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Performance artist and musician Tri Vo loves the work of Theater Mu, and he’s looking forward to seeing them take on the horror genre in the world premiere of Keiko Green’s play “Hells Canyon.” As with many classic horror pieces, we’re headed to a cabin in the woods with a group of unsuspecting friends. They’ve booked a weekend trip in eastern Oregon, near Hells Canyon. In 1887, it was the location where white gang members massacred 34 Chinese gold miners, an actual event called the Hells Canyon Massacre. As the night progresses, supernatural forces threaten to break in, raising the temperature of the simmering tensions among the friends.  Vo recalls being "freaked out” by the digital stage effects in Theater Mu’s staging of “The Brothers Paranormal” in 2019, and he looks forward to seeing how this play and its stage effects work together to create an atmosphere of horror.  “Hells Canyon” runs Feb. 24 — March 17 at the Jungle Theater in Minneapolis. There is a post-show playwright talkback on Feb 25. This show is recommended for ages 16 and up.  Arts appreciator Natasha Brownlee of St. Paul enjoys both the music and the art of Ian Valor. She calls his solo art exhibit “Wild Imagination” at Vine Arts in Minneapolis a “conceptual dreamscape.” Brownlee was particularly intrigued by Valor’s line drawings. Look closely, and you can see a single line of changing thickness; stand back, and the line coalesces into a single image. Valor is color blind, and his earlier work is in black and white. More recent works in color includes bold, eye-catching color combinations.  Valor is the frontman of the rock group The Valors, and his art show also includes a wall of hand-lettered show posters for his and other bands. It’s a visual dive into the local music scene.  “Wild Imagination” is on view at Vine Arts Center in Minneapolis this Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with a closing artists reception from 5-8 p.m.  John Carrier of Winona is a retired scenic carpenter and an ongoing jazz enthusiast. He’s spreading the word about the debut album from H3O Jazz Trio, a father-and-sons group based in Winona. The father in the trio is a composer and former St. Mary’s University assistant music professor named Eric Heukeshoven, who plays keyboard, among other instruments. The band also includes his sons, Max on bass and Hans on percussion and vibes. Carrier loves watching the trio improvise when they perform in person.   Their new album, “TafelJazz,” translates from German to “table-jazz,” a play on “table music.” Carrier says it’s the perfect album to set the mood while sitting around the table with friends. The 12 original songs include guests Janet Heukeshoven on flute, John Paulson of Paulson Jazz and John Sievers of the Rochester-based D’Sievers.  H3O will perform the full album this Sunday from 2-4 p.m. at Island City Brewing in Winona.  Island City Brewing also hosts a Jazz Jam on the third Sunday of each month that combines local live jazz, local beer and local support; it’s a fundraiser for a rotating series of area nonprofits. As of early February, H3O Jazz Trio and Island City Brewing helped support local nonprofits with over $43,000 in total donations from its monthly Jazz Jams. 

St. Paul actor, vocalist and community organizer T. Mychael Rambo wants everyone to know about “The Sounds of Gospel” presented by 2nd Chance Outreach this weekend at the Cowles Center in Minneapolis.  The two-hour show highlights the range and evolution of gospel music, from spirituals to psalms to contemporary songs. Rambo says to expect an evening of music that will have you clapping your hands, stomping your feet and raising up a shout for more. The performances are Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m.  Padma Wudali of Minneapolis describes herself as an amateur musician who plays the veena, a South Indian Carnatic classical instrument similar to a lute. She is excited to see local musician Shruthi Rajasekar take to the Ordway stage this Sunday. Presented by the Shubert Club Mix, Rajasekar’s show is entitled “Parivaar — a Celebration of Community as Family.” (“Parivaar” is Hindi for “family.”) Rajasekar’s music combines both Carnatic and Western classical traditions. Wudali loves her approach to this performance: in addition to presenting her own original, commissioned work, Rajasekar has invited other South Asian Twin Cities artists working in theater, music and visual arts to take part in the performance, thus celebrating the local creative community.  The performance will include a new work by Rajasekar commissioned for the event and film, dance and writing by other Twin Cities performers.   Schubert Club Mix is a regular event designed to make classical music feel less formal and more approachable to audiences. The performance is Sunday, Feb. 18 at 3 p.m. at the Ordway in St. Paul. Children and students can attend for free. Shruthi Rajasekar video Musician Leslie Vincent of White Bear Lake saw the one-person play “Honey, I’m Home” twice during its first run, and she’s excited that the show is back for a new run at Open Eye Theatre in Minneapolis. In “Honey I’m Home,” the main character is a brick house who wants to be a home to a new family. From there, writer and actor Madeleine Rowe goes on to play other characters as well. It’s a show that combines comic clowning and poignant, heartfelt observations about the metaphorical houses we inhabit. Vincent recalls the two performances she saw last time felt “so different, because both audiences were so different, and the performer Madeline Rowe is incredibly adept at reacting to an audience.” The show opens tonight and runs through Feb 24. 

Myron Johnson of Minneapolis, former artistic director for Ballet of the Dolls, recommends “The Conference of the Birds” from Zorongo Flamenco Dance Theatre. The dance piece is based on an epic poem by 12th-century Persian mystic Farīd al-DīnʿAṭṭār. “It’s been performed and created by one of my absolute favorite artists in this community, Susana di Palma,” Johnson said. “I can’t imagine anyone taking this story and doing an interpretation any better than Susana and her live musicians and singers and flamenco dancers and original music.” “The Conference of the Birds” plays Feb. 10-11 at the Cowles Center in Minneapolis. Minneapolis resident Mary Thomas is an art historian and arts administrator. She is looking forward to “In the Middle of Somewhere,” an exhibit by artist Martin Gonzales. An alum of the University of Minnesota’s art department, Gonzales is based in Massachusetts. Thomas sees Gonzales “grappling with questions of how he takes up space and how he can occupy space in different ways.” “The sculptures are a way to think through and meditate on some of those questions through his own life and his own experience,” Thomas said. The exhibit is on display at the Silverwood Park Visitor Center in St. Anthony through Feb. 29. Linda LeGarde Grover, a member of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa in northern Minnesota, is a professor emeritus of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth. She’s very pleased to recommend the Indigenous Writer Series at AICHO in Duluth. The series features Indigenous writers from around the region. “Some of them will actually have drawings for some of their books, and the community will get to listen to them, ask questions of them and especially hear them talking about their writing,” Grover said. The event Saturday will include authors Tashia Hart of Red Lake Nation and Staci L. Drouillard of Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, from 2-4 p.m. at the Dr. Robert Powless Cultural Center in Duluth.

Puppetry artist Sandy Spieler plans to attend Minneapolis author Patrick Cabello Hansel’s book launch Thursday night for his poetry collection, “Breathing in Minneapolis.” The collection arises from the tumultuous events of 2020: the COVID pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, the destruction along Lake Street and the challenges immigrant communities faced. It’s Cabello Hansel’s third collection, and he draws in part from his work as pastor of a bilingual Spanish-English speaking church in south Minneapolis, from which he recently retired. “These are poems of immediate relevance. Here are poems of hiding, of being torn apart, of mourning, of marching, of anger and ultimately of reverent adoration,” says Spieler, “true to the calling of his holy office.”  Poets Joyce Sutphen, Walter Cannon and Dralandra Larkins will also participate in Thursday’s reading, along with Chilean musician Ina-Yukka. The event is at 7 p.m. at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, which Spieler says feels fitting since it served as a medic station during the uprising following George Floyd’s murder.   Art lover Colette Hyman of Winona attended the opening weekend of the exhibit “Aabijijiwan / Ukeyat yanalleh, It Flows Continuously” at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum. The show, which first appeared at All My Relations Gallery in Minneapolis, pairs the textiles of Ojibwe artist Karen Goulet and the photography and collage of Houma artist Monique Verdin. The two artists live at opposite ends of the Mississippi River, and their work explores the health of the water that connects us all. The exhibit includes several collaborations that tie deeply to land and water. There are a series of weavings that the artist buried and later retrieved from various locations along the river, allowing the natural colors of the soil to permeate the work. Hyman also appreciated a “stunning, understated” star quilt Goulet created from cotton dyed by medicine plants grown by Verdin. The light fabric flows and ripples as visitors walk by. The exhibit is on view now through July 7 at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in Winona. Actor and theatermaker Greta Grosch of St. Paul is looking forward to Theatre 55’s production of “Cabaret,” opening Friday night. Grosch appreciates Theatre 55’s role in the Twin Cities arts scene, mounting iconic musicals with talented actors who have aged out of the roles they previously might have played. Grosch enjoys how they push the envelope of the expected, including “Rent,” “Rocky Horror Picture Show” and “Hair.”   All actors are 55 and older, and the show includes a mix of veteran and amateur performers. She’s looking forward to seeing the role of Sally played by Prudence Johnson, whose long career includes appearances on “A Prairie Home Companion.” “Cabaret” runs Feb. 2 – 10 at Mixed Blood Theater in Minneapolis.

Opera lover Miluska Novota of Minneapolis says she’s “saltando en dos patitas — jumping on two feet” for joy as she looks forward to seeing Venessa Becerra in Minnesota Opera’s “Elixir of Love.” Novota loved the soprano’s performance in “The Daughter of the Regiment,” and she’s happy to see a Latina performer take the lead role as Adina. In Gaetano Donizetti’s popular comedic opera, lowly farmer Nemorino (Andrew Stenston), tries to win the heart of the beautiful, strong-willed Adina, and a love potion feels like just the way to go. It’s a plot worth of a telenovela, says Novota, but with beautiful arias.  Novota appreciates that the Minnesota Opera has been “doing such a good job … recruiting singers of color, and bringing communities that may not have felt welcome in the classical world and in opera.”  The production is set in 1916 California. It will be sung in Italian with English captions projected above the stage. The show opens Saturday, Jan. 27, and runs through Feb. 4. Minneapolis-based performer Sam Johnson has long followed the work of choreographer Morgan Thorson, and he’s looking forward to watching her newest creation this Saturday night. “Untitled Night” stands out for its location: it takes place on a frozen lake at night.   “She often tackles these big, huge issues, concepts that we're all dealing with in our lives. But she comes at it in this in a really interesting, very dance-centric way that I really appreciate.”  The 30-minute dance performance investigates our relationship with winter and the night sky, performed as a collaboration of a dozen interdisciplinary artists. There are two shows at 5:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. at Silver Lake in St. Anthony. This performance is part of The Great Northern, a Twin Cities Arts festival that runs Jan. 25 through Feb. 4.  Art lover Marc Robinson of Northfield is looking forward to seeing the third and final installment of an interdisciplinary art project traveling southeast Minnesota that investigates the concept of home. Artist Cecilia Cornejo Sotelo created a traveling recording studio, and she interviewed people in Northfield, Lanesboro and Red Wing about home, belonging and community. In each town, their words were transcribed, and community members embroidered selected phrases onto squares that were then pieced together into a giant quilt. Red Wing’s exhibit includes three large quilts with the Mississippi running across all three, uniting them.  “Embroidering Red Wing: stories of home told with needle and thread” is on view at the Red Wing Arts Depot Gallery through Feb. 24. There is a public reception Saturday, Jan. 27 from 2-4 p.m.  “Embroidering Red Wing” also features an interactive touchscreen, that allows the public to listen to the original, anonymous recording made in 2022, on which the embroidered work is based.  The exhibition also includes The Wandering House - Sonic Archive, a repository of testimonials and ambient sounds designed as an exploration of home from a rural perspective. The archive comprises testimonials that Cornejo has been recording since 2019 with community members in Northfield, Lanesboro and Red Wing.

Carleton College senior Esme Krohn loves the Perlman Teaching Museum on campus, and she was at the opening night of its new exhibit “Towards a Warm Embrace” by Finnegan Shannon and Ezra Benus. The hands-on, interactive exhibit explores themes of ableism and disability as well as the power of touch in a post-pandemic world. Both artists are New York-based, though Shannon is a Carleton grad, and some of the pieces were created in collaboration with Carleton art students. One such piece that Krohn particularly liked consists of a series of heating pads with original cyanotype prints for covers. The heating pads are in a room with warm lighting, creating a space where she could imagine chilling with friends. Many pieces invite visitors to touch them, and there are numerous places to sit, including a bench whose label says, “This exhibit has made me stand for too long.”   The show runs through April 14. The Perlman Teaching Museum is free and open to visitors. It’s located inside the Weitz Center for Creativity on the Carleton College campus in Northfield.   There will be an event connected to the exhibit on Jan. 19, Convocation with Jerron Herman. Sarah Larsson is a Minneapolis-based singer and an organizer of next weekend’s Klezmer on Ice. This Friday evening, she’s looking forward to Abinnet Berhanu’s Ahndenet at Icehouse in Minneapolis. Ahndenet means “unity,” and this performance will combine music from both the East and West African diaspora. Ethiopian drummer and composer Abinnet Berhanu of Minneapolis brings his deep knowledge of Ethiopian and American jazz and pop, featuring the talents of local Ethiopian vocalist Genet Abate. They share the stage with Kevin Washington, who incorporates Afro-Latino, hip hop and R&B beats along with West African diaspora rhythms and jazz.  “One thing that I think is really interesting about Abinnet and his music,” says Larsson, is that “he talks a lot about how there are so, so many different styles and traditions of music that come from Ethiopia, but kind of what people tend to hear is only one very kind of sterilized and also almost Americanized style of pop music. And he’s been doing a lot of work for many years to go down into the roots and study these very specific different lineages. He names the teachers and the singers of the songs. And what he’s trying to do is illuminate and bring together these different styles, by actually naming them and where they come from.”  Artist Brian Sago teaches photography and printmaking at Blake School, and he often includes the photography of Gordon Parks (1912 – 2006) in his classes. Sago was excited to see a collection of Parks’ photodocumentary work at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Parks, who lived in St. Paul during his teens and young adulthood, is considered one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century, in addition to his work as a composer, author and filmmaker. He was the only Black photography fellow with the Farm Security Administration when he met Ella Watson, who worked cleaning the building. The 60 photographs on display portray Watson’s life and work, which Parks used to document the social inequities in Washington, D.C., in 1942. His most famous photograph shows Watson holding a broom and a mop in front of the American flag — a visual reference to Grant Woods’ “American Gothic” painting.  Sago says Gordon Parks’ photographs offer “a window of the history on what it's like to be a Black American. His photographs give such a nuanced level. They’re beautiful to look at: his photographs are all gorgeous. But the sensitivity with which he was taking pictures and the situations he was able to get into by being a Black photographer who was paid by the federal government for much of his career, that’s really profound.”  “American Gothic: Gordon Parks and Ella Watson” is on display through June 23 at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Theatermaker Joe Hendren wants people to know about History Theatre’s Raw Stages new works festival, taking place through Sunday in St. Paul. There’s a reading of a new work-in-progress each day. These are plays and musicals commissioned by the History Theatre, and this festival is an opportunity for the shows’ playwrights and artistic team to see how an audience reacts, and for the audience to ask questions and offer feedback in a Q&A following each performance. Find the line-up here. Hendren is especially interested in seeing “Secret Warriors,” a new play written by Rick Shiomi, a founding member of Theater Mu and co-founder of Full-Circle Theater. The play is about the nisei (second-generation Japanese Americans) who worked with the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II as translators, codebreakers and interrogators. The show highlights a piece of Minnesota history: the Military Intelligence Service Language School at Fort Snelling. That reading is Saturday at 2 p.m. St. Paul artist Stuart Loughridge is looking forward to the opening this Saturday of David Cunningham’s exhibit “City Life” at Gallery 360 in Minneapolis. Cunningham’s oil paintings focus on urban landscapes and on liminal times of day when the light of dusk or dawn does magical things to a city. Loughridge says Cunningham’s paintwork is “exciting and active,” with elements of abstraction, and he appreciates the mysterious narratives of the people who populate his canvasses. Visitors can expect to see familiar Twin Cities sights in a new way. The show runs through Feb. 25.  St. Paul playwright Kyle B. Dekker is a big fan of the Minneapolis band Sycamore Gap, who he always enjoys seeing perform at the Renaissance Festival. The group sings old world, revival and original folk music about working people, with sea shanties and some yodeling thrown in for good measure. Dekker loves their harmonies and bass rhythms.   This Saturday, Sycamore Gap will be the closing act in a four-band local concert in South Minneapolis. The event is a fundraiser for the Arbitrarium, an artist coop that is raising money to buy their building and create housing for low-income artists. The show starts at 7 p.m. and will be livestreamed on YouTube.  

Maricella Xiong of St. Paul admires the work of Urban Roots, a nonprofit community and safe space that serves local youth. This November, around the Hmong New Year, local Hmong youth dressed in their traditional Hmong clothes and took photograph portraits at the Urban Roots’ Rivoli Bluffs Farm. Youth at Urban Roots then selected the final pictures for the show.  “I thought it was a phenomenal expression of cultural revitalization, indigenous solidarity, and Hmong indigeneity in general," says Xiong.  The photo exhibit “Rooted Legacy” is on view now in the front window display of Indigenous Roots, which is a center for arts and activism dedicated to “Native, Black, Brown and Indigenous peoples” in St. Paul. Xiong also recommends stepping inside to enjoy Indigenous Roots’ excellent café and programming.  Rachel Mock of Duluth’s Magic Smelt Puppet Troupe has long been a fan of Bold Choice Theatre Company. Its veteran stage actors are all adults with disabilities, and they’ve been working for more than a year on this Saturday’s country western musical “Sundown on the Jasper County Jewel.” The original show has songs and music by Duluth’s Toby Thomas Churchill. In the show, a traveling band shows up for their booking at the Jasper Jewel, a grand old country music hall that has most decidedly seen better days. Based on past experiences, Mock is looking forward to a high-caliber event with good music and some classic western danger, romance and intrigue.  The musical is one night only, this Saturday, Jan. 6 at 6:30 p.m. at the Duluth Playhouse.   Improv actor and comedian Bailey Murphy of Minneapolis is glad that “Off Book” is back at HUGE Improv Theater this weekend. The half-improv, half-scripted show is a long-running HUGE Theater favorite. Murphy has acted in the show several times over the years, but every night is different. The performance is adapted with permission from Upright Citizen Brigade's Gravid Water. In it, one actor goes on stage with a memorized script for a show, and the other must improv their way through. No matter what the improv actor throws at them, the scripted actor must stay on script. Murphy says the show always gets huge laughs.   “Off Book” opens Jan. 6 at 7:30 p.m. and runs Saturdays through Feb. 24. 

Skylark Opera Theatre performs “The Gift of the Magi” this weekend, and members of the Armstrong High School Opera Club from Robbinsdale will be in attendance. Opera Club adviser Mark Mertens and student officer Grace Pawlak recommended this show for Art Hounds.   They appreciate Skylark Opera Theatre for its short, accessible operas, typically sung in English. This 90-minute opera, based on the O. Henry story, tells of a newlywed couple who each make sacrifices to try to buy the other the perfect Christmas present.   The theater stages operas in intimate settings, so you can see the orchestra and performers up close. “The Gift of the Magi” will be at the 150-seat Lowry Lab Theater at the St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Arts. Shows are Friday, Dec. 15 at 7 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m.  Sontha Reine and her 96-year-old mother, actress Vivian Fusillo, are superfans of Johnson Street Underground, a local four-man a cappella group. The singers are all current or former educators who met singing choir in the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Reine loves the group’s energy and their wide range of songs, from the Beatles to Jason Mraz. This Saturday, they’ll be donning Santa hats for their holiday concert, which takes place at the Winona Arts Center at 7 p.m.  Winona has a great music scene, and Reine gave a shout-out to an additional event: the Sleepy Weekend Festival. It’s a two-day music festival, new this year, featuring and curated by Sleepy Jesus, all-local line-up of including eight other bands. Events take place Friday, Dec. 15 at 7 p.m. and Saturday, Dec. 18 at 5 p.m. at No Name Bar in Winona.  Mixed Precipitation founder and artistic director Scotty Reynolds says there’s still time to catch the play “A Christmas in Ochopee” in its final weekend. Reynolds says New Native Theatre originally commissioned the play by Miccosukee playwright Montana Cypress for its 10-minute playwriting festival. COVID delayed its production, giving Cypress time to create a short film of the piece and expand it into the full play that’s currently on stage. There’s plenty of drama and laughs, as well as some alligator wrestling, in this story set in the Everglades about a Native American college student who surprises his family by showing up for Christmas with his new fiancee.  The final shows are tonight through Sunday, Dec. 17 at Red Eye Theater’s new performance space in the Seward Neighborhood of South Minneapolis. Tickets are pay-what-you-can, with a suggested price of $35.  The upcoming evening performances are theme nights. Thursday is Family Night, with crafts and snacks in advance of the show; Friday is Ugly Sweater Night, and Saturday’s performance invites the audience to “wear your Christmas Best, whatever that means to you!”  

Singer and retired vocal teacher Mary Heston Dahl of White Bear Lake has a special place in her heart for the St. Croix Valley Chamber Chorale. She sang with them for about eight years, but this year she’s looking forward to hearing the performance from the audience. Now in its 49th season, the VCC is the longest-running amateur choir in the Twin Cities, and in that time it’s only had two artistic directors. The chorale includes some 40-50 singers across a range of ages.   This weekend is “Christmas with the Valley Chamber Chorale,” with four performances Fri., Dec. 8 through Sun., Dec. 10. Dahl says the audience can look forward to some familiar carols, beautifully arranged and sung, as well as an opportunity to sing along with a few of them. Performances are Fri. Dec. 8 – Sun. Dec. 10 at the St. Croix Prep Performing Arts Center at St. Croix Prep Upper School. This is a change from the chorale’s typical venue, the historic Washington County Courthouse, which is under renovation. ' Audience members are seated at tables, so buying tickets in advance is best to ensure your party can sit together.  Classical music lover Pauline Marlinski of Gaylord plans to be in St. Peter tonight for a performance by the Gaylord-based ensemble La Grande Bande. Now celebrating its fifth season, La Grande Bande specializes in music written from 1600-1800 (Early Music and Baroque). Their instruments, including harpsichord and viola da gamba, are original to the period. Marlinski appreciates the group’s focus on education as they perform in schools and communities across southern Minnesota.   This weekend’s French Baroque Christmas will include eight singers and six musicians, with artistic director Michael Thomas Asmus on organ. The performance will include a selection of works written for Christmas by French composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704). Marlinski is looking forward to singing along (in English) to some traditional French carols as part of the performance.   Performances are Thursday, Dec. 7 at 7:30 at First Lutheran Church in St Peter. Sunday, Dec. 9 at 7:30 at Church of the Assumption in St. Paul. Each performance includes a short pre-concert talk at 6:45 to guide the audience through the music and composers.  Not all annual holiday shows are serene and thoughtful. If Klingon battles are more your style, then actor and physical comedian Gregory Parks of Minneapolis recommends that you check out “It’s an Honorable Life” at Historic Mounds Theatre in St. Paul. In this telling, Bailey is a Klingon warrior who has a high standing in the empire because of his bravery and his feats in battle. He fears that because he is so skilled, he will never meet a glorious death in battle, which is a great problem for a Klingon. Enter the mysterious Q, who guides Bailey through many possible scenarios of his life. (Parks originated the character of Bailey but for the past three years has enjoyed the show from the audience seat.)  Written by local Star Trek fans, with a local make-up artist ensuring that each actor has a proper Klingon forehead, this play is filled with references familiar and obscure. The show is not endorsed or affiliated with any Star Trek enterprise.  “It’s An Honorable Life” runs Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30, and some Sundays at 2:30 through Dec. 23. Trekkie uniforms of all empires are encouraged but not required. Masks are requested when not eating or drinking. 

Art lover Bill Adams was delighted to visit the Kaddatz Galleries to see Charles Beck: Rarities and Masterpieces. The Kaddatz and other Fergus Falls venues have been celebrating “A Year of Beck” throughout 2023, marking what would have been the Minnesota artist’s 100th birthday. Charles Beck (1923 – 2017) created woodcuts, paintings, and other artworks that often celebrated the landscape of Ottertail County in west central Minnesota.  This is the final show in the series, and it runs through Dec. 23. The pieces in this exhibit include works from private collections that would not otherwise be available, spanning from Becks’ college drawings to his final piece.  “I would say that Charles Beck's works are quintessential Minnesota pieces,” says Adams, who was thrilled to encounter new works of Beck’s at this show. “Yesterday when I was driving home from Fergus, I looked through some bare trees and in the background was a blue sky with white clouds above it, and I thought to myself, ‘Wow, that looks just like a Beck piece.’”  Don Fortner has retired as music director from First Presbyterian Church in St. Cloud. Still, he wants everyone to know about the wonderful music series that Granite City Folk Society hosts at the church and at Bo Diddley’s Deli every month. Fortner was involved in connecting the Granite City Folk Society with the church as a venue during Covid, and he’s delighted to see how the First Fridays concert series continues to grow in popularity. He says the 100-year-old church has excellent acoustics.   Folk artist John Gorka will perform December’s First Fridays concert, Dec 1 at 7 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church. Rupert Wates will be at Bo Diddley’s on Friday, Dec. 15 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are available at the door. Find the concert series schedule here.   Oil painter Laura Lindquist of Stillwater says her favorite holiday show each year is “Letters to Santa,” a one-woman show that had her “hooting and hollering” when she first saw it last year. Actor Janelle Ranek transforms into 10 characters, each writing letters to Santa. Sitting in the intimate setting of Bryant Lake Bowl, Lindquist was astounded by Ranek’s versatility and humor. Each year’s show is different.   This year’s version, “Letters to Santa: Shaken, Not Stirred,” runs at Bryant Lake Bowl in Minneapolis from Dec. 2 – 23. 

Artist and photographer Theresa Drift of Cook, Minn., and theatermaker Payton Counts of Net Lake, Minn., both saw the “Native American Art: Past and Present” gallery show at the Northwoods Friends of the Arts in Cook. It’s a mixture of contemporary and historical pieces by local artists, including paintings, metalwork, birchbark baskets, beadwork and quilting. The show also includes a few pieces from Grand Portage artist George Morrison, a well-known mid-century painter.  Counts appreciated the range of the show, which is presented in one room. “I thought it was nice to see a mixture of contemporary as well as older pieces of work, kind of this like partnership of art connecting to the community."  “It definitely shows the changing culture and [that] it's not a static thing,” agrees Drift. “It's constantly evolving and growing.”  The exhibit runs through Sat., Nov. 25. The gallery is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays.  Art teacher and illustrator Heather Zemien of Brooklyn Park, Minn., has been following Off Leash Theater Productions for the past year, ever since she saw their original “Off-Kilter Cabaret.” She’s looking forward to seeing the second annual production this weekend. The cabaret features seven artists living and making art with a range of mental and physical abilities. The performance includes dance, comedy, puppetry, musical composition, spoken word and storytelling. The show is emceed by storyteller Amy Salloway, whose work Zemien has followed since seeing her on stage last year.  The show strikes a special chord for Zemien, whose late partner was in a wheelchair. She says she’s excited to see and support this all-inclusive show.   “Off Kilter Cabaret” will be performed at the Cowles Center for the Performing Arts in Minneapolis Fri., Nov 17 and Sat. Nov 18 at 7:30 p.m. and Sun., Nov 19 at 2 p.m.  The building is fully accessible. All three shows have American Sign Language and audio descriptions available. Masks are required.  Please note: the accompanying music in the radio piece is “Interlude 4” from A.J. Isaacson-Zvidzwa’s composition “Angels Sang to Me.” Isaacson-Zvidzwa is one of the seven artists featured in this weekend’s “Off Kilter Cabaret.”  Philip Muehe, managing director of the Rochester Repertory Theatre, suggests a romantic comedy musical in Lanesboro, Minn., for your entertainment this holiday season. The Commonweal Theatre Company in Lanesboro is staging the musical “She Loves Me” through Dec. 23.  The show features cheerful, catchy numbers about two shopkeepers who get on each others' last nerve. Secretly, though, they’ve become pen pals through a lonely hearts group. When they finally find out that the person with whom they’ve fallen in love over letters is, in reality, the person right across the shop, heartwarming hilarity ensues.   If that plot sounds familiar, the Commonweal put on an adaptation of the play “Parfumerie” on which the musical “She Loves Me” is based back in 2011. The story was the inspiration for several movies, including the 1998 romcom “You’ve Got Mail” with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.