The Twin Cities Horror Festival is celebrating its 13th year of delightfully spooky theater and is one of the highlights of our theater year. After years of raving about the fabulousness of TCHF, we've distilled WHY you should add it to your Halloween traditions:
👻 It's spooky (and creepy and gory and funny and clever and lovely and horrifying and thought-provoking)
👻 It's filled with amazing local performers (and a few new discoveries from across the country)
👻 The shows are only a brisk hour long, so you can catch a variety of shows in one day or evening
👻 It's held at the atmospheric Crane theater - convenient to St. Paul and Minneapolis, ample free parking, and a selection of delightful NA drinks at the bar
👻 The festival does an amazing job of getting folks in and out of the theater in an incredibly timely fashion - short lines for tickets, speedy theater changeovers, quick ushers taking tickets, and audience members who know to squeeze in for sold out shows
Keep an eye on our blog as well as those of our Twin Cities Theater Blogger friends for reviews of all eleven shows in Twin Cities Horror Festival XIII (running from October 23 - November 3 at the Crane Theater). On to the reviews for Day One! (See our reviews for Day Two and Day Three as well!)
Fractured Remembrances from Rogues Gallery Arts (past TCHF shows include
Intuition and the Mantis, Charcoal Moon, and
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow) is a twisty tale in which a young couple, Asher and Colton, disappear in the woods. Only Asher is found, and she is haunted for years with not knowing what happened to her or to Colton. When she visits a hypnotherapist, she may wish she had left the memories buried.
The play has a unnerving vibe and some great visuals, but there are a lot of narrative threads to weave together in a short, 60-minute play. Special shout-out to Angela Fox, for having to spend so much of the play in a hysterical state and to Kyle Dekker for some very creepy make-up effects.
Let's Summon a Demon at Debbie's by
Love Drunk Life seems to be the only non-local theater performing at the Festival this year. LSADAD is performed in the smaller Crane Studio space, which is a bit of a shame, because as many people as possible should get to see this fantastic show.
It's always a good sign when you walk into a TCHF show and see a sea of creepy dolls. Bustling among the dolls is an ageless seeming woman in pink housecoat, curlers, and a baby sling where she carries her favorite dolls. This, we learn, is Debbie, who hasn't left the house or had visitors for many years. The action starts when, horrifyingly, the doorbell rings and Debbie picks up a knife to fend off her unwelcome visitor, but it turns out her friends Cara and Lucy have been drawn back to Debbie's house, where they once tried to summon a demon (as you do). Drama and hilarity ensue.
The performances in LSADAD are outstanding; Reagan Kay James as Debbie, Julia Weiss as Cara, and Ashley Rose Wellman as Lucy are all hilarious in this play about demons both metaphorical and all too real. Their timing is impeccable, Brandon Monokian's script is tight and clever, and Rebecca Gilman's direction keeps the action moving in a tight space while allowing the performers to shine.
If you can get a ticket to squeeze into the Crane studio, do! In honor of your teenage and grown selves, see this play! (ps:
here's the full program)
Ghostrunners by Spiral Theater is about a tabletop baseball game come to life in the mind (maybe?) of its creator.
Spiral Theater is fairly new to the Twin Cities theater scene, but they're quickly becoming one to watch. We love their mission statement: "We produce SILLY shows that emphasize our most ABSURD selves, the WILD possibilities of language, and the CREATIVE SPIRIT."
Only a few lines into
Ghostrunners, we realized this is the theater that brought us
Overtoun from last year's
TCHF. And once again, they are telling a strange story while engaging in lightning fast wordplay including puns, double entendres, and anything else they can think of. The wildly clever and complex dialogue (written by Kyle Munshower) is so fast, it takes a moment to adjust to (rather like Shakespeare). The terrific cast (especially Michael Turner as Henry, the game's creator) slips skillfully in and out of multiple characters, and despite the complicated plot, director Kevin Duong clearly delineated where we were in space and time. The baseball scenes were especially well-directed, especially given the small space.
The world of theater is especially unpredictable these days, but apart from the presence of a script, you'd hardly know that director Kevin Duong was stepping in as Damon/Lewbis for an injured cast member. (Playwright Kyle Munshower is also taking turns covering the roles.)
