RAW STAGES:
New Works Festival

Take part in a new script’s first brave steps from the page to stage! Raw Stages: New Works Festival is your chance to get an inside look at the new scripts in progress and provide feedback for the playwrights.

Cost: $30 Raw Stages Pass  $15 Each Reading

Wed, 1/13, 7:30pm

Disorderly Houses

by Ruth Virkus
During the reign of corrupt Minneapolis Mayor Doc Ames at the turn of the 20th century, the city’s most powerful madams do what they must to survive. Buy tickets

Ruth Virkus, A National Merit Scholarship recipient who graduated with honors from the University of Minnesota Morris with degrees in history and theatre, is also co-artistic director of Ivey Award winning Freshwater Theatre, which produced her critically acclaimed play "Mrs. Charles," in the spring of 2014. In addition to her many playwrighting credits, she is co-creator of a middle grade series of books. The first book in the Tyme series, "Grounded," was released in spring of 2015. The next book, "Disenchanted" will debut in fall of 2016.

Thu, 1/14 , 7:30pm

Sweet Land, The Musical

Book by Perrin Post, Lyrics & Book by Laurie Flanigan-Hegge, Music by Dina Maccabee from the film Sweet Land by Ali Selim and the short story "A Gravestone Made of Wheat" by Will Weaver

The heartfelt story of a young German woman who travels to America to marry a bachelor farmer in the wake of World War I, braving a small town's intolerance and forging a new life under Minnesota's majestic skies. Buy tickets

Perrin Post, Book writer & Director on Sweet Land the Musical, 2015 Artists Initiative Grant recipient to continue work on Sweet Land the Musical. Producer credits: Broadway’s Legendary Ladies (Ordway McKnight Theater, Loring Playhouse, 13 State Tour). Broadway’s Legendary Ladies is only one of Ms. Post’s original concept revues that she has become known for in the Twin Cities. Original shows include Hormel Girls (History Theatre), Monsters, Witches & Freaks; Martinis, Girls & Guns (Loring Playhouse), Vixens (Loring Playhouse, Fringe Festival), Ten Years Later (Hopkins House) as well as directing and producing The Spitfire Grill (Loring Playhouse, Jon Hassler Theater) & Zombies From the Beyond (Bryant Lake Bowl). Ms. Post directed & created the opening numbers for the Ivey Awards for 2005- 2011. Ms. Post acting credits include: Chanhassen Dinner Theater, History Theatre, Troupe America, Mixed Blood, Penumbra, Minnesota Festival Theater.

Laurie Flanigan-Hegge is an actor, playwright, and lyricist. This past fall, History Theatre returned to the Minnesota Zoo with her musical for young audiences, Tales Along the Minnesota Trail. History Theatre audiences may remember her original musicals Hormel Girls (with music by Hiram Titus, conceived by Perrin Post) and 20 Days to Find a Wife, a collaboration with composer Marya Hart. Onstage at History Theatre she’s appeared in Baby Case, Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story and Garrison Keillor’s Radio Man. Laurie serves as the Twin Cities representative of the Dramatists Guild of America.

Dina Maccabee is a versatile and creative musician, specializing in violin, viola, songwriting, and composing. She has toured internationally with Julia Holter, Real Vocal String Quartet, and Vienna Teng, and recently she co-created an original a cappella ensemble setting of Gertrude Stein's "The World is Round" with her experimental folk duo Ramon & Jessica. Dina was the founding Composer in Residence with Just Theater, a politically conscious independent company based in Berkeley, CA, and has worked with Shotgun Players, Crowded Fire Theater, and RipeTime Theater. She has worked extensively with "Sweet Land" film composer Mark Orton over the past decade, and in 2015 earned an M.A. composition from Wesleyan University. A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, she studied viola performance at University of Michigan, and is avidly interested in contemporary interpretations of traditional music.

Saturday, 1/16, 2pm

Paper Daughters

by Jessica Huang
A haunting, poetic story about one family’s migration to Minnesota during the era of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Buy tickets

Jessica Huang is a multiracial, Minneapolis-based professional playwright, recipient of a 2014 Metropolitan Regional Arts’ Council’s Next Step Grant and a 2012 Many Voices Fellowship at the Playwrights’ Center. Her plays, which live at the intersections of race, gender, and community, have been developed and/or produced in the Twin Cities at Mu Performing Arts, the Minnesota Museum of American Art, the Minnesota Fringe Festival, Redeye Theater, The Playwrights’ Center, Pangea World Theater and Pillsbury House Theatre, and nationally at 2nd Generation, the University of Missouri-Columbia, the Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists (CAATA), the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts and the Source Festival. In 2014, Purple Cloud was nominated as one of the best plays written by female playwrights by LA-based group The Kilroys. Jessica also works as a freelance grant proposal writer and fundraising consultant specializing in the arts. For more information: www.jessica-huang.com

Sun, 1/17, 2pm

Teen Idol: The Bobby Vee Story

by Bob Beverage
The musical journey of a kid from Fargo whose rise to fame began “the day the music died.” Buy tickets

Bob Beverage has written or co-written a number of plays that premiered at History Theatre including Sisters of Swing, Christmas of Swing, Coco’s Diary and Let Heaven and Nature Sing. His plays have also been produced at Florida Stage, Capitol Repertory Theatre, the Cedar Crest Stage Company, Old Creamery Theatre Company and the National Theatre for Children (to name a few). Bob’s screenplay, One Who Stole at Christmas, won an IRIS Award for “Best Entertainment in a Medium Market.” He is also a member of Actors’ Equity and has performed at The Guthrie Theatre, Children’s Theatre, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Chanhassen Dinner Theatres, to name a few.

Listen: Bobby Vee's only #1 hit (MPR, Morning Edition)

Read: "Teen Idol" New play tells the story of Bobby Vee (the current blog)