Making the Scene

“The number of people saying they’re self-employed or employed in performing arts as their major occupation was 2,500 in the year 2000. That’s pretty powerful,” Markusen says. “In Chicago, it was 4,600, but then Chicago is a larger place. And their performing artists, as a share of the work force, are slightly below the national average.” In the Twin Cities, “performing artists are 50 percent more likely to be self-employed compared to the rest of the country,” she adds.

That’s an indicator that artists like Rothstein—who is artistic director of his own highly successful decade-old company but freelances widely—can find plenty of work in a theater community that is well known for its size, vitality, diversity, and community and philanthropic support.

While in New York City this summer, participating in Lincoln Center’s prestigious Directors’ Lab, Rothstein reported that “there are 60 directors here from all over the world . . . Africa, England, Finland, Australia.” Talking breathlessly into his cell phone as he walked down Manhattan’s Great White Way, he said, “Everyone knows of the Twin Cities theater community. The Guthrie Theater, with its new building on the international map, and Theatre de la Jeune Lune are the first companies people think of.” (But see the sidebar on Jeune Lune’s recent closing.) “And they know about the funding structures and the foundations that have been critical to the development of theater in the Twin Cities, and that the community has a reputation for supporting the arts.”

Teresa Eyring was managing director of Children’s Theatre Company for almost eight years before becoming executive director in March 2007 of an industry service organization, the nonprofit Theatre Communications Group, in New York City. The Twin Cities is “a highly respected theater community across the country,” she says, and not only the Guthrie and Jeune Lune are signature companies.

“Children’s Theatre Company is the theater for young audiences in the country,” Eyring says. “Penumbra Theatre is one of the leading African-American theaters in the country and has functioned at a high artistic level for many years.” In the Twin Cities, “you don’t find two or three companies doing similar kinds of work. There’s a fascinating differentiation among theaters at all levels.”

Theatergoers can opt for professional musical-dinner theater (Chanhassen Dinner Theatre), Broadway touring productions (the State, Orpheum, and Ordway), the literary canon (the Guthrie’s mainstage and proscenium theaters) or new work from emerging playwrights (the Guthrie’s Dowling Studio). Then there are culturally specific companies: the Penumbra, but also Interact Center (artists with disabilities), Teatro del Pueblo (Latino), Pangea World Theater (international and multidisciplinary), and Theater Mu (Asian American).

Theater companies have their own distinctive aesthetics. The Jungle Theater is committed to the classical canon and new works. The multiracial Mixed Blood Theatre promotes social change and cultural pluralism. Others stage experimental works in prisons (the Ten Thousand Things company); cars, warehouses, and a casket factory (Skewed Visions); and a Minneapolis public-works yard (Frank Theatre).

“Suffice it to say, for a middle-sized city in the middle of the country, there’s a tremendous amount of theater here,” Papatola says. “And that’s happened for lots and lots of different reasons.”

It started, in large part, with the University of Minnesota.