heckler has tried for years to establish a smaller-scale indoor jazz fest during the winter months. Winter Jazz Fest was a pop-up before pop-ups were a thing. It was held at the old Dakota in Bandana Square, at MacPhail when it was brand-new, at the Millennium Hotel, the Doubletree in St. Louis Park, a heated tent in Landmark Plaza in downtown St. Paul (bad idea) and the Holiday Inn in Minneapolis. It spent a few years at the Saint Paul Hotel, then moved to Crooners in Fridley for 2018 and 2019.

On Sunday, March 29, the 2020 Winter Jazz Festival will take place in Uptown for the first time. Specifically, at the newly renovated Suburban World Theater, now the Granada Theater. Delfeayo Marsalis, the trombone-playing member of the NEA Jazz Masters family, will headline, Cuban pianist Jorge Pacheco will make his Twin Cities debut, and Yolande Bruce, a member of Moore by Four, will sing. The day will open with a youth performance. More young jazz musicians will play nearby on the Williams Uptown Stage.

Here’s the schedule (subject to change): Youth performance, 1:45-2:15 p.m. Yolande Bruce, 2:45-3:45. Jorge Pacheco, 4:15-5:15. Delfeayo Marsalis. 6:45-7:30.

The picks

Tonight (Thursday, Jan. 30) at Juxtaposition Arts: Opening reception for “Jamie Robertson: Making Reference.” Houston-based photographer Robertson uses self-portraiture to explore histories of colonial photography in the Americas and confront perceptions of her own identity. Ethnographic photographs and paintings from the Caribbean, South America and North America serve as reference points as she photographs herself. When we first learned of this show, we thought of Cindy Sherman, but Robertson’s work and Sherman’s are very different. See for yourself. 6-8 p.m. FMI. Free. RSVP on Facebook. On view through March 7.

Tonight in the Walker Cinema: Free screening of Victor Kossakovsky’s “Aquarela.” Giant waves, rising sea levels, violent storms, crumbling glaciers. With no voiceover, this is a cinematic journey through water in all its might and many forms. Here’s the trailer. Co-presented with the Great Northern, paired with “The Emergency Brake,” created by high school students to an excerpt of a speech by climate activist Greta Thunberg. 7 p.m. Free. Part of Winter at the Walker, with drinks, crafts, and s’mores in the lobby.

Friday night and Saturday morning at the Cedar: 7th Annual Drone Not Drones. The annual all-night/all-day drone benefiting Doctors Without Borders draws fascinating musicians and listeners who bring pillows and blankets and settle in. The music is one seamless, uninterrupted 28-hour drone; as one artist or group finishes, the next is setting up, and the musical baton is smoothly passed. Performers include more than 50 local and national bands, drone choirs, Indonesian gamelan groups, drone robots, throat singers and more. This year’s big names include Clarice Jensen, artistic director of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME).  KFAI Fresh Air Community Radio will stream the concert live on air; a video livestream will also be available. Here’s this year’s trailer. 7 p.m. Friday-11 p.m. Saturday. FMI and tickets ($20 advance, $30 day of show).

Friday through Sunday: The SPCO: Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” with Richard Egarr. With Ruggero Allifranchini on violin, and Artistic Partner Richard Egarr directing from the harpsichord, this promises to be a delightful concert, no matter where you see it. The program also includes some lesser-known Baroque works; Egarr is a Baroque expert. 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. Friday at Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, 9 p.m. Saturday at Saint Paul’s United Church of Christ, and 3 p.m. Sunday at Saint Andrew’s Lutheran Church in Mahtomedi. FMI and tickets ($11-26 adults, kids and students free).

It’s official: For much of Minnesota, this has been the grayest, gloomiest January on record. What we need is a smiling sun, bright colors and reggae music. From now through March 1, the Children’s Theatre Company has all three.

CTC is presenting the Minnesota premiere of “Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds.” Based on a story by Marley’s daughter Cedella, adapted for the stage by Michael J. Bobbitt, with arrangements and additional music and lyrics by John L. Cornelius II, it had a month-long, sold-out Off-Broadway run in 2014.

At CTC, the show is directed by Shá Cage, with music direction by Sanford Moore, who worked with the actors, and deVon Russell Gray, who leads the live orchestra and plays keyboard. The choreography is by Alanna Morris-Van Tassel, the costumes by Trevor Bowen. The cast of five, most playing multiple roles, includes Nathan Barlow, Kory LaQuess Pullam and Lynnea Monique Doublette, all veterans of the CTC stage.

The story is simple, but kids will get it: During Hurricane Martha, a young Jamaican boy named Ziggy (Ellis M. Dossavi Allpoeh) was separated from his mother, Cedella (Doublette), for a whole day. He’s been afraid ever since – afraid to leave the house, afraid to play outside, afraid to go to the beach, afraid of a spirit bird called Duppy (Pullam) whose power comes from stealing human hair. Ziggy has a head full of dreads, just the sort of young, beautiful hair Duppy craves.

The boy spends all of his time indoors, fearfully watching television, waiting for news of another hurricane heading toward Jamaica. When Cedella drives him out of the house, he sneaks back in. The more time he spends inside, the more detached he becomes from the natural world. He thinks bugs are disgusting and mongooses are dirty.

Ziggy’s best friend is Doctor Bird (Barlow), a lucky bird Ziggy bravely saved during Hurricane Martha. Doctor Bird urges him to come outside, live his life, dance and experience the spirit of Jamaica. So does his friend Nansi (KateMarie Andrews), a trickster girl with a crush on Ziggy. The boy has a father, Big Daddy, but he’s out fishing and we don’t see him.

Things start to change when Ziggy finally agrees to go with Nansi to the ocean port, where Cedella sells jerk chicken to tourists. Duppy follows, desperate for Ziggy’s hair. Soon Ziggy and Nansi are lost, then separated. Now Ziggy is really scared. But Doctor Bird has been watching him from above, and he flies down to give Ziggy a lesson on Jamaica’s history. (To be honest, things get a little slow here, and confusing.) Reuniting with Nansi, Ziggy comes face-to-face with Duppy and rediscovers his courage.

Woven through the story are Marley’s infectious songs, arranged in medleys, spreading that feel-good vibe. The songs aren’t always a match to the action, but it doesn’t really matter. “One Love” and “Jamming,” “So Much Trouble in the World,” “Lively Up Yourself,” “Is This Love?,”  “Riding High,” “Running Away” and “Three Little Birds” all find their way into the score – even “I Shot the Sheriff,” but without the lyrics.

Reggae has been called an instant dose of vitamin D. A recent study – well, not quite a study, more a survey done for a company in the UK with music venues – found that children who listen to reggae grow up to be more open-minded. And we could all use some reassurance that “every little thing gonna be all right.”

“Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds” is for ages 5 and up. It’s about an hour long, with no intermission. FMI and tickets (start at $15).

The picks

Tonight (Friday, Jan. 31) at Macalester’s Law Warschaw Gallery: Opening reception for “Rituals of Regard and Recollection.” Guided by words from bell hook’s “belonging: a culture of place,” Public Functionary’s Tricia Heuring has curated an exhibition of contemporary works on paper by 20 international artists, drawn from the collection of JoAnn Gonzalez Hickey. It’s a show about memory, how we remember or want to be remembered, how we occupy space in history. 6-9 p.m., curator remarks at 7 p.m. Free. On view through March 8.

Sunday at Hamline’s Sundin Music Hall: The Musical Offering: “Act II: On a Winter’s Day.” If you go to a classical concert this year, chances are high you’ll hear music by Beethoven, since 2020 is his 250th birthday year. For their first concert of the new year (and the second of their current season), the Musical Offering will evoke the sounds of a rainforest with Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras No. 6 for Flute and Bassoon, follow with English composer Arthur Bliss’ “Quintet for Oboe and String Quartet” and end with Beethoven’s ninth string quartet. TMO is co-artistic directed by Norbert Nielubowski and Susan Billmeyer; most of the ensemble are Minnesota Orchestra musicians. 3 p.m. FMI and tickets ($30/$10 students).

Sunday at Macalester’s Mairs Concert Hall: Chopin Society: Joyce Yang. Winner of the Silver Medal and other top prizes at the 2005 Van Cliburn Competition, the Korean-born pianist will make her second appearance with the Chopin Society, playing music by Bach, Carl Vine, Chopin and Liszt. 3 p.m. FMI and tickets ($35/30/15).

Stephen Edward “Ed” Hall was a businessman and civil rights activist in St. Paul. He was born on January 26, 1878, in Batavia, Illinois, one of five children of John and Julia Hall. He had two brothers and two sisters and lived in Springfield, Illinois, before moving to St. Paul in 1900. He then began working for black barber W. V. Howard at the corner of Fourth and Jackson streets in St. Paul.

In 1906, Hall married his wife, Harriet “Hattie” Garrison. That same year, he and his brother Orrington (Orrie) opened a barbershop in St. Paul on Fifth and Wabasha Streets in downtown. This first shop was inside the Pittsburgh Building (later renamed the St. Paul Building). In 1947, Hall moved his shop to a building at the southwest corner of Selby and Victoria Avenues, in the historically black Rondo neighborhood.

Some of the first services for new African Americans in the Twin Cities seeking employment were located at barbershops and beauty parlors, which were places of support within the African American community. Both Ed and Orrie Hall catered to white customers at their barbershop, many of them prominent politicians and businessmen. The Hall brothers used the connections they fostered to circulate job openings to blacks in the community. Hall helped new black transplants, many of whom received introduction cards upon arrival at Union Depot.

By 1915, the weekly newspaper The Helper, with assistance from St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church, began printing an advertisement for Hall’s services. The Helper received its notices from “tipsters,” who informed the paper of new job openings. Even after Hall helped establish the Urban League, he was listed as the manager of the men’s department of employment services in The Helper. This shows that blacks continued to use Hall as a source of referral after the establishment of formal employment services.

The Hall brothers saw the need for increased employment services, so Ed Hall, along with Father S. J. Gilligan and Dr. J. W. Crump, founded the St. Paul Urban League. They did so to the chagrin of many white business associations, which feared that such a useful asset to the community would encourage more African Americans to migrate to the state.

Founded in 1923, the St. Paul Urban League was the result of Hall’s, Gilligan’s, and Crump’s recognition of a need for a formal employment and social services for African American St. Paulites. The three founders went to the community chest for financial assistance, and they contacted the National Urban League to meet regulations for funding. Hall spearheaded an Urban League community recreation project, leading to the establishment of the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center, where he was a lifelong member.

Besides being a successful advocate for African American rights and a respected businessman, Hall was active in politics, specifically within the state and national Republican Party. He was appointed to the Mayor’s Advisory Board in 1922, to the General Unemployment Council in 1931; the Republican State Central Committee appointed him the Director for the Organization of Black Voters in Ramsey County. At the national level, Hall was a Republican presidential elector for four elections between 1932 and 1948. In the 1930s, he went to Washington, DC, and lobbied for the end of military segregation based on race.

Hall’s personal and professional affiliations were numerous. He was executive secretary of the Master Barber’s Association, a member of the National Negro Business League, and a president emeritus and honorary board member of the Urban League of St. Paul until his death on October 26, 1975. He was a member of Pilgrim Baptist Church in St. Paul.

In 1991, Hall’s house, located at 996 Inglehart Avenue, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It was a modest, two story, vernacular-style house in the heart of the Summit-University (Rondo) neighborhood in St. Paul. In 2011, after the Minnesota Historic Preservation Office and the St. Paul Heritage Preservation Commission failed to report its historic significance, the house was demolished. Its demise was the impetus of the 2016 St. Paul African American Historic and Cultural Context, an extensive study and inventory of the city’s African American historic resources and sites.

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

Yes, “Hamilton” will return, as promised – this time for seven weeks.

But it’s not the only reason to get excited about the 2020-21 “Broadway on Hennepin” season, announced Monday afternoon by Hennepin Theatre Trust.

A few favorites will circle back, but most of the season will be touring productions new to Minnesota. All told, the 10 shows will bring 19 weeks of Broadway to the Orpheum’s stage. Together they have won 29 Tony awards, including three for Best Musical.

Let’s get right to it, in chronological order.

“Hamilton” (Oct. 6-Nov. 22, 2020). To ensure your “Hamilton” tickets, you’ll need to commit to the eight-show season package. For comparison, a pair of third-row seats to “Hamilton” at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York City, its Broadway home since Aug. 6, 2015, will set you back $2,261.05. (That was Monday’s surge pricing. It’s probably higher now.) Winner of 11 Tonys.

“To Kill a Mockingbird” (Dec. 15-20). Not a musical. Just “the most successful American play in Broadway history,” per “60 Minutes.” Oscar winner Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork is another Tony winner.

“Oklahoma!” (Jan. 19-24, 2021). Not your grandparents’ (or great-grandparents’) “Oklahoma.” Stripped down and darker, Daniel Fish’s production tells a story of a community circling its wagons against an outsider. A Best Revival of a Musical Tony winner.

“Jersey Boys” (March 16-21). The music- and dance-filled story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. In 2018, the last time it was here, “Jersey Boys” was the show of the year.

Four Tony awards.

“The Prom” (May 18-23). A new musical comedy about big Broadway stars, a small town and love. Critics call it “big hearted,” “full of happiness” and “comic gold.”

“Cats” (June 8-13). “Cats” the musical, not, emphatically, “Cats” the movie. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s much-loved, long-running hit is back in a new production, including new choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler (“Hamilton) and direction by Trevor Nunn (“Les Misérables”).

“Hadestown” (June 22-27). Orpheus and Eurydice meet King Hades and Persephone in the musical that won eight 2019 Tonys (including Best Musical) and the 2020 Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album. Created by singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell and director Rachel Chavkin (“Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812”).

“Tootsie” (July 27-Aug. 1). A “hilarious, thoroughly modern Tootsie” and New York Times Critics’ Pick, based on the Oscar-nominated film, with a Tony-winning book by Robert Horn and a clever score by Tony winner David Yazbek (“The Band’s Visit”).

The seven-show subscription package (starts at $290) includes “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Oklahoma,” “Ain’t Too Proud,” “Moulin Rouge,” “The Prom,” “Hadestown” and “Tootsie.” For the eight-show package (starts at $345), add “Hamilton.” All subscribers are guaranteed the same seats for each show. “Jersey Boys” and “Cats” may be added to a package. Call 1-800-859-7469 or stop by the State Theatre box office.

Tickets for individual shows will go on sale to the general public at later dates.

The picks

Now at HGA Gallery in the U’s Rapson Hall: “Elizabeth Scheu Close: A Life in Modern Architecture.” Close was a rarity: a woman practicing architecture in the mid-20th century.  With her husband, William Close, she founded the state’s first architecture firm dedicated to modernism, leaving an indelible mark on our built landscape and blazing a trail for future generations. This exhibition precedes a biography of Scheu Close forthcoming from the U of M Press in April 2020 and was curated by its author, Jane King Hession. Gallery hours 9-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, 1-5 p.m. Saturday. Free. Closes April 26. A book signing and closing reception will be held April 20 from 5:30-7:30 p.m.

Tonight at the Ordway Concert Hall: Accordo with Silent Film. You experience silent films differently when they’re accompanied by live, original music. You experience live, original music differently when you’re watching a silent film. In 2016, the chamber group Accordo gave its first concert of music by composer Stephen Prutsman, who joined them on piano as Buster Keaton’s “Sherlock Jr.” and the 1920 silent horror film “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” flickered on a screen nearby. Now in its fifth year, this delightful evening has become an annual thing. Tonight’s concert will feature four films (two old, two new) and music by three composers: Prutsman, John Novacek and Schubert Club Composer-in-Residence deVon Russell Gray. 7:30 p.m. FMI and tickets $36/31). If you’re curious about how this all got started, here’s the story.

Tonight at the Playwrights’ Center: “Malvolio.” With the Guthrie’s production of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” just around the corner (previews start Saturday, Feb. 8), Betty Shamieh’s “Malvolio” is perfectly timed. Part of PWC’s 2019-20 Ruth Easton New Play Series, this sequel to Shakespeare’s romantic comedy finds Malvolio, now a famous general, fighting an endless war and encountering Volina, the daughter of Viola and Orsino. Doors at 6:30 p.m., performance at 7. Free, but seating is limited and reservations are required.

Thursday at the Heights Theater: “Moonrise.” To make winter even darker, the Heights is screening a brilliantly titled series called “Cheap, Mean and Deadly: Noir from Poverty Row.” Turns out you don’t need fancy studios, big stars and budgets to make a good film. What you need is a good story. The studios that produced these films were Hollywood’s déclassé cousins, but you’ll be sitting on the edge of your seat. Directed by Frank Borzage, “Moonrise” stars Dane Clark, Gail Russell, and Ethel Barrymore in the tale of Danny Hawkins, who becomes a hunted man, just like his father. 7:30 p.m. FMI and tickets ($12). The series continues for four more Thursdays (through March 5). It’s being co-presented by the Trylon, so you can buy your tickets there if you prefer.

Erdrich’s appearance is a coup for Literary Witnesses, Plymouth’s esteemed long-running author series. And a testament to relationships. Birchbark Books in Minneapolis is the founding book-selling partner of Literary Witnesses, and Erdrich is the owner of Birchbark Books.

Erdrich is the author of 15 previous novels, including a National Book Award winner, a National Book Critics Circle award winner and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. She has won the Library of Congress Prize for American fiction and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Erdrich has also written poetry, children’s books, short stories and a memoir.

Hill won a Minnesota Book Award for “Dangerous Goods.” He’ll share the podium with Erin Lyn Marsh, author of the poetry collection “Disability Isn’t Sexy”; Preeti Kaur Rajpal, a recent Loft Literary Mentor Series fellow; Julian Randall, a Living Queer Black poet from Chicago and the author of “Refuse”; and Naomi Cohn, a poet and teaching artist who works with older adults and people with disabilities.

Insights Design Lecture Series to return

Design is all around us, good, bad and just there. Each year, in its Insights Design Lecture Series, the Walker helps us see design more clearly and understand it better.

Co-presented with AIGA Minnesota, the series is now in its 36th year. Starting in 2005, the lectures were recorded and are online (with a few exceptions). They’re always loaded with visuals.

The 2020 series is the usual four lectures, plus a bonus pre-recorded lecture, with the speaker live via Skype. All are on Tuesdays at 7 p.m. in the Walker Cinema. Here’s the line-up:

March 3: Leland Maschmeyer. Branding expert Maschmeyer helped reimagine Spotify, Airbnb and Facebook, then joined Chobani in 2016 and is now the company’s chief creative officer.

March 17: Hassan Rahim. Rahim is cofounder of Shabazz Projects. His clients include VSCO, Sony Music, Urban Outfitters and Marilyn Manson.

March 24: Veronica Ditting. Creative director of the fashion magazine “The Gentlewoman,” Ditting runs a London studio whose clients include Tory Burch, Hermès, adidas, and IKEA.

March 31: Ruben Pater. The Amsterdam-based design ethicist restricts his overseas air travel due to its outsized carbon footprint. He’ll premiere a pre-recorded lecture made for the occasion and be available live via Skype. Pater is the author of “The Politics of Design.”

Tickets are available now ($24-10 individual lecture, $72-30 for the series). If you can’t attend in person, you can watch via the livestream (walkerart.org) and send in your comments and questions via twitter  (#InsightsDesign)

The picks

Tonight (Wednesday, Feb. 5) at Hamline Midway Library: Fireside Reading Series: Staci Lola Drouillard, “Walking the Old Road: A People’s History of Chippewa City and the Grand Marais Anishinaabe.” Drouillard is a descendant of the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Anishinaabe. Her book – drawn from memories, family history, historical analysis and testimony – is a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award. 7 p.m. Free. Registration is requested.

Thursday at Khyber Pass: Amir ElSaffar Performance and Conversation. ElSaffar’s “Rivers of Sound,” performed at the Walker with 17 musicians, was one of the best things we saw in 2016. His score for Ragamala’s “Written in Water” (which returns to the Ordway on Feb. 15) is radiant. He’ll be here for that, performing and leading a five-person ensemble. Before then, the Iraqi-American composer/musician will make two special appearances: at Khyber Pass at 9:30 p.m. Thursday (a small space; get tickets now, $10) and at Walker West next Tuesday, Feb. 11, for a master class. 6 p.m., free and open to the public. FMI. Register to confirm your spot.

Opens Friday at the James J. Hill House: Minneapolis Musical Theatre: “Daddy Long Legs.” The Hill House is a special place to experience theater, opera, and now a musical. Built as a private home for a railroad tycoon, the space can be challenging, but the period ambience is unbeatable. Minneapolis Musical Theatre’s past productions include “High Fidelity” at the Electric Fetus. A turn-of-the-century love story based on the 1912 novel by Jean Webster, “Daddy Longlegs” was adapted for the stage by John Caird with music and lyrics by Paul Gordon. It ran off-Broadway in 2015-16 and won a Drama Desk Award. FMI and tickets ($36/28). Through Feb. 29. P.S. Tickets are still available for Valentine’s Day night (Feb. 14).

Sunday at the Off-Leash Art Box: NACHMO Twin Cities. Think of it as National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), except for dance. Founded 11 years ago in New York City, NACHMO (National Choreography Month) challenges dancers and choreographers to make a new work in a single month. Sparkle Theatricals has brought NACHMO to the Twin Cities, and this is its inaugural year. January was the challenge month, and our first-ever NACHMO Show will take place Sunday, with new works by five choreographers: Mary Willmeng, Ella Dierberger, Rick Ausland, Alejandra Iannone and Alexandra Bodnarchuk. Doors at 6 p.m., show at 6:30. FMI and RSVP. $5 at the door.

In case you haven’t heard, 2020 is Beethoven’s 250th birthday year. Orchestras and ensembles the world over are performing complete cycles of his works: all of the symphonies (nine), all of the string quartets (16), all of the piano sonatas (32!).

Beethoven’s string quartets have been compared to Shakespeare’s plays, Michelangelo’s statues, the Bible, Rembrandt’s portraits, the building of cathedrals and the rise of democracy. Taking them on is a huge commitment. Playing them all takes about nine hours.

For BTHVN2020, Germany’s name for this jubilee year, the Twin Cities will get two complete cycles of Beethoven’s string quartets in live performance. A third will be as near as Northfield. The one that’s gotten the most attention so far will be presented by the Schubert Club and performed in May by the Danish String Quartet, currently the hottest string quartet on the planet.

This weekend, starting Saturday, Feb. 8, the St. Paul-based Artaria String Quartet will play half of the Beethovens in Hamline’s Sundin Hall. They’ll play the other half in April. Performances will be recorded for future release.

Artaria is an award-winning professional string quartet now in its 34th year, with numerous awards and kudos to its credit: a McKnight fellowship for performing musicians; grants from the NEA, Chamber Music America and the Minnesota State Arts Board; a year as MPR’s Artists in Residence.

Violinist Ray Shows is a founding member of Artaria. We spoke by phone on Tuesday. This interview has been edited and condensed.

MinnPost: Aside from this being Beethoven’s birthday year, why are you doing this?

Ray Shows: There are certain mountains that have to be climbed and are part of our history and humanity. It is the pinnacle of a string quartet’s activities to record the Beethoven cycle. And it’s great music. Time-tested. I could go on and on.

MP: Artaria performed all 15 Shostakovich string quartets starting in 2011. Was there anything you took from that experience and brought to Beethoven?

RS: The preparation. We have been preparing for three years. We played a lot of Beethoven this season and the season before. Everything we are presenting now has been performed by the four of us in public before we land on Saturday. Some of it, like the Grosse Fuge, we’ve been doing for 25 years.

We had 100 days of rehearsals in front of this that were basically nonstop. We had holiday breaks and whatnot, but it was straight-on six months of solid rehearsals. We rehearse three to four times a week. This is the final week, so each rehearsal day, we’re doing a complete program.

You only do this if you’re committed. You don’t climb Mount Everest if you’re not committed.

MP: How did you decide the order for each concert? Because you’re not playing the quartets in the order they were written.

RS: Building the programs is one of the most interesting parts of this, as far as we’re concerned. There’s no one way of doing it.

We’re breaking [the cycle] down into two three-concert weekends. We decided to end [the final concert in April] with the Grosse Fuge. That’s the most modern piece of all of it. As Stravinsky said, it’s perpetually modern.

The other ending piece, for weekend number one [in February], is Opus 59, No. 3. It’s just a magnificent piece of music.

So we have those as anchors, and we wanted to split up all of the Opus 18s [the six early string quartets] across all six concerts. Each concert has one of those. And then, of course, insert thematic things that tie pieces together historically or harmonically.

We’re doing Opus 130 with the Finale and Opus 130 with the Grosse Fuge, the way it was originally written. Beethoven’s publisher, Artaria – our namesake – thought the Grosse Fuge was too intense for most audiences to handle and should be reissued as a separate opus number. This is one time that Beethoven acquiesced. The Finale was added at the publisher’s request.

The long and the short of it is, we’re playing all of the string quartet music. We felt it was important for at least somebody to come to a concert and hear Opus 130 the way it was originally conceived.

MP: The quartets are most often grouped by style into early, middle and late. You came up with something different. Can you talk about that?

RS: We refer to the first period of time as “Affirmation.” Beethoven is writing in the style of Mozart, his teacher, and Haydn. He’s trying to be affirmed as a great composer in the late 1790s, so he composes Opus 18.

The second period of time, which is referred to as the middle period, we call “Rebellion.” Beethoven is writing pieces for Napoleon. He’s writing the Razumovsky quartets because he wants the Russians to support the Austrians against the French. He’s writing pieces that are not commissions and giving them away. He wrote Opus 74 and named it the “Harp” Quartet, breaking with tradition.

We refer to the late period as “Transcendence.” Remember that Beethoven is going deaf. His grip on communicating in society is blocked. In his last quartets, he’s talking to God. He’s moving beyond earthly realms.

When you put Affirmation, Rebellion and Transcendence together, you get A-R-T.

We hope that when people come to our concerts, as many as they can come to, even if they only come to one, they will experience the transition from affirmation through rebellion to transcendence.

MP: Are you saying that every concert includes all of these elements?

RS: Exactly. We want people to engage with this music. We’ll also have pre-concert lectures and post-concert Q&As. We’ll have letters written by Beethoven read during the concerts. On Sunday afternoon, we’ll go out for a meal with anyone who wants to come and chat about the concert.

MP: When Artaria decided to perform the Beethoven cycle, did you know the Danish String Quartet was coming here for the same reason?

RS: Yeah. The Schubert Club engaged us for the Shostakovich cycle a few years back, but the Danish String Quartet manager beat us by a year. So we had two choices. We could bow out and let them do it. But we’re a good quartet, and we’re local, and people should see what a state-supported string quartet can do. We’re the only Minnesota string quartet that’s full time all the time. This is our job.

MP: Did the Danish String Quartet’s appearance affect your performance schedule?

RS: Oh, of course. You don’t want to sit right on top of it. That wouldn’t help anybody. They originally decided for February, and I said fine, we’ll do ours after theirs, no problem. And then Barry Kempton [the Schubert Club’s artistic and executive director] called and said, “Ray, I have to let you know they changed the dates. I hope this doesn’t mess you up.” And I said, “Well, it does change our timetable a little, but thank you for letting me know.” He gave me a year’s notice, so we had time to make an adjustment.

MP: Do you have any advice for people who are coming to hear Artaria play Beethoven?

RS: I wanted to say initially that they should come with an open mind, but that’s not it. You don’t have to come with an open mind. With Beethoven, you just have to come and open your heart up.

The music can be intense. But then you start listening to the bouncy quality of Opus 18, No. 6, or the Romeo and Juliet movements from Opus 18, No. 1. And then there’s the Cavatina from Opus 30, No. 13. It’s the one Beethoven string quartet movement that went on the Voyager spacecraft [on the Golden Record]. Every single time we play it, it draws a tear from someone’s eye in the room. I’m not making this up.

***

The Artaria String Quartet is Ray Shows, violin; Nancy Oliveros, violin; Annalee Wolf, viola; and Patricia Ryan, cello. Their first three Beethoven concerts will be held Saturday, Feb. 8, at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, Feb. 9, at 3 p.m.; and Monday, Feb. 10, at 7:30 p.m., The second set of three concerts will be held April 18, 19, and 20. All will be in Sundin Hall. FMI and links to tickets (individual concerts $22, all six $114).

Artaria will perform the cycle twice more: at St. Olaf College in Northfield (where Shows is on the faculty) and at Viterbo University in La Crosse, Wisconsin (where Artaria was once in residence). FMI; scroll down to “More Beethoven.” The St. Olaf concerts are free.

It’s hard to watch the lives of people you care about fall apart. You quickly come to care about the four people in “Skeleton Crew”: no-nonsense Faye; hot-headed Dez; young, about-to-be-single-mother Shanita; conflicted Reggie. They all work in the same leaky ship: a small auto stamping plant in Detroit in 2008, the height of the Great Recession.

Twin Cities audiences are familiar with playwright and MacArthur Fellow Dominique Morisseau. “Skeleton Crew” is the third play in her Detroit Projects cycle. Penumbra staged the first, “Detroit ’67,” in 2015. Penumbra also produced Morisseau’s “Sunset Baby” (2016) and “Pipeline” (2019).

Morisseau’s Broadway musical, “Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations,” was announced earlier this week as one of the shows in Hennepin Theatre Trust’s 2020-21 “Broadway on Hennepin” series.

“Skeleton Crew” is on stage now at Yellow Tree Theatre in Osseo. Yellow Tree was founded in 2008, the same year Morisseau’s play takes place, by husband-and-wife team Jason Peterson and Jessica Lind Peterson. It has since presented nearly 50 productions including 10 world premieres. “Skeleton Crew” is a regional premiere and a co-production with New Dawn Theater Company. New Dawn’s artistic director, Austene Van, directed “Skeleton Crew.”

As the play opens, Faye (Jamecia Bennett), a lesbian and breast cancer survivor, wants to keep her job, her secrets, and her position as a union rep. Dez (Mikell Sapp) wants to leave the plant when he’s good and ready to open his own garage. Shanita (Nadége Matteis) wants to stay in a job she loves and takes pride in, one that runs in her family. She aims to make herself irreplaceable. Foreman Reggie (Darius Dotch) wants to protect his own family and comfortable life and the workers whose lives he knows, because he came from the same place they did.

Eventually, all of their wants narrow down to one: survival. If the plant shuts down – when it shuts down – what will happen to them?

The play takes place in a well-used break room, with occasional glimpses of the line through reeded glass windows: silhouetted workers performing repetitive tasks, sometimes moving like robots performing repetitive tasks, a hint of things to come. Whenever the door to the break room opens, we hear the roar of the floor.

Individual stories unfold and tensions rise in a series of 11 scenes over two acts. We learn that all four people care for each other. Dez, Shanita and Reggie worry that Faye is still smoking, despite her recent cancer. Faye, Dez and Reggie are protective toward Shanita, and Dez’s feelings about her run deeper. Faye has known Reggie all his life; he’s almost a son to her. Everyone wants to believe in Dez, and they all want the best for him, but his anger at having to prove himself feeds their suspicions.

Meanwhile, management is cracking down. Workers are being laid off for small infractions, to thin the ranks and save costs. Nighttime robberies at the plant have everyone on edge, and some are wondering if Dez is guilty. Reggie is facing impossible choices and his own sense of community and morality.

You know “Skeleton Crew” can’t end well, but it ends better than you might think. Differently than you might expect. (Any play where someone has a temper and a gun is cause for a nagging kind of worry, so we’ll tell you right now: No one gets shot.) Throughout, we’re uplifted by Morisseau’s lyrical writing, a blend of everyday speech and flights of near poetry. She has drawn her characters with affection and respect.

All four actors are perfectly cast, their actions and interactions believable. They seem comfortable together, as if they’ve known each other for a long time. We’ve seen Bennett, Dotch and Sapp on stage before. Matteis is new here, in from New York City, making her area debut. We hope to see her again.

Van directs with sensitivity and a sure hand. “Skeleton Crew” has a lot of short scenes but never feels choppy. The theater is small and so is the stage, a three-quarter thrust (similar to Gremlin at Vandalia Tower), but the direction, staging, sound and lighting make you feel you’re in a room that opens onto a vast space.

As we read about Macy’s next round of closings and job cuts, and the layoffs planned at 3M, “Skeleton Crew” seems more like today than yesterday.

The play runs Wednesdays through Sundays, with evening performances and some matinees. FMI and tickets ($26-30). Closes March 1.

The picks

Tonight (Friday, Feb. 7) at Orchestra Hall: “Music and the Mind with Sam and Sarah.” Sam is Minnesota Orchestra violist Sam Bergman; Sarah is Sarah Hicks, principal conductor of Live at Orchestra Hall. In this program, they’ll explore how our brains engage with music, how neurodiversity plays a role in the creation and appreciation of art, and how mental wellness and illness have shaped works by famous composers, The Minnesota Orchestra, led by Hicks, will provide the soundtrack. Musical selections will include works by Beethoven, Mozart, Bruckner, Sibelius, Schoenberg and more. 8 p.m. FMI and tickets ($32.75 to $78.75).

Saturday at Next Chapter Booksellers: Literary Lights. In the first Literary Lights reading of the year, Hawona Sullivan-Janzen, Brenda Brown Bell, James Bernard Short, A. Rafael Johnson, Mary Moore Easter and Clarence White will celebrate the Harlem Renaissance in words. 2-3:30 p.m. Free, but donations are welcome.

Opens Saturday at the History Theatre: “Superman Becomes Lois Lane.” Workshopped during last year’s Raw Stages, this play is the true story, told in her own words, of Susan Kimberly, a transgender woman who became deputy mayor of St. Paul in the mid-1990s. Trans woman Freya Richman stars as Kimberly; Laura Leffler directs the world premiere production. In a promotional video, Kimberly says, “I haven’t told it all, but I’ve come very, very close to telling everything in this show.” 7:30 p.m. FMI and tickets ($20-48, students $15). Closes March 1.

Sunday at Westminster Presbyterian Church: Downtown Minneapolis Church Choir Festival. Six downtown Minneapolis church choirs will gather to sing separately and together, 300 voices strong. Participating churches are the Basilica of St. Mary, Central Lutheran, Hennepin Avenue Methodist, Plymouth Congregational, St. Mark’s Episcopal and Westminster Presbyterian. Each choir will sing an anthem by itself, and together they’ll sing music by Abbie Betinis, Edward Elgar and Gerald Near, plus the world premiere of a commissioned anthem by Paul John Rudoi. 2 p.m. Free.

Sunday at the Dakota: Eddie Palmieri. It’s hard to believe the Latin jazz giant had never played the Dakota until last August. He was fantastic. If you missed him them, you are so in luck, because he’s returning on Sunday. A sublime pianist, charming on the stand and a nine-time Latin Grammy winner, Palmieri will play two sets, at 6 p.m. and 8:30. FMI and tickets ($30-45). Here he is at NPR’s Tiny Desk in 2016.

Just as Claudia Rankine’s “Citizen” is not a traditional book of poetry, though it won several important poetry awards, her play “The White Card” is not a traditional play. If four out of five characters in a traditional play consistently said clueless, self-righteous, tone-deaf things, it would probably be a comedy about buffoons.

“The White Card” is not a comedy. It’s a serious look at racism and the lack of understanding among people who think they know better, who see themselves firmly on the right side of social justice. Directed by Talvin Wilks, it takes place on a transformed stage at the Penumbra. Some seats have been removed, the stage has been extended and the walls have been lengthened to embrace as much of the audience as possible. We’re all in this together.

As the play begins, it takes a minute to remember you’re in St. Paul’s historic black theater. The set is all white – floors, walls, furniture, accessories. So are the three people on stage: wealthy art collector Charles (Bill McCallum), his wife, Virginia (Michelle O’Neill), and art dealer Eric (John Catron). They await the arrival of the evening’s guest, Charlotte (Lynnette R. Freeman), an important black artist whose work Charles is eager to start collecting.

Charles’ collection focuses on what Charlotte will bluntly call “black death.” We see Robert Longo’s charcoal drawing of Ferguson police holding back protesters in the days after Michael Brown was shot. And Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “The Death of Michael Stewart,” a graffiti artist killed by police. And Glenn Ligon’s “Hands” from the 1995 Million Man March. Among them is a Rauschenberg “White Painting.” Panels of white.

Charlotte arrives and the conversation begins. When Virginia insists that she and Charlotte have met before, at a gallery, Eric says “That wasn’t Charlotte.” The audience groans. There will be a lot of groaning and gasping during “The White Card.” As when Virginia says, “Charles takes his stable of artists seriously.” And tells Charlotte, who has risen to help clear the dinner plates, to “Sit down. You’re not the maid.” (The maid, who is black, has been given the night off.)

Before dinner, a fifth character enters: Charles and Virginia’s son Alex, fresh from an anti-Trump protest. A member of Black Lives Matter, he’s a wealth of knowledge about injustices past and present, eager to show how informed he is and one-up his parents.

Charlotte’s art at first seems like a good fit for Charles’ collection. She restages and photographs moments and aggressions that would otherwise be forgotten. Lately, her work has taken a darker turn. She’s staging the aftermath of the Charleston church shooting. This is the work Charles wants.

The evening unravels. Charlotte keeps her cool but also has doubts about Charles and his choices. As Alex helpfully points out, part of Charles’ wealth comes from building private prisons. When the first act ends, Charlotte is questioning her own choices about her art. The second act, which takes place a year later, reveals her new direction. It’s a shock to Charles.

We don’t want to spill all the twists because so much of the play is discussion. Voices rise, and the white characters hold tight to their own ideas and perceptions. As Rankine said in an opening night post-play talk with Wilks, author Junauda Petrus and writer Erin Sharkey, “There’s nothing in the play that has not actually happened in real life.” All of the dumb things the white characters say have been said in her presence or reported to her. “That they happen at the same time is fictional,” Rankine continued, “but there’s no fiction in the play.”

Sometimes “The White Card” seems stuck on a single note, played at the same volume. It’s impossible to become emotionally involved with any of the characters, except for Charlotte. But entertaining us or indulging our feelings is not what “The White Card” is for. Rankine is a MacArthur Fellow, respected scholar and cultural force who speaks and writes with candor. (In the post-play talk, when Petrus asked her, “How do you take care of yourself?” Rankine replied, “I have trained myself to say what I think in public.”)

“The White Card” brings us face-to-face with issues of race and racism. It’s not a comfortable place to be. Go, get uncomfortable, then think about what you see and hear. Talk with other people about it. Post-play discussions will be held on three Thursdays: Feb. 13, 20 and 27. If you can’t decide which night to attend, maybe pick one of those.

Performance dates are Wednesdays through Sundays at 7:30 p.m., with student matinees on Wednesdays and matinees on the weekends. FMI and tickets ($40/$35 seniors/$15 students). Closes March 1.

Club Book spring 2020 lineup is announced

A Pulitzer Prize finalist, a climate advocate, and a writer of New York Times best-selling, page-turning thrillers will visit libraries all over the metro as part of the new Club Book season.

A program of the Metropolitan Library Service Agency (MELSA), Club Book is a consistently strong series of author events, all free and open to the public, all available as podcasts shortly after.

Choose a favorite author, or two, or four. Pick your nearest library or venture out to one you’ve never seen.

Here’s what the season has to offer. Times can vary slightly, so pay attention to that detail.

Tuesday, March 10, at Scott County Library – Prior Lake: Brad Taylor. His latest Pike Logan thriller, “Hunter Killer,” came out in paperback on Jan. 7. The series centers around “the Taskforce,” an elite covert ops team. Taylor served more than two decades in the U.S. Army, including a stint with the Delta Force. 7-8 p.m.

Thursday, March 26, at the Washington County Library – R.H. Stafford: James Rollins. The fiendishly prolific Rollins writes under his own name and a pen name (James Clemens). He’s best known for his #1 New York Times best-selling Sigma Force series – more than 20 million copies in print, in nearly 40 languages. “The Last Odyssey” hits shelves March 24. 6:30-7:30 p.m.

Thursday, April 9, at the Metropolitan State University Library and Learning Center, co-hosted with Saint Paul Public Library: Dahr Jamail. A climate advocate, former wartime correspondent in Iraq and passionate mountaineer, Jamail is the author of “The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption,” due out in paperback on March 10. 7-8 p.m.

Wednesday, April 22, at the Dakota County Library – Galaxie: Kate Quinn. She’s written best-sellers set in Rome, the Renaissance and the French Revolution. Now she’s into the two World Wars. “The Huntress,” the follow-up to “The Alice Network” (2017), was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick and an instant New York Times best-seller. 7-8 p.m.

Monday, April 27, at the Carver County Library – Chanhassen: Christopher Ingraham. Four years ago, the WaPo reporter called Red Lake Falls, Minnesota, “America’s worst place to live.” He later moved there with his family. His latest is “If You Lived Here You’d Be Home by Now.” 6:30-7:30 p.m.

Monday, May 4, at Anoka County Library – Northtown: Benjamin Percy. Born in Oregon, now based in Minnesota, Percy writes novels (“The Wilding,” “The Dark Net”), short stories, essays, comics (“X-Men,” “Green Arrow”), and podcasts. Most recently, “Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction” and the short story collection “Suicide Woods.” 7-8 p.m.

“I think Kpop is kind of like a black hole. Once you dip your foot into it, you’ll just get sucked in to all that’s out there,” said Haewon Jun, a University of Minnesota grad student who performs with and sits on the board of Minnesota Kpop Dance Crew (MKDC), Minnesota’s lone entrant into the Asian worldwide phenomenon known as Kpop.

Kpop is known for its hyper-optimistic outlook, rigorous dance choreography and infectious beats. Its biggest stars — SET, Blackpink, BTS, EXO, Seventeen, Red Velvet, Twice, Momoland — are hardly household names. But to a growing group of Kpop lovers in Minnesota, the music, videos and dances provide big fun and connection to community.

“I was doing Kpop covers before I even founded this team in 2013,” said MKDC leader Volcano Kim, as she and Jun welcomed registrants to the Kpop dance workshop they organized, held Saturday in a dance studio at the U’s bustling rec center.

“When I was living in Korea, Korea has a huge community doing covers already. It’s very common, because it’s our own Kpop and we’re doing what we like. But then I moved to America and I was a little bit bored; there was nothing to do.

“I was in my undergrad year in Massachusetts, and I founded a group there called DBJ dance crew, a five-college crew that [draws from] University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Smith College, Amherst College, and Mount Holyoke College. I graduated and moved to Minnesota to do my master’s and Ph.D., and I needed a hobby.”

And how: Since its inception, MKDC has traveled the country and to South Korea, performing its tightly honed choreography and cover songs, and won competitions along the way. In 2018 and 2019, MKDC took first place in dance competitions in Los Angeles, New York City, and Seoul, South Korea, and put on a successful Kpop festival on the campus of the University of Minnesota.

They also regularly put on successful workshops. “I’m from White Bear, and we come to the workshops a lot for the dancing,” said Cassidy Lee, standing in the registrants line with her friends and fellow dancers Emily Vang, Adeline Leung, and Hallie Xiong. “The dances are fun, and the Kpop music is fun. My favorite Kpop group? I really like this group called NCT. They’re pretty popular in the U.S.”

“It’s not just for fun, it’s more like semi-professional now,” said Kim. “We get paid to travel the States now, so it’s not entirely a hobby anymore.”

Is MKDC the only Kpop game in town? A quick scan of the club scene here suggests that not even a regular Kpop night is scheduled anywhere anytime soon, although Saturday’s workshop suggests any such endeavor would be a wildly welcome addition to the dance club scene.

“I don’t see much in Minnesota, because it’s cold,” said Kim. “A lot of Kpop festivals and events are held outside. We’re about it. That’s why people are always sending us requests, like, ‘Can you host this event?’”

The main draw to Kpop is that it’s super-manufactured modern electropop — optimistic, exuberant, fun, sexy, escapist, smart, meaningful, funny, and impossible to not try to dance like your Kpop heroes — all of which transcends language and culture.

“In Korea, it’s like cosplaying,” said Kim. “You’re dressing up like that person, you’re doing the hair and gestures exactly like they are. You have to have stage presence, you have to lip-synch to the music, and you’re doing all the gestures that they’re doing. So you’re covering, but you’re also cosplaying the artist.

“The major thing that I’m seeing is that the older generation likes listening to the music more. Our generation, we need the visual stuff. We’re watching YouTube all the time; it’s not just listening to music. And I think Kpop has that aspect of like, it’s not just the music. It’s a visual overall performance of it, so you’re looking into the dances, you’re looking into outfits, and hairstyles.”

“There’s a Kpop group for everyone’s preference; there’s so many different songs and different types of visuals,” said Jun.

MinnPost took in the MKDC workshop, in photos and interviews:

Haewon Jun: “I’m from Busan, South Korea. I started my undergrad at the U in 2013 and I’m in my graduate program in integrated behavioral health. I joined MKDC year two, and I’m one of the board members. We started as a student group, just because we were interested in Kpop and we wanted to get people together and practice and put performances on.

“The very first performance that MKDC held I actually attended. I thought they were fascinating and so different from other Kpop cover groups that are out there, and they were promoting their auditions and that’s how I joined the group.

“There’s a cultural difference, but when we travel to different states, we see how Kpop is bringing in the whole community, and there is a huge community in the U.S. now, and it’s crazy how exponentially it has grown. In our third year, we held a Kpop festival in Minnesota for the people in the Midwest who are Kpop fans. Back then, Kpop groups wouldn’t really come to Minnesota because it wasn’t that popular a state for Kpop concerts, so we held our own festival at Northrop, and 1,500 people came out.

“We didn’t really expect a turnout like that, but that really made us realize that there are a lot of Kpop fans out there, and when we come together it’s a space where they can all be passionate about what they really like and what they spend their leisure time doing. It’s been really cool.”

Hieu Tram, Minneapolis, and Pasha Yang, St. Paul: “I first discovered Kpop with my aunts, who are into the old-school Kpop,” said Yang. “I got into it through them, just because the dancing was so cool. And the videos were more high-scale than a lot of the American music videos, so it’s just very interesting to see the difference between the two. I like Kpop because of the community surrounding it. Like, with our workshop today, we’ve brought in so many other Kpop fans who love Kpop. Some of them might not even dance, but because their love for Kpop is so big, then they decide to show up and show support for us and their love for Kpop. It’s a lot different from the American pop community; I think our community is special.”

“I went to a private school, St. Rose of Lima in Roseville, during middle school, and I was a minority, so I wanted to see what other cultures are out there,” said Tram. “Somehow I geared towards Kpop as an entryway, because I’m Vietnamese-American and I wanted to do something different from what the culture was at my school at the time. As a general personality issue, I don’t like to go with the general [mainstream]; I like to stray off and see what other things there are to look at.”

Zian Gao: “I’m originally from China. I’m a group member of MKDC. Kpop is a big culture in Asian countries already, and the idols, we look up to them as role models. Some of the younger generation, they even wanted to become like them, so they work hard and go to dance practice. They also put that focus into their daily lives, into their studies and work life. The choreography is hard and [disciplined], and it’s almost like a boot camp when they’re learning to dance like the idols. We’re trying to imitate their dances and cover their dances, and we put a crazy amount of time practicing so we can be perfectly in sync. People are connected by the Kpop groups they like, and by their fandom.”

When Mischa Santora, former associate conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra, took a new position as music director of the Boston Ballet, it meant leaving Minneapolis, his home for many years. But he maintains close ties here. Not only did he keep his job as artistic director for MacPhail’s Spotlight Series, he added another: artistic director of the Minnesota Bach Ensemble.

Santora will be in Minneapolis this week for three performances.

On Thursday at the Basilica, he’ll lead a Spotlight Series program called “Reverberations.” Designed to show off the acoustic of the grandiose space, the whole concert will be performed on just three instruments: the Basilica’s organ, French horn and human voice. The musicians will be Christopher Stroh, the Basilica’s organist, and MacPhail faculty members Mike Alexander (horn) and Dennis Petersen (tenor).

The evening will begin in the Basilica’s nave with Dupré’s “Cortege et Litanie” for solo organ, followed by two Messiaen pieces, one for solo horn (played from the gallery) and the other for organ. “Then we’ll move to the back of the church, behind the altar,” Santora explained during a Monday phone call. “This will be a progressive concert.”

The music will continue with the world premiere of Santora’s “Songs for a Cavernous Space,” performed on organ, horn and voice, with Petersen singing poems by Rilke and W.S. Merwin. Until now, most of Santora’s composing has been for theatrical productions and soundtracks. This performance will turn the spotlight on him.

The concert will end with Arvo Pärt’s “Annum per annum” and a trilogy of songs by Aaron Copland, Olive Dungan and Leonard Bernstein.

On Sunday and Monday at MacPhail, in a program called “Emperors & Tyrants,” the Minnesota Bach Ensemble will give concert performances of Handel’s “Giulio Cesare in Egitto” (Julius Caesar in Egypt). Not the whole thing (over 4½ hours) but excerpts. “It’s Handel at his very best,” Santora said.

Wait … better than “Messiah”?

“ ‘Messiah’ is a wonderful piece, but I think his operas are by far his greatest compositions. Hands down. They’re a unique mixture of German depth and Italianate sensuality. ‘Cesare’ is stunning, and hard to do well. It’s exciting, very relevant, and as bloody as anything. It’s one of the operas that features a severed head. It’s in the opening scene. It’s the opposite of ‘Salome,’ where you get the head at the end.”

In all seriousness: “To me, ‘Cesare’ is the equivalent of a Caravaggio painting. It’s sensual, dynamic, bloody, cruel, and deeply emotional. It’s everything. It captures the essence of the High Baroque.”

The cast will include soprano Linh Kauffman as Cleopatra, mezzo-soprano Nerea Berraondo as Cesare, mezzo-soprano Christina Christensen as Sesto and narrator Jacob Miller.

“Reverberations” will take place at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 13, at the Basilica of St. Mary. FMI and tickets ($12 adults, $5 MacPhail students). Call 612-767-5250. “Emperors & Tyrants” has performances Sunday, Feb. 16, at 3 p.m. and Monday, Feb. 17, at 7 p.m. in MacPhail’s Antonello Hall. FMI and tickets ($30 adults, $10 students).

The picks

Tonight in Concordia’s Buetow Music Center Auditorium: The Bach Society of Minnesota: Vivaldi’s “Motezuma.” For those of you who have been screaming for more Baroque opera (and we know you’re out there), this is your week in heaven. Before Minnesota Bach Ensemble performs “Guilio Cesaro in Egitto” in concertante (see above), you can also experience a semi-staged version of Vivaldi’s lost masterpiece (recently revived) loosely based on the life of Aztec ruler Montezuma. It’s currently on a seven-city, nine-concert tour that began in Montréal, home of Bach Ensemble Artistic Director Matthias Maute, and ends in Washington, D.C. A collaboration with Ensemble Caprice of Montreal and Early Music Seattle, it features soloists from Canada, the U.S., Mexico and Spain including Marduk Salam in the title role, Nerea Berraondo and Pedro Juan Fonseca. One Montreal reviewer called it “colossal … a resounding success.” 7:30 p.m. 300 Hamline Ave. N., St. Paul. FMI and tickets ($30/$25 seniors/$5 students; kids under 12 free).

Tonight at the Film Society’s St. Anthony Main Theatre 3: “After Parkland.” Pay no attention to other people who are crying. You’ll be crying, too. Filmmakers Emily Taguchi and Jake Leffermen got close to students and families whose lives were forever changed by the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Seventeen people died and a nationwide student movement was born. The film includes interviews, verité footage and personal videos. This will be a one-night nationwide screening. 7 p.m. FMI including trailer and tickets ($12/6/5).

Thursday at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts at Open Book: Reception for “My Mighty Journey.” Winner of the 2020 Minnesota Book Artist Award, this handmade book is 4 ½ feet wide. It took five years and 14 artists to create. Written by John Coy, with illustrations by Gaylord Schanilec, it’s the story of the past 12,000 years of Minnesota, told from the perspective of St. Anthony Falls. The exhibition will also include selected artwork from the book. 6 p.m.; artist talk at 7 p.m. In the Target Performance Hall. Free. The exhibition closes March 22.

Starts Friday at the Cowles: Collide Theatrical: “Romeo and Juliet.” Hello, Valentine’s Day! It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but if it’s yours, make this your special night out. Collide’s mission is to create original Broadway-style jazz dance musicals, and their high-energy, technically stellar performances are great fun to watch. In “Romeo and Juliet,” real-life engaged couple Renee Guittar and Rush Benson are the star-crossed lovers, and vocalist Katie Gearty headlines the live musicians. Shakespeare’s tale is recast as a modern love story told in several dance styles. The score – contemporary and pop hits – is played by a string quartet. 7:30 p.m. FMI and tickets ($33-39). Ends Sunday, Feb. 23.

In January, the Loft announced four authors who will appear in this year’s Wordplay festival, set for Saturday, May 9. On Tuesday afternoon, it revealed all the rest – an avalanche of nearly 100 authors including more big names.

The only author from last year who will return is Laila Lalami, because she has a new book.

We expected a fresh crop of authors, but the festival will change in other ways, too. Which isn’t surprising, since this is only its second year. We spoke with festival founder Steph Opitz about the changes and the thinking behind them.

This year’s Wordplay will be one day, not two. Steph said: “Previously I worked on the Texas book festival, which needs to be two days because of how many people come to it. I was used to a two-day structure. But until we get to be the size that demands two days, one is more fun, easier, and not competing directly with Mother’s Day [May 10]. The size we are now – 10,000 people plus – feels great for one day. If we get to 30,000, our goal in five years, we’ll look at doing two days again.

“The day will be an hour longer than last year. We’ll have more sessions throughout the day, and another outdoor stage. Some of the stages had down times last year, a half-hour or an hour between sessions. We won’t do that this year.”

Prices will go up. Last year’s wristband was $10. This year’s is $17 ($20 at the gate). Last year’s VIP access was $250. This year, there’s a Friend of the Festival wristband for $500. Steph said: “There were two different ticketing levels last year. $10 got you into the street festival, $40 into [author sessions at] the Guthrie. We decided to split the difference to $17, which is all-inclusive. You get into every author session. And you still get a $5 book voucher.

“Last year’s $250 VIP ticket gave you access to certain things and not others. We wanted to give people what they were requesting. The $500 is VIP reserved seating at everything, and admission to a VIP party with authors on Friday.

“We’re definitely trying to support the longevity of the festival. If we charged the actual price, tickets would be $80. Sponsorships help, but we need to charge something. And we really want people to commit to the festival – to put it on their calendar and plan for it.”

Last year’s opening night party was a concert at First Avenue. This year it’s a carnival at Open Book. Steph said: “We’re calling it Play with Words. It’s going to be a big party at Open Book, on all three floors, with a lot of carnival-like things going on. Activities like fishing for books, fortune-telling and impromptu readings. Authors will be there.”

(And we couldn’t resist asking:) Who’s the author you’re most looking forward to seeing? Steph said: “I’m really excited about Clare Beams. She’s coming to the festival with a debut novel, ‘The Illness Lesson.’ She had a collection of short stories that came out last year that I fell in love with. She was definitely among the first people I booked. She’ll be somebody not everyone will have heard of, but after, they’ll want to keep an eye on her.

“Of course it’s exciting to have big names – Steve Inskeep, Alison Roman, Natalie Diaz, Lily King – but I love the idea that somebody will come to the festival, like Clare Beams or Gabriel Bump, for their first book, and maybe by the end of the year they’ll win a National Book Award or something like that.

“When I was running the Texas Book Festival, I remember telling everyone there, ‘You’ve got to go see this author Marlon James. He’s going to be amazing.’ A year later, he won the Man Booker Prize.”

Registration for Wordplay 2020 will open to Loft members on Wednesday, March 18, at 10 a.m. and to the general public on Thursday, March 19, at 10 a.m. See the complete author line-up here.

The picks

Tonight (Thursday, Feb. 13) at Honey: Breaking Down, Breaking Up – A Poetry Show of Break-up Poems. Not in love with Valentine’s Day? Presented by Cracked Walnut, hosted by Erin Murphy, the evening will feature area poets and an open mic, in case you’ve penned a break-up poem you want to share. Too bad Minneapolis doesn’t have a club called The Bitter End. 7-9 p.m., pay-what-you-want.

Friday and Saturday at the Cabooze: 28th Annual Songs of Freedom – Bob Marley Remembered. Nothing warms the heart and soul like reggae. (Maybe that’s why the Children’s Theatre scheduled “Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds” for January and February.) An Arctic front makes Marley’s music even more therapeutic. This is the Reggae king’s 75th birthday year, and the Cabooze will celebrate with the International Reggae All-Stars, New Primitives and Innocent Reggae Band. 18+. Doors at 8 p.m., music at 9:30. FMI and tickets ($12 advance, $16 door).

Saturday at the Minnesota History Center: Book launch for Anton Treuer’s “The Language Warrior’s Manifesto: How to Keep Our Languages Alive No Matter the Odds.” Professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University, author of several books including “Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians But Were Afraid to Ask,” Treuer has fought for years to revitalize his tribal language. (He learned it as an adult.) His latest book is a compelling and clearly written argument for why this matters and how it can be done. Here’s a series of short videos featuring Treuer that were produced recently for Twin Cities PBS. (The last is “Cultural Conversations: The Importance of Language,” if you want to start there.) Saturday is the History Center’s Dakota & Ojibwe Language Family Day. Treuer’s talk is at 10 a.m. and free. Museum admission is required for the family-friendly language activities scheduled for noon-3 p.m. FMI.

Opens Saturday at the Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company: “Significant Other.” Jordan (Bradley Hildebrandt) is a young Jewish man living in New York. Surrounded by his close group of female BFFs, his social life is full. Then they start getting married, and what about him? Joshua Harmon’s play won raves for its Off-Broadway premiere in 2015 and was included in the New York Times’ top 10 productions of the year. Hayley Finn is the director; the cast also includes Chloe Armao, Olivia Wilusz, Audrey Park, Nancy Marvy, Paul LaNave and Tony Larkin. 8 p.m. FMI and tickets ($23-38).

Sunday at the Textile Center: Rimon Artist Salon Series: “Handed Down.” Visual artists Robyn Awend, Beth Barron and Rachel Breen will show and discuss newly commissioned pieces informed by lineage, tradition, memories and inherited values. What we have been given by our past, and what we are handing down to those who come after us? Their work incorporates salvaged material scraps, poetic fragments, antique textiles, and reclaimed photographs – recycling as a practice. This is the 13th season of “one of the leading series of Jewish events in the country.” 2 p.m. FMI and tickets ($12; $6 ages 36 and under).

About “Peerless,” Jiehae Park has said, “This play is a comedy … until it’s not.”

She should know. She wrote it.

Now at the Gremlin (this is the final weekend), “Peerless” starts off innocently enough. Asian-American teenage twin sisters M and L talk a mile a minute, finishing each other’s sentences, dropping F-bombs, rehashing their plans to get into The College of their dreams with an early admission minority scholarship. Then, a snag. A classmate, D, has discovered he’s one-sixteenth Native American. He gets in. They get mad. And they’ll stop at nothing to get what they want. M’s scream of frustration is epic.

With Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” as her GPS, Park created a story of greed, ambition, obsession and rage. There’s a character, Dirty Girl (Meredith Casey), who stands in for the three Weird Sisters, proclaiming “Hail! Hail!” to M. There’s even a ghost.

In Theater Mu’s regional premiere, helmed with confidence by its new artistic director, Lily Tung Crystal, M & L are played by real-life twins Francesca and Isabella Dawis. They’re diabolically perfect in the roles, and convincing in a fight scene choreographed by Eric Pogi Sumangil.

M and L aren’t shy about using their racial identity to get their way. “We’re double minorities, Asian and female!” If whites think they look alike, it just makes them easier to fool. M exchanges flirtatious greetings in Mandarin Chinese (“Ni hao!”) with a teacher even though she’s not Chinese. What difference does it make? He really, really likes her.

The most sympathetic character is D, played with a reckless physicality by Neal Beckman. Naïve and nerdy, formerly overweight and suicidal, caretaker for a brother with cystic fibrosis, he’s dazzled by M, who feigns interest in him. D can’t believe his luck that she’s his date at the big school dance. Things are finally looking up for him, or so it seems.

“Peerless” is dark and relentless. It comments on stereotypes and the lengths people will go to for admission to the “right” college, for themselves or their children (although it predates the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal). Four performances remain: tonight and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. FMI and tickets (pay-as-you-are; $35 fair market value). Closes Sunday.

The picks

Saturday at Next Chapter Booksellers: “Diesel Heart”: A Jazz/Blues/Gospel rendition presented by the Carters & Friends. Published by the Minnesota Historical Society, “Diesel Heart: An Autobiography” is the story of Melvin Whitfield Carter Jr., son of Rondo, former St. Paul police officer (28 years) and father of St. Paul Mayor Melvin W. Carter III. This event is billed as “a jazz style retelling” of the book. The author is a musician who once played trumpet in a band with his brother, fronting for Jackie Wilson, the Staples Singers and Prince. 6 p.m. Free.

Saturday at SooVAC: Opening reception for Untitled 16. This is the 16th year of SooVAC’s juried exhibition series, always a window into what’s happening in art right now. Submissions are open to artists at any stage of their career, working in any medium, so you never know what you’ll see. The 25 artists in this year’s show were selected from 172 submissions by juror Natalie Bell, curator at MIT List Visual Arts Center. 6-9 p.m. Free. Exhibition closes March 21.

Sunday at North Community High School: Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra: One-Hour Family Friendly Concert: “The Composer Is Dead!” This will be so much fun. Singer, actor and composer Jake Endres will narrate Nathaniel Stookey’s musical whodunit, which brings to life Lemony Snicket’s murder mystery. A composer is dead; an investigator is called in; and it’s all an elaborate excuse to introduce the audience to the instruments (and the magic, and the power) of the orchestra. Snicket, a children’s author whose wit is famously droll, has said, “I like to think of ‘The Composer Is Dead’ as sort of a gateway drug that will lead to a lifelong addiction to classical music.” The MSO will follow with John Williams’ music from the final scene of the first “Star Wars” film, “Throne Room & Finale.” Directed by William Schrickel. 3 p.m. Free.

Tuesday at the University Club of St. Paul: Readings by Writers, hosted by Tim Nolan: “What God Is Honored Here?” This edition of the long-running series will be a heartbreaker and a potential healer. Shannon Gibney, Kao Kalia Yang, and Catherine Squires will read from the anthology “What God Is Honored Here? Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss by and for Native Women and Women of Color,” published last year by the University of Minnesota Press. Gibney and Yang are the editors, Squires is a contributor. Women on the margins are disproportionately affected by miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal loss and infant death. Here’s a trailer. 7:30-9 p.m. Free.

The Guthrie’s new production of Shakespeare’s romantic comedy “Twelfth Night” is pure joy. Filled with live music, movement and color, it’s a tale of loss, tomfoolery, disguise, mistaken identity, misdirected love and happy endings. And it’s told on a multilevel stage with a shallow, water-filled moat, balloons, and a swing big enough for three.

The all-local cast of 10 is a Who’s Who of Twin Cities theater: Sarah Jane Agnew, Nate Cheeseman, Sun Mee Chomet, Joy Dolo, Tyson Forbes, Emily Gunyou Halaas, Michael Hanna, Jim Lichtscheidl, Luverne Seifert and Sally Wingert.

And oh, what the home crew can do. It’s almost like we’ve traveled back in time to when the Guthrie had a resident acting company. And the actors aren’t the only ones with connections. Director Tom Quaintance – whose name would suit a Shakespeare character – grew up in Minneapolis. He and Carl Flink, the movement director, were soccer pals and Guthrie ushers during their high school days in the 1980s.

In true Shakespeare form, the plot is complicated. But you won’t have any trouble keeping the threads and characters straight.

Orsino, Duke of Illyria (Cheeseman) is in love with Olivia, a countess (Chomet). But she’s in mourning for her brother and won’t see him. Twins Viola (Halaas) and Sebastian (Hanna) are separated in a shipwreck, and Sebastian is presumed dead. Viola washes ashore in Illyria, disguises herself as a man, “Cesario,” and goes to work for Orsino, who gives her the task of wooing Olivia on his behalf. But Olivia falls in love with Cesario, who has fallen in love with Orsino.

Then Sebastian shows up with Antonio (Forbes), who saved him from drowning. Everyone mistakes Cesario for Sebastian and Sebastian for Cesario.

At least two more stories are happening with five other characters. Sir Toby Belch (a hilarious Wingert in a pants role) is Olivia’s dissolute uncle. Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Dolo in a sequined pants role) is wealthy but gullible. Toby persuades Andrew to court Olivia. Andrew is a minor character, but Dolo makes him memorable.

Malvolio (Lichtscheidl) is Olivia’s pompous, party-pooper steward. Maria (Agnew in a violently red wig) is her lady-in-waiting. Maria plots with Toby to humiliate Malvolio. Should we despise him or pity him? Lichtscheidl embraces the complexities of this strange character.

Feste (Seifert) is the play’s official fool, a jester who’s been with Olivia’s family since her father’s time. His job is to speak the truth. Seifert steals every scene he’s in, whether singing, playing with words, making a keen observation or providing counsel. “I wear not motley in my brain,” he reminds Olivia.

There’s never a dull moment.

Quaintance has added a dramatic and moving scene to Act One, with lines borrowed from “Pericles” and “The Tempest.” The stage becomes a shipwreck, with flashing lights, churning water, big, billowing fabric waves and extreme physical movement – Flink’s work – in which characters cling to ropes and seem tossed from one side of the stage to the other. When Viola is separated from her brother, we feel her grief. “Twelfth Night” is not all romance and laughs.

Flink is founder and artistic director of Black Label Movement (BLM), a dance company famed for its physicality, athleticism and daring. He has given the play an explosive energy. Forbes climbs a ladder in leaps. Hanna swings high and wide over the audience. Agnew skips to the top of a platform. Dolo rolls and splashes across the moat.

There’s nothing timid about this “Twelfth Night.” Not Yi Zhao’s sensitive lighting, or Sartje Pickett’s appealing music, performed by members of the acting ensemble. Or Ann Closs-Farley’s outrageous costumes. Or Naomi Dawson’s imaginative set, made of boards, rusted metal, ropes, water … and a profusion of red and white balloons. It’s an outstanding production, one in which everything seems to go right.

“Twelfth Night” continues through March 22 on the Guthrie’s Wurtele Thrust Stage. FMI and tickets ($25-79).

“The White Card” extended, “Parasite” at the Film Society

Claudia Rankine’s “The White Card,” directed by Talvin Wilks, was set to close on March 1. Penumbra has added another week to the run of the regional premiere, which now ends March 8. Rankine is an important and provocative voice in today’s conversations on whiteness and race. Here’s our review of the play. FMI and tickets ($20/$35 seniors/$15 students).

Following Bong Joon Ho’s Oscars rout, MSP Film is still screening “Parasite” at the St. Anthony Main Theatre through Thursday, Feb. 20. Yes, you can stream it (on iTunes, Amazon, and other services, not yet on Netflix), but isn’t it more fun when someone else makes the popcorn? FMI including trailer, times and tickets.

The picks

Thursday at The Museum of Russian Art: Jeff Alessandrelli and Paula Cisewski. Co-presented by Rain Taxi and TMORA, this looks to be a perfect pairing of poetry and art. TMORA recently opened its latest exhibition, “Vladimir Dikarev: Poetic Surrealism.” Rain Taxi has selected two poets they feel are a good fit. Alessandrelli is the author of two poetry collections, including “Fur Not Light,” which takes its inspiration from the work of Russian Absurdist authors. Paula Cisewski is the author of “The Threatened Everything,” described as “a look at the lies we tell ourselves in order to be functioning grown-ups.” All of TMORA’s current exhibits will be open during the event. A reception will follow. 7 p.m. Free, but registration is requested.

Thursday through Saturday at Pillsbury House Theatre: Week 2 of “Renegade-ism: Artists on the Edge.” Pillsbury House is midway through a three-week commitment to presenting new works by local independent artists. For “Call to Remember,” four nationally renowned dancers will gather for the first time to create a work that prioritizes blackness and explores remembrance as a way to cultivate community. Leslie Parker is a Bessie Award winner; Vie Boheme is a singer, dancer, actress, poet, choreographer and Motown native; Mayfield Brooks is artist-in-residence at the Center for Performance Research in Brooklyn; Amara Tabor-Smith is artistic director of Deep Waters Dance Theater and a Dance/USA Fellow. Thursday through Saturday, 7:30 p.m. FMI and tickets (pick-your-price; regular price $25).

​“The halfway underground homes of ‘Parasite’ are real spaces of desperation and dreams​,” The Los Angeles Times

I don’t think many in the U.S. are particularly familiar with “how the other half lives” in their own country, much less the rest of the world. “Parasite,” this year’s best picture winner at the Oscars, brought us into the lives of a South Korean family striving to make it out of poverty. Many of the movie’s scenes were filmed in their dank half-underground apartment. This Los Angeles Times piece is a look into banjihas, these sub-street level apartments, in Seoul. —Greta Kaul, data reporter

“Mozilla lost the browser wars. It still thinks it can save the internet,” Protocol

As a person who still uses Firefox as my primary browser, I’ve been pleased by the changes Mozilla has made to it, and to their other efforts, in recent years. This look at how they think about their role in shaping the internet, whether or not most people use their browser, is encouraging. —Jonathan Stegall, user experience engineer

“Inside the web of side agreements, loan payments and secret funds keeping the Generals in Jackson,” Jackson Sun

The Jackson Sun of Jackson, Tennessee, reveals the lengths the small city went to keep a minor league baseball team, including hiding millions in spending. One finding by the Sun: The city used more than 90 percent of its marketing budget to reimburse the Generals team for things like fireworks, jersey giveaways and charity golf tournaments. —Walker Orenstein, workforce and environment reporter

“The billion-dollar disinformation campaign to reelect the president,” The Atlantic

Reporter McKay Coppins wanted to experience President Trump’s campaign from the inside, so he signed up for MAGA Facebook groups, followed Trump allies on Twitter and put himself in the position of getting micro-targeted ads. What he experienced was a different reality, “one shaped by coordinated bot attacks, Potemkin local-news sites, micro-targeted fear-mongering, and anonymous mass texting.” —Susan Albright, managing editor

When you make a new opera, no small thing, you hope it will live on beyond its original production. “The Shining” – music by Paul Moravec, libretto by Mark Campbell, based on the novel by Stephen King – premiered here in 2016, a product of Minnesota Opera’s New Works Initiative. It was a sensation, selling out and earning rave reviews.

In 2020, “The Shining” will be presented by the Lyric Opera of Kansas City and Opera Colorado. And it’s coming home as part of Minnesota Opera’s 2020-21 season, announced yesterday afternoon.

But don’t get too impatient. MNOP is making us wait until May 2021 to see it again. And it won’t be the same. Much of the cast will change, including the leads.

Baritone and former Minnesota Opera resident artist Thomas Glass, a grand prize winner of the 2019 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, will step into the role of Jack Torrance. British lyric soprano Nadine Benjamin will make her U.S. debut as Wendy Torrance. And Grammy-nominated bass-baritone Aubrey Allicock will sing Dick Halloran.

It will still be scary. “The Shining” isn’t the only horror opera, but it may be the only one that makes you want to shout “Wait! Don’t go in there!”

The season will begin in September with a revived production of Mozart’s comedy “The Abduction from the Seraglio,” last seen here in 2008 and set aboard the Art Deco railcars of the Orient Express. October will bring MNOP’s first-ever presentation of Tchaikovsky’s epic romance “Eugene Onegin,” set in the palatial estates and grand ballrooms of 19th-century Russia.

February will feature the Minnesota Opera debut of the new opera “Blue,” with music by Jeanine Tesori and libretto by Tazewell Thompson.

Tesori has written five Broadway musicals, including “Fun Home,” for which she won the 2015 Tony for Best Original Score. It toured to the Orpheum in 2018. Her other Tony-nominated scores include “Caroline, or Change,” which was a hit for the Guthrie in 2009 and put Greta Oglesby in the spotlight.

“Blue” is very new; it premiered in 2019 at the Glimmerglass Festival. Its story is sadly timely: the killing of a young unarmed black man by a police officer, and how this tragedy affects his family and community. Thompson will stage direct here, as he did at Glimmerglass.

In March, the opera will premiere its own new production of Rossini’s “Cinderella.” The two leads will be double cast, with Hongni Wu and Taylor Raven alternating as Angelina, Jack Swanson and Carlos Enrique Santelli as Don Ramiro.

Then – at last! – “The Shining,” which opens May 15 for six performances.

All productions will take place at the Ordway Music Theater. Season ticket packages are available now. Individual tickets go on sale in July.

11th Italian Film Festival to open

The Italian Cultural Center of Minneapolis/St. Paul and MSP Film Society have partnered once more on a festival of Italian comedies, dramas and documentaries. From tomorrow (Thursday, Feb. 20) through Sunday (Feb. 23), nine Italian films never before seen in Minnesota will screen at the St. Anthony Main Theatre.

One is an early taste of this year’s Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, which will start April 9. This is the 100th year of Federico Fellini’s birth, and MSPIFF will honor the master director by presenting four of his films. You won’t have to wait to see “Lo sceicco bianco” (The White Sheik, 1952), Fellini’s debut as a solo director and his first collaboration with composer Nino Rota. You can see it this Sunday afternoon.

The opening night film is Phaim Bhuiyan’s debut feature, “Bangla,” a romantic comedy about the challenges of love caught between different beliefs. Bhuiyan directs and stars in a story based on his own life as a young Italian man in Rome of Bangladeshi origin and Muslim faith. He’ll be a special guest at the opening night party, stay around for a post-screening Q&A and give a master class on Saturday.

All films are shown with English subtitles, not dubbed. FMI including trailers, times and tickets.

The picks

Thursday at Mia: Third Thursday: Afrofuturism. An evening of art-making, poetry, music, dance, yoga, and a panel discussion, all celebrating blackness across space and time. Check out the tour of “Vision 2020 Contemporary Photographic Portraits,” featuring three groundbreaking photographers from Africa. 6-9 p.m. FMI. Free.

Friday and Saturday at Augsburg University: Reinaldo Moya and Caitlin Vincent: “Tienda.” First presented in May 2019, when Moya was composer-in-residence for the Schubert Club, “Tienda” is a chamber opera that tells the story of Luis Garzón, a Mexican musician who immigrated to Minneapolis in 1886 and opened a small Mexican grocery store (tienda) in St. Paul in the 1920s. It became a community hub for the newest arrivals from Mexico. With music by Moya and words by Vincent, “Tienda” explores the immigrant experience. As in 2019, it will be presented in a partially staged version. Performers are a cast of five singers, the Augsburg Choir and the Augsburg Orchestra. 7 p.m. both nights at Hoversten Chapel in the Foss Center. Tickets are required and include two options: free balcony seating or $20 “immersive theater seating,” which includes samples of Mexican food and beverage.

Opens Saturday at the Bell Museum: Lauren Gunderson’s “Silent Sky.” Add this to the list of must-see site-specific productions: a play about an astronomical researcher, staged in a planetarium. The Bell Museum teamed up with Theatre Pro Rata to produce Lauren Gunderson’s “Silent Sky” in its new Whitney and Elizabeth MacMillan Planetarium. Gunderson is the most-produced playwright in America; she often writes about women in history, science and literature. Her topic this time is Henrietta Leavitt, one of the women “computers” who worked at Harvard College Observatory in the early 1900s. Brilliant. 7:30 p.m. FMI and tickets ($30-$12). Closes March 8.

Monday at Minneapolis Central Library: Talk of the Stacks: Erika Lee. Current hostilities over national borders are nothing new; they trace back to pre-Revolutionary days. In conversation with journalist Tom Weber, Lee, an award-winning immigration historian and U of M regents professor, will talk about her latest book, “America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States,” a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award. Doors at 6:15 p.m., program at 7. Free and open to the public. Overflow space with live feed will be available. Book sales and signing will follow. FMI.

By 4 p.m. Wednesday, people were already lining up at the doors to the Carlson Family Stage at Northrop for a program that wouldn’t start until 6 p.m. They were there to hear Gloria Steinem, this year’s Distinguished Carlson Lecturer, in conversation with MPR’s Kerri Miller.

Arguably the world’s most famous feminist – she has also been called the “mother of feminism,” which must tickle or annoy her, since she has no children and never wanted any – Steinem has spent most of her life fighting for women’s rights. Now 85, she’s still traveling, speaking, listening, keeping up with politics and news, making waves.

At the lecture, the University of Minnesota’s new president, Joan T.A. Gabel, began her opening remarks with, “How great is this? Can we just say that?” The U’s first woman president confessed to sneaking her mother’s Ms. magazines. After calling Steinem “one of the foremost advocates of our time, a leader and a trailblazer,” Gabel noted that “a life of purpose and service to others makes the world better and fairer and more just, but it also changes trajectories for generations of people … and women like me.”

Earlier, we met with Steinem in her dressing room at Northrop, trying not to think about the fact that this elegant woman in a red blazer and leather pants was the Gloria Steinem. This interview has been edited and condensed.

MinnPost: You’ve been fighting for the Equal Rights Amendment for almost 50 years. What do you think the chances are that it will pass?

Gloria Steinem: When we first took it up – of course, it was left over from the first wave [of feminism, the suffragists] – we thought, “How hard can this be?” The public opinion polls showed that the vast majority of people supported it. And then it got up to the last three states and it became very, very difficult.

It took us a long time to figure out that the problem was the insurance companies. They would have to revise the actuarial tables, which would cost them a lot of money. I’m not sure myself the degree to which that is still the problem.

Today there are so many questions, political questions, that I don’t know if we can come out with a clear path to what may happen.

MP: You’ve said that when you were a young journalist in New York, there was no language for sexual harassment. How did we get to the #MeToo movement?

Then Catharine MacKinnon – our legal theoretician bar none, born in this state – included sexual harassment under sex discrimination law. Then there were three cases, all brought by black women, two against the government and one against a bank, and all were won. It’s been a progression since the early 1970s.

It wasn’t such a problem for me because I was always a freelancer. I never had a job, so I couldn’t be fired. When a new woman freelancer arrived in New York, I would share with her the names of editors she could work with.

MP: Imagine you’re 28 – the age when you infiltrated the Playboy Club and wrote about it – only it’s 2020. What are you doing now?

GS: Trying to get rid of Donald Trump. Nothing is more important, right? We all have to do that. Who is the sexual harasser? The number of complaints against him has risen to 100. But the press seems to think the story has already been told.

We’re the majority and he’s not. He never won the popular vote. He won largely because of the Electoral College, and also because after eight years of one party, people vote for change for the sake of change.

I’m worried – I think we’re all worried – about the legality of the vote, and what happens when people go to the polls. We’re worried about Russia and a lot of things. But I’m not worried about the majority of Americans. I think they clearly are not going to vote for Donald Trump.

MP: You call yourself a hopeaholic. Are you feeling hopeful?

GS: Yes. Not unrealistic, because there are all these dangers. But I think just from traveling and listening to people, I hear the evidence that the majority was never for him. It’s a third of the country that’s mad, because they are being deprived of the old hierarchical divisions – race, gender, class – they depended on.

MP: Is the patriarchy crumbling?

Yes. It’s crumbling partly because the strain of being superior is causing all kinds of health problems. And mostly because the democratic movement of saying “Hello, human beings are all human, we’re each unique individuals, gender is made up, race is made up” – that understanding is growing. But it’s not going to be easy.

***

Earlier that day, we were texting a dear friend in Atlanta, an African-American former civil rights worker around Steinem’s age. We mentioned that we were on our way to interview Steinem. She texted back, “Give her a great big THANKS from an 86-yr-wise Greatgranny that she helped to set free!”

During the Carlson Lecture, Miller asked Steinem a question submitted by a member of the audience: “It’s been 100 years since women gained the right to vote, yet we’re still legislating women’s bodies. How do we ensure women are at the center of making choices about their rights?” Steinem had a one-word answer: “Vote.”

Soon after, she said, “I’m going to work my heart out for any of the Democratic candidates.”

Julie Taymor’s new movie, “The Glorias,” is based on Steinem’s New York Times best-selling memoir “My Life on the Road.” It will be released in the fall, ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

The Distinguished Carlson Lecture series is presented by the Humphrey School of Public Affairs with support from Carlson and the Carlson Family Foundation.

From a distance, Mia’s neoclassical columns are looking very festive. All six have been wrapped from bottom to top with squares of orange, purple and blue.

Come closer and you see they’re life jackets.

The pillars are a work of installation art by Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei called “Safe Passage.” The life jackets were discarded on the beaches of Lesbos, a Greek island, by refugees making the perilous sea journey from Turkey to Greece. There are 2,400 life jackets on Mia’s pillars, for 2,400 people who paid too much for them, strapped them on and climbed into overcrowded boats.

Inside Mia, “Doryphoros,” the classical Greek perfect man, is absent from his usual perch in the Rotunda. The center of the marble plinth where he stands is a jagged hole. Suspended from the ceiling above is a giant metal drum. It’s beating slowly from within, a sound so leviathan-like it reverberates through the museum. The niches in the Rotunda walls are bare, and the frames that once held labels are empty.

Called “Let Us Pray for the Water Between Us,” this is a work of installation and conceptual art. Created by Cristóbal Martínez and Kade L. Twist, aka the arts collective Postcommodity, it comments on the need to protect and preserve our shared sources of water. The booming song honors the Dakota and other indigenous people. The drum and the otherwise empty Rotunda challenge the historical canon of Western art and Mia’s colonial foundations in one fell swoop.

Mia is the first U.S. museum to present “Safe Passage,” which has previously been seen in Germany, Japan and Chile. “Let Us Pray” was commissioned by Mia. Both are here because Gabriel Ritter, Mia’s contemporary art curator, wanted to bring an exhibition called “When Home Won’t Let You Stay: Art and Migration” to Mia, but he also wanted to broaden it and seat it within our community.

Ritter added a third installation, “Living Room,” a space created by Twin Cities-based art collective CarryOn Homes where people can meet, connect, reflect, hang out on handmade pillows and share their stories. He added interviews with people from our community, available as audio recordings on your phone.

Organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, “When Home Won’t Let You Stay,” which opens Sunday (Feb. 23) in the Target Gallery, is a harrowing response to today’s most urgent humanitarian crisis: the migration, immigration and forced displacement of millions of people because their homes are no longer safe, or no longer there. Its name comes from a poem by Somali-British poet Warsan Shire that begins, “No one leaves home unless/home is the mouth of a shark.”

“La Mer Morte (The Dead Sea)” is many pieces of blue clothing on a floor, symbolizing bodies washed ashore. “The Crossing” is an 11-channel video installation with stories of LGBTQI+ refugees now living in the Netherlands. “Angel Exterminador/Exterminating Angel” is a gong-like instrument made from a section of the Mexico-United States barrier.

There are photographs of objects discarded by refugees, and thousands of refugees’ faces, and a child of a Bosnian asylum seeker who grows from girl to woman in front of the camera.

“When Home Won’t Let You Stay” must have been tough to live with and install. “It was,” Ritter said. “For me, this is a very personal show. My grandparents and my father were refugees to this country in 1949. They left from Germany. The family was eradicated by the Holocaust. So yeah, it’s really hard, and a very emotional story to tell.

“But I think this is what museums stand for, to have these difficult conversations and share this multiplicity of identities. We are a country of immigrants, but what does it mean to unpack these experiences? What does it mean to show not just the artistic side, but also the personal stories? That’s why it was so important to include what we’re calling the community voices.”

You can see “Safe Passage” and “Let Us Pray for the Water Between Us” for free. Both are outside the Target Gallery. “When Home Won’t Let You Stay” is ticketed ($20/16/free) but not timed. Mia will let you leave and reenter. If you want, you can take a break and look at something cheerful, then come back. Opens Feb. 23 (Sunday), closes May 24.

The picks

Tonight (Friday, Feb. 21) through Sunday at Nautilus Music-Theater: “The Golden Ass.” We’ve written earlier about interesting developments in opera in the Twin Cities. One of the most provocative will be on display this weekend at Nautilus, the black-box theater across from the Saints stadium. The 113 Composers Collective will premiere “The Golden Ass,” its modern setting of the Cupid and Psyche myth, as an experimental opera, an ascendant genre that asks you to leave your preconceived notions about opera at the door. A blogger who’s been following the project writes “It may be surprising to see the room arrangement” and “The performers will not act in the ways they might in a traditional opera.” Composed by Tiffany Skidmore, libretto by Patrick Gallagher, directed by Joey Crane; the performers include Quince Ensemble, with Carrie Henneman Shaw as Psyche. 308 Prince St., #190. 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. FMI and tickets ($15/5; 18 and under free).

Friday and Sunday at the Cedar: The 2020 Cedar Commissions. Supported by the Jerome Foundation, now in its ninth year, the Cedar Commissions program gives emerging Minnesota composers time – and money – to make something new. Artists receive $3,500 and a $1,000 production stipend to create and premiere 30 minutes of new music. Friday will include Anat Spiegel’s “My Four Mothers,” Freaque’s “Fury” and Ilan Blanck’s “La Primera Vez Que Me Siento Seguro.” Saturday will feature Tensae Fayise’s “Ye Terrarou Tenfash,” Dua Saleh’s “Strings and Heart Beats” and Rebecca Nichloson’s “Multicolored Musings: Jewels of Love, Loss and Triumph.” Doors at 7 p.m., shows at 7:30. FMI and tickets ($10/$15 two-show pass).

Friday through Sunday at the Trylon: “Downtown 81.” Featuring Jean-Michel Basquiat on the brink of fame, this day-in-the-life film is a snapshot of early 1980s New York street art, music (John Lurie, Debbie Harry, Kid Creole and the Coconuts), fashion, the avant-garde and life on the margins. The Trylon will screen a new 35MM print. FMI including times and tickets ($8). Here’s the trailer.

Saturday at Bethel’s Benson Great Hall: The Sounds of Gospel. Produced by William Pierce, directed by Jevetta Steele, created for Black History Month, this musical anthology chronicles the history and richness of gospel music in song, dance, and drama, from African rhythms to slave work songs and today’s contemporary gospel. With Tonia Hughes Kendrick, Cornisha Garmon, Geoff Jones, J. Michelle Caldwell, Fred Steele Jr., Ashley Commodore, Jackson Hurst, Samia Butler and Jermaine Thomas. 3900 Bethel Drive in Arden Hills. 7 p.m. FMI and tickets ($12-27).

Sunday at Hamline’s Sundin Music Hall: The Chamber Music Society of Minnesota: Haydn’s “The Seven Last Words of Christ.” Using former U.S. Poet Laureate Mark Strand’s “The Seven Last Words” as text, Lou Bellamy will narrate Haydn’s profound reflection on Jesus’ final utterances from the cross. A transcendent work that begins with a musical introduction and ends with an earthquake, it will be performed by a string quartet led by violinist Ariana Kim. 4 p.m. FMI and tickets ($25/15).

Last year, I inherited an old button-up wool shirt in red and black buffalo check. It’s a heavy piece of clothing, made of thick, itchy wool, with cuffs worn from years of wear.

The shirt had belonged to my grandma, a woman who died before I was born. She’d had it since she was younger than me: There’s apparently some picture somewhere of her hoisting a beer stein at a late-1940s University of Minnesota sorority function in it.

She and my grandpa took their three girls camping every summer when they were little. On these trips, my grandma often wore this shirt. It used to smell like campfire, my mom said, and seeing the shirt again after so many years brought back lots of memories.

The shirt came out of retirement at a good time. Buffalo check has been having a moment. It was featured in a New York Times magazine style piece. It was spotted on Kylie Jenner. It’s suddenly everywhere.

But in Minnesota, it never really went away. Buffalo check is synonymous with the northwoods, found in cabins, on throws, in the governor’s residence, and on Paul Bunyan’s enormous plaid shirt.

How did buffalo check become so deeply tied to life here?

Origins

Like buffalo plaid’s biggest fashion icon, the history of the pattern is somewhat shrouded in legend.

The origin of buffalo check isn’t Minnesotan at all, or even American. It’s Scottish. The pattern, which alternates red checks, black checks, and dual-tone red and black checks, is listed in the Scottish Register of Tartans as “Rob Roy MacGregor,” and dates to the early 1700s.

It got the name “Rob Roy” through association with Rob Roy MacGregor, a Highland outlaw-turned Robin Hood figure immortalized in a Sir Walter Scott book. (Members of the Clan Gregor say the “Rob Roy” name is a misnomer, since he wasn’t, they claim, a member of their clan. They call it MacGregor black.)

Woolrich supposedly named the pattern “buffalo” in honor of the young man who first weaved it for them, who kept bison on his hobby farm. According to the Baltimore Sun, John Rich II, the co-founder of Woolrich, traveled to lumber camps with a mule-drawn cart to sell his wool goods in the surrounding mountains.

Checkered past

Minnesota can’t claim to have invented buffalo check, but it is very popular here.

Bemidji Woolen Mills, one of many companies that produces buffalo check, has been making goods in the pattern since the year the company was founded, 1920, said Bill Batchelder, the company’s fourth-generation owner. But checkerboard-patterned plaid seems to have been in the area before then.

The logging boom was mostly over by the 1920s. As lumberjacks became scarce, the clothing manufacturers who had once catered to them set their sights on a new target demographic: the leisure class.

“Sportswear came about because people had money — they were able to spend money on clothing that was specialized for certain activities,” Daly said: Like logging, hunting and fishing were then considered manly pursuits, and men looked to the image of the lumberjack as they dressed for the outdoors.

Around this time, the myth of Paul Bunyan, the giant lumberjack who made lakes with his footprints and combed his beard with pine trees, made his way from logging camp lore to the the broader public imagination.

Red River Lumber Company, in Akeley, Minnesota, hired an illustrator to draw Paul Bunyan. William Laughead’s stories and illustrations brought Paul Bunyan to life for a wider audience in a series of pamphlets marketing Red River Lumber products.

In Laughead’s illustrations, Bunyan was first depicted in red and white plaid, Daly said. At some point though, Bunyan became oft-associated with red and black. In statutes in Minnesota and Maine — even the animatronic Bunyan at the Mall of America — he’s depicted in red and black buffalo check.

Bemidji style

Batchelder has been working at Bemidji Woolen Mills, the company founded by his grandfather and great-grandfather, since 1972. In his early days there, he wondered why his family kept producing buffalo plaid year after year after year.

“I always challenged my father, my grandfather and my uncle. I said, ‘When are we going to do something new? This red and black, we have it every year. I’m looking at these other fashion houses; they change every single year,’” Batchelder remembered. “My grandfather said ‘The red and black buffalo shirt has always been our best-selling shirt. It continues to be our best-selling shirt.’”

Every year, the Bemidji Chamber of Commerce organizes a Bemidji Day at the Minnesota State Capitol. But nobody gets on the bus to go unless they’re wearing a red and black buffalo check shirt or vest from Bemidji Woolen Mills, Batchelder said.

Because the red and black is so distinctive, Batchelder’s heard Bemidji Day is the most well-recognized at the capitol.

Pretty much every governor in recent memory has had his own Bemidji Woolen Mills plaid shirt, Batchelder said — since long before Gov. Tim Walz, a notorious wearer of red and black plaid (Batchelder said Walz’s favorite jacket is not quite buffalo check, and perhaps only half-joked that he’s heartbroken it was made by Filson, a Seattle brand).

As for the pattern’s lasting appeal?

“It looks really good on everyone, whether you’re a young person, a middle-aged person or an older person,” Batchelder said. “It really goes good with khakis. It goes good with jeans. It goes good with black pants. It just seems that it is probably the most multi-purpose plaid out there.”

Bringing back plaid

Susan Brown, a textile curator at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, said she thinks the enduring popularity of buffalo check might have to do with its place in history. “I think of logging, or woodsmanship more broadly, as a kind of northern version of cowboy culture — a particularly American form of being in nature as a working person, rather than a hiker/tourist/pleasure seeker,” she wrote in an email.

Daly doesn’t think it’s necessarily a coincidence that Buffalo check was so big in 2016 and 2017, though its popularity seems to have diminished somewhat more recently. Buffalo check evokes warmth, coziness, and it cuts across class distinctions.

“You have to look at the politics. People are trying to find some safety net, I think,” she said.

The Chaska Community Center was alive with activity Saturday afternoon and evening, with a packed indoor water park and meeting rooms overflowing with people of all colors and concerns. Inside the theater, a group of about 100 poets, artists, and writers that make up Mehfil-ae-Minneapolis took to the stage to, as the event’s program notes had it, “promote and advance the rich Indian and Pakistani traditions of kavi sammelans and mushairas (poems). It is our sincere hope that the presentations you see today will inspire you to awaken the hidden poet/writer within you.”

Moreover, the event came with a “Poetry Against Hate” theme that was inspired by India’s ancient poetic traditions, as was the program’s original poetry, all read in the languages of Hindi (spoken by over 490 million people on earth) and Urdu (104 million). MinnPost took in the Mehfil-ae-Minneapolis event, in photos and interviews:

Event organizer Santosh Sharma: “This is basically an Indian literature festival of the Indian subcontinent promoting two different languages, Hindi and Urdu. The people who write poetry in these two languages are getting this platform as an avenue to express their best poetic work. Forty-nine poets auditioned, and 18 will present today.

“The significance of this is unity and humanity, and the theme for today is love. Forget your religions, forget your differences, and join together. If you look at the tensions between Hindus and Muslims and Muslims and Christians, and all of the religions, that divide is growing day by day. So the attempt of this is to bring us together. Today we have Muslims and Hindus coming together for this day, joining hands, while the Hindus and Muslims might be battling in India, or Kashmir, or Pakistan.

“The poets and the artists are the only ones who can promote this message, because the pen is mightier than the sword. We all know this. The poets are the best people to send very strong messages that we are together, we are not going to get divided. This is beautiful ancient work, and these are epics that have been written, and there’s a wealth of knowledge in these literary works, but for some reasons we are getting more and more away from our literature, our roots, our culture. So this event attempts to get all of that addressed.”

Sheetal Kulkarni: “I am reading something special that I wrote for a very special person. She is in India, and she has been through a lot of ups and downs in her life, life has been very brutal to her, and it’s just an expression of what all she has gone through and what she should do now. She plays all these roles: She’s a daughter, sister, mom, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, and at some point she forgets who she is as a person, so the message in that is, ‘Yes, I have done my part. But for just a few moments let me be human.’ That’s how my poem ends.”

Preeti Mathur: “I’m the author of ‘From Seven Rivers to Ten Thousand Lakes: Minnesota’s Indian American Community.’ 

Basically I would like people to know that there is a very vibrant, very diverse, and very accomplished Indian community that has contributed to the state of Minnesota. Especially today in these very divisive times where there is this anti-immigrant rhetoric and all that, I would like people to know that here is a community that is contributing a lot.”

Atul Mishra: “I live in Spring Lake Park, came to Minnesota 40 years ago. I am a sultan, and I am presenting a poem today that in English goes, ‘A red rose is the symbol of love.’ That’s what life is all about — love and living every day.”

Ansh Sarkari: “My poem is a folk piece from India. The language is Hindi. The poem is about the idea of letting go. Something that you hold very dear to your heart, but you have to let it go because of one situation or another. Sometimes things are not under control, and you have to let it go. Will you be sulky about the loss, or grateful and have a big heart and be graceful about letting it go? Be a man about it.”

Co-emcee Gauri Shah read one of her poems: “The poems I am reading today are all about love.”

Priyanka Mundhra: “Originally I’m from India, and we are here in Minneapolis since 2013. This is a traditional dress I bought in India. I’m performing a poem today by a very famous Indian poet, and the poem is a very romantic poem that [translates to] ‘I will meet you — when, where, I don’t know, but I will meet you.’”

Author Cyril Mukalel signed a copy of his book “Life in a Faceless World” for an event attendee. “My book is about building bridges and removing fences,” he said. “I bring the East to the West, and [the book captures] the mindset of the immigrant. The first generation of immigrants is different than the second generation, so when people read this book they will look through their eyes and see a different world and that hesitation, that animosity about immigrants will go away because the fences are removed and we begin to build bridges. People have issues with immigrants because there is a lot of immigration happening now, but when people get to know more about other cultures, they’ll find out that we all want the same thing. We work hard, we come together, and make this country great again. That’s the goal. I want everyone who reads the book to be the face of the faceless.”   

Jigar Modi: “I’m part of the organizing committee. This day is about bringing peace, harmony, and cultural-crossing the boundaries between Indian and Pakistan minorities all the way, and it’s a platform to bridge everything together. Poetry has a deep sense of meaning, and laughter that can bring all of that together, and make harmony for all the nations.”

Meena Chettiar, author of “Immigration Success”: “I want people to realize that no matter which country you come from, each one of us are given a unique gift by God, so let’s bring it out. No matter where you live, people are all the same, good nice people, and you bring out the best in you and contribute to the country that has adopted you. I interviewed 20 people from 20 different countries. When a country has given you everything like the United States has given me — a very good system, good education, good opportunities — I have to give back to the country, too. So the main message is, ‘Do your best and give back.’”

It must be challenging to be as fiercely talented as Danai Gurira. Or simply as fierce. Born in Iowa to parents from Zimbabwe, Gurira is a successful actress whose roles include the sword-swinging, zombie-slaughtering Michonne on TV’s “The Walking Dead” and General Okoye, the head of Wakanda’s military, in “Black Panther.” She’s also a Tony-nominated playwright whose four plays to date have been widely produced, including by Frank Theatre (“Eclipsed” in 2010) and at the Guthrie (“Familiar” in 2018).

Gurira grew up in Zimbabwe but returned to the United States, earning her undergraduate degree at Macalester College. In 2016, she gave the commencement speech there.

After success with “Eclipsed,” Wendy Knox and Frank Theatre worked for eight years to secure the rights to Gurira’s play “The Convert.” Set in Zimbabwe, then called Southern Rhodesia, in the late 1890s, it’s the first play in a projected trilogy. The daughter of academics, Gurira has a deep interest in history and her own roots.

“The Convert” takes place in a single room in a small house in a city under British jurisdiction. The house was once owned by British missionaries and is furnished in the Victorian style, with carved dark wood and upholstered furniture. Now it’s occupied by Chilford (Yinka Ayinde), a Roman Catholic teacher who dreams of becoming a Jesuit priest, and Mai Tamba (Ivory Doublette), his housekeeper.

All the characters are African; all the cast is black. White characters are mentioned but never appear.

From the opening scene, we’re in another time and place. The characters converse in a mix of Shona, much of it untranslated, and English with Shona pronunciations. Ls sound like Rs, depending on how long a character has been speaking and studying English. The production staff for the play includes two Shona consultants and a dialect coach.

The shifting between languages is one of the most exciting things about “The Convert.” Kudos to the cast for making it seem so effortless; it surely wasn’t. And don’t worry, you’ll understand the gist of what’s being said in Shona, even if you don’t understand the words.

As the play begins, Mai Tamba opens the door to a young man and woman, Tamba (Maje Adams) and Jekesai (Ashe Jaafaru). They are running from Jekesai’s uncle (Warren C. Bowles). Jekesai’s father recently died, and according to tradition, Uncle is now the head of the family. He can do what he pleases with Jekesai. He plans to sell her as tenth wife to an old man who is paying the bride price in goats.

Mai Tamba is Jekesai’s aunt, and Tamba is her cousin. If Mai Tamba can talk Chilford into letting Jekesai stay on to help with the housework, Jekesai can escape the forced marriage. The catch: She must convert to Roman Catholicism and renounce her old beliefs. Also her old name. “You need a name that expresses a Christian faith,” Chilford says. He names her Ester. “You look like one – indeed you do, you do.” Just like that, with no discussion, Jekesai becomes Ester.

She evades her uncle’s grasp, learns that she’ll start school immediately, which thrills her (Shona girls didn’t go to school), and moves into a home where the floor isn’t made of cow dung. Ester is a willing student, and smart. She learns English quickly and begins converting others. To Chilford, she’s the protégé he’s been waiting for.

Gurira explores the gray areas of a black-and-white conflict. Her characters are complex and dimensional. Ester’s curiosity and intelligence shine through. Chilford admonishes her for correcting the local priest, Father Bart, when he misquotes the Bible. Ester protests and asks why, and suddenly it dawns: Because he is white. It’s her first experience of racism.

Mai Tamba is pretending to be Christian to keep her job with Chilford; Ester is not. She embraces the faith and takes seriously her charge to convert others. (She tries to convert her cousin, Tamba, and suggests “Phineas” as his new name, but he won’t have it.) Prudence (Hope Cervantes) is a sophisticated, highly educated woman who chafes at the inequality of her times. Chancellor (AJ Friday), Chilford’s friend and the man Prudence is engaged to marry, is an opportunist, an interpreter for the white mine owners, and a predator. In one of the play’s disturbing scenes, he turns his gaze on Ester.

Beneath Chilford’s insistence that the old practices and superstitions must go, and his dismissal of his country as “this land of barbarians,” his own heart is broken. He misses his family, his mother’s cooking and especially his father.

Frank Theatre, in general, doesn’t bother with trivial plays. “The Convert” has much to say about colonialism, white supremacy and the use of religion to change and fragment cultures. As it builds toward a shocking ending, which isn’t that surprising if you listen to what the characters are saying, the tension rises. And the performances – all of them – are confident and strong. Ashe Jaafaru carries much of the weight on her slender shoulders. We first saw her as the Lady in Brown in Penumbra’s 2018 revival of “for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf.” We hope to see her again soon.

Directed by Wendy Knox with her usual sure hand and humanity, “The Convert” continues at the Gremlin through March 15. FMI and tickets ($30/25).