May 7, 2015

The Theater

5/07/2015 — cori


Last Tuesday evening Gavin and I donned our 'We Are Cultured' hats and went on a date to the Guthrie theater.  It makes its home on the banks of the Mississippi River.  This is an iconic Minneapolis venue, from it's sleek modern architecture to it's renowned performances.  Come to find out Minneapolis has the most theater seats per capita after New York city.  Who knew?



This is the view from the elevated deck at the Guthrie - the famed Stone Arch Bridge.  As we quickly learned, Tuesday evenings are a great night for the theater.  There were no crowds and the setting was very intimate.  We were lost in the play for 3 hours straight and didn't even realize it - it was that good. 


Gavin had recently read "The Crucible" in his Literature class.  And what do you know, it just happened to come to town at the Guthrie right afterward.   I would have gotten an 'F' in parenting if I didn't take advantage of this opportunity of epic proportions.  The cast brought this book to life in the most amazing way.  It gave me a much greater appreciation for theater actors.  

I also learned a lot about Arthur Miller, the playwright.  The Crucible was written in 1952 as an allegory of McCarthyism and was not well received on Broadway.  Miller felt like the government was hunting Communists the same way society hunted witches in Salem in seventeenth century America.  Very few people were willing to stand up to the government and their anti-communist fears during this time of history, thus blacklisting him in the eyes of many.   He was even indicted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities because one of his liberal friends gave the committee his name.   

I think I might start wearing my 'We Are Cultured' hat more often.  This was way fun!

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