Two print shows that deserve your attention are going up in St. Paul this week . First, the College of Visual Arts Gallery will open its biennial illustration exhibition tomorrow, “Illo Minn: Volume Three,” for which it will showcase the work of 25 notable Minnesota illustrators. Each artist will exhibit a print illustration and the original art from which it was derived, along with another original piece of their choosing, and their contribution to the silent auction (about which, more in a second).

"Illo Minn: Volume Three" showcases work from 25 local illustrators and opens Thursday, Feb. 2 at the College of Visual Arts gallery. Design by Andy Powell, courtesy of CVA

The biennial offers a handpicked sampling of the many talented artists we have working in illustration and design in our state, whose work is published in national glossies and big city newspapers, the centerpiece of major ad campaigns, and adorning various and sundry books and album covers all over the world. The included artists spotlight the breadth and diversity of the field and feature a mix of printmaking styles and techniques. Find a full list of illustrators included in this year’s “Illo Minn” exhibition here.

Individually decorated Moleskine by Shannon Brady for the CVA silent auction. Courtesy of College of Visual Arts

The biennial show is a reliably good one, but I’ve especially got my eye on the silent auction offerings. For this year’s fundraising component of the show (all proceeds go toward the CVA Scholarship Fund), the college asked each illustrator to decorate the cover of a Moleskine notebook. These individually embellished Moleskins will be on the block during the exhibition’s opening reception tomorrow night (and available for view in the show), and, if you want one of your own, you can place bids throughout the evening.

Individually decorated Moleskin by James O'Brien. Courtesy of CVA

“Illo Minn: Volume Three” opens with a reception and silent auction on Thursday, Feb. 2 from 6 to 8 p.m. (the auction closes at 7:30 p.m.) at the College of Visual Arts gallery, 173 Western Ave. North, St. Paul, Minn. There will be a panel discussion with some of the artists in the show in the gallery Feb. 9 from 6 to 8 p.m., and the exhibition will be on view through March 3. Gallery hours are Wednesday and Friday noon to 6 p.m.; Thursday noon to 8 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday noon to 4 p.m.

"For the Love of Love," a poster show opens Friday, Feb. 3 at Big Table Studio, in support of Minnesotans United for All Families (and the campaign against the proposed Marriage Amendment)

The second exhibition of note, “For the Love of Love,” opens Friday at Big Table Studio (a design and print shop profiled here just a few weeks ago). This one’s a themed, group poster show held in concert with a fundraiser hosted by the neighboring venue, Amsterdam Bar & Hall, and the coalition of organizations and professional partners behind Minnesotans United for All Families. Funds from these events will go toward the campaign against the Marriage Amendment, which, if enacted, will amend the Minnesota state constitution so that marriage is defined as the union of one man and one woman, effectively banning marriage between same-sex couples; the Marriage Amendment bill passed both houses of the state legislature last May and will be voted on by the public in the 2012 election.

On the Big Table’s website, proprietor Peet Fetsch calls “For the Love of Love” their Valentine’s Day show, and writes, “Valentine’s Day is about love, no matter who that person is. Let’s show the world what we believe love is.” The artists and designers involved in Big Table’s shows are always stellar and many of them particularly adept at creating effective political poster designs; I’m curious to see the work they’ve produced for this cause.

“For the Love of Love” poster show opens Friday, Feb. 3 with a reception from 7 to 10 p.m. at Big Table Studio, 375 Wabasha St. North, St. Paul, Minn. The Minnesotans United fundraising event is that night, but the exhibition will be on view all month in the studio gallery. On Facebook, you can find information about the affiliated St. Paul Professionals Fundraiser, held Friday night at Amsterdam Bar & Hall and hosted by St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman and the coalition of organizations behind Minnesotans United.

Detail from "Postolith" series of five pieces, each 10 by 57 inches, plaster, 2011. Courtesy of the artist

“These look like something out of a fairytale.” That’s the first thing I heard as I walked into the intimate confines of the Gordon Parks Gallery last week to see “Voyage,” Alonso Sierralta’s new sculpture exhibition. I’ve admired his work for years, but puzzled over it, too. His pieces exude an innate otherworldliness,  an almost-of-this-world plausibility, betrayed by an out-of-place detail here, maybe an odd juxtaposition of shape or materials there. His sculptures are evocative of organically occurring forms, but upon close examination, they are plainly fabricated, too, bearing clear evidence of their maker’s hand — chimerical blends of organic and synthetic.

In the gallery, there’s a small selection of Sierralta’s pieces, a mix of old and new work. Here, in the entry of the show, there’s a haunch of some kind, but from a beast I can’t begin to imagine: whose muscular lines are shaped with basket-weaving, tapering to wooden shins and hooves, which themselves are made of resin. Over in the opposite corner of the gallery, a lumpy bracket mushroom is removed from its expected context, but still weirdly at home fixed to the clean, polished lines of its riveted copper basin. Next to it, a series of surfboard-shaped amalgamations of smooth-polished, ivory river stones are mounted to the wall, a row of totems — but look a little closer, and they’re not individual stones at all, but rather a single unit, a thin cast from a plaster mold and endlessly repeatable. On the floor are larger works, elegant and curvaceous motherships, one of them releasing small, clear plastic pods.

"Tejemaneje."

When asked, the Chilean-born artist situates his work within a personal immigration narrative, describing his pieces’ various spores, shoots, seedpods, as metaphors for transplantation; and his sculptures do call to mind the sheer tenacity and grow-anywhere grit of those who, by circumstance or choice, make their lives far from home. But the slightly off-kilter, neither-this-nor-that footing I sense in his work tells me the transplantation’s not always tidy or easy.

“Voyage” is an exhibition of 11 sculptures by Alonso Sierralta, curated by William G. Franklin, and will be on view through March 2 in Metropolitan State University’s Gordon Parks Gallery. In addition to the exhibit, Sierralta will deliver a side lecture in the Ecolab Community Room (which is located adjacent to the gallery) on Tuesday Thursday, Feb. 9 from 7 to 8 p.m., where he will discuss his sculptural practice. At this time there will also be a screening of the short film made by Franklin regarding Sierralta’s work. Gallery hours are Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Friday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The gallery is located on the third floor of the university’s Library and Learning Center, 645 E. Seventh St., St. Paul, Minn.

By Petet Leggett, Walker West Music Academy

In February, Walker West Music Academy will be offering two new programs intended to help support the development of emerging artists.

The Young Artist Professional Development Training Program (YAPTP) will provide students the opportunity to compose, record and promote their own original music by forming a small ensemble in the jazz/improvisation idiom.  Students will have the opportunity to utilize Finale software to support the composition of their own original music.  As students develop a repertoire of original compositions,  they will learn to record use Pro Tools recording software.  After recording their original music and shaping it into an album, students will develop a promotional plan culminating in booking a release show for the album they’ve created.

Supported through the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation  and Traveler’s Arts & Diversity Committee, the YAPTP program will be held over a period of four months per offering.  The curriculum was developed through the collaboration of Walker West teaching artist faculty members David Billingsley, Felix James and Solomon Parham with each faculty member focusing one of the three core areas.

The Digital Music Production Program (DMP) gives students the opportunity to further expand and develop contemporary contexts for music making by focusing on production and recording. Utilizing the Propellerhead Reason 6 software,  students learn about digital music making and its relation to acoustic music.  Students expand their music theory and recording knowledge while programming patterns and exploring digital music editing techniques.  Students also learn about sound design through shaping sound waves and contours with keyboard controllers and internal computer synthesizers.

For Walker West Music Academy these programs represent a new step in expanding the Academy’s artistic programs. For nearly twenty years, the Academy has welcomed students of all ages and backgrounds to share in personal growth through music.  With the Young Artist Professional Training Program and the Digital Music Production program, Walker West Music Academy strives to support the development of talented emerging artists by giving them a broad array of contemporary resources.

Go to www.WalkerWestMusicAcademy.org for more information or call 651-224-2929.

By Iris Shiraishi, Mu Daiko Artistic Director

Mu Daiko is three weeks from the opening of its 15th anniversary concert at the Ordway’s McKnight Theatre!  Rehearsals are in full swing – we’re premiering three new works and are in the process of resurrecting and polishing long-standing audience favorites. And, we’re commemorating this milestone concert with the production of our first-ever DVD concert recording.  Part of the DVD will include interviews with Rick Shiomi, Mu’s Artistic and Mu Daiko’s Founding Director; myself; and current Mu Daiko members.

Iris Shiraishi; photo by Michal Daniel

What does it take to launch a taiko concert?  The first and most exciting part is deciding on a vision for the production. I’ve always been interested in creating an evening’s work that goes beyond a recital of single compositions.  This year, it’s a combination of featuring our best compositions of the last 15 years with an exciting theme: Fire and Flow.  It’s a puzzle, figuring out which of our compositions, old and new, will realize and amplify both.  Some of the puzzle pieces include how a particular piece might look on this particular stage, deciding if I have the right players to make a piece sing, balancing energy levels of different pieces, and balancing the melodies and rhythms between pieces.

I hand over these ideas to the production staff and they make artistic choices in lighting and set design that will help communicate the essence of each song as well as the entire production.  We’re all set with brand-new costumes from the last concert.  Our Mu marketing machine is in place and kicking in nicely – we’re all looking forward to playing for audiences old and new.  Some of them have been to every single one of our 14 previous mainstage concerts!

Rick started the tradition of presenting stellar taiko guest artists and we’re at an apex this year not only with Hanayui and Yoshikazu Fujimoto of Kodo, but Tiffany Tamaribuchi and Megan Chao Smith.  We’re also featuring local artists Alex Lubet (composer/guitar), Maja Radovanlija (guitar), and vocalists/Mu artists Katie Bradley and Sheena Janson.  We are surrounded by such a wealth of talent – locally, nationally, and internationally – and we’re fortunate that they are all willing to be a part of our concert celebrations.

We just finished taping a segment for tpt’s MN Original series and we’re getting ready for our DVD interviews.  There’s a production meeting scheduled with the Ordway on Thursday.  We’re working not only on our pieces but also the transitions between pieces.   And I’m planning a shabu shabu dinner for Mu Daiko folks before the wonderful madness begins.  Taiko, delicious food, and sake – what could be better?

By Nora LeRoux, Teatro del Pueblo

This March, in collaboration with Pangea World Theater, Teatro del Pueblo will bring the Twin Cities theater community, Outside the Circle, a new play by Andrea Assaf and Samuel Valdez, examining the nature of love, and what happens to love when we internalize society’s phobias.  In the story a straight man with cerebral palsy and a queer woman recount their adventures, and share their woes, of unrequited love, and unsuccessful attempts to seduce (straight) women. Their lives on both sides of the border intersect one night when they meet at a Tijuana bar, and become entwined in each other’s stories.  Their parallel and interweaving tales reveal the illusions of normalcy, and the liberation possible when choosing life … outside the circle.

Left to right: Samuel Valdez, co-writer and performer and Andrea Assaf, co-writer and performer

This new movement theater work, directed by Dora Arreola, looks at queerness in multiple ways, from lesbian sexuality to the non-normative experience of living with a disability, and offers a rare and extraordinary opportunity to bring people together across identities and communities.  A funny, heart-breaking, experimental piece about the trials and tribulations of love – one that illuminates the limits of social constructs and opens the question of liberation in new ways – Outside the Circle- will also look at what happens when people who experience different kinds of oppression realize they haven’t necessarily supported each other’s struggles.  It will explore how these characters resolve their contradictions of racial/cultural identity, sexual/gender identity, and the identities we develop related to physical ability.

Teatro del Pueblo is supporting a wide array of residency activites inspired by themes from Outside the Circle. Residencies include: community-based student/artist workshops in play writing, script development, text and movement, and ensemble process, community-focused dialogues and workshops with Latinos, disabled, and/or GLBTQ community members, masters classes in dance-theater, and lectures on the U.S-Mexico border and cross-border collaborations.

Teatro del Pueblo is excited to further the conversation on the complex issues of the nature of life and love by including voices not traditionally heard. Involving the stories of communities who have been forced to exist on the fringes is an integral part of Teatro’s identity and mission as a non-traditional theater and advocacy organization.

In the heart of midwinter, every year since 1886, our city cuts loose for the “coolest celebration on earth,” the St. Paul Winter Carnival. It’s the oldest winter festival in the nation and a fantastically, even ridiculously varied civic celebratory mish-mash: there are curling and snow plow competitions, as befits the season, as well as ice carving and a popular “medallion hunt” through the city, sponsored every year by the “Pioneer Press.” There’s a drag show and a cat show, geo-caching and ice skating; a marathon and even a special outdoor yoga class.

Runs from Jan. 26 through Feb. 5.

Our annual wintertime festival even comes complete with its own vaguely Teutonic legend and accompanying traditions — involving a certain King Boreas (ruler of the North Winds) and his icy queen Aurora and a full royal court, who vie for control of our fair city’s clime and culture with the god of fire, Vulcan, and his mischievous Krewe.

Ice carving is one of the highlights of the Winter Carnival.

There are loads of activities for kids,  of course— parades  and “coronations,” with lots of pomp and fanfare; although, sadly, because of our inordinately mild winter, our family’s favorite of these traditional events, the snow sculpture competition, has been cancelled this year for lack of the white stuff. Grown-ups will flock to the already-sold-out, third annual Beer Dabbler. There will, of course, be an abundance of live music in and around Rice Park, as well as dance and spoken word and various other performances.

The festivities and amenities (notably, food trucks) are most densely concentrated in Lowertown and downtown — particularly in and around Rice Park and in the vicinity of the Farmer’s Market. Even so, for the 10 days of the Winter Carnival you’ll find related happenings all over town. A calendar of events is available on the festival website, though, honestly, it’s kind of difficult to parse, especially if you’re looking for something specific. So, I’ve done a bit of poking around to point you toward the arts highlights of this year’s carnival:

Black Dog Coffee and Wine Bar (the “official warming house” for the carnival), every year hosts the “Winter Carnival Annual Art Show,” a juried exhibition of work by local visual artists. Before you leave, be sure to head next door, to the AZ Gallery, where you’ll find the charming “ Elementary and Middle School Art Show,” which features work by St. Paul elementary and middle-school students.
Both art shows will be on view throughout the Winter Carnival, Jan. 26 – Feb. 5, at 308 Prince St., St Paul, Minn. Admission is free and open to the public.

If you’re a music lover, you won’t want to miss this year’s Deepwinter Bonfire, held at McNally Smith College of Music and the History Theatre. The college has an impressive line-up of improvisational music, spoken word and hip-hop dance, VJs and DJs; headlining the show is Coloring Time, a flexible roster of musicians, including Aby Wolf, Chastity Brown, Peter Pisano (Peter Wolf Crier), Michelle Kinney (Jelloslave), Kristoff Krane, Crescent Moon, Casey O’Brien (Face Candy), No Bird Sing, John Keston and others.
Deepwinter Bonfire will be held Jan. 28 at the McNally Smith College of Music and the History Theatre, 19 E. Exchange St. East, St. Paul, Minn., 55101 and www.mcnallysmith.edu. Doors open at 5:30 p.m., with Improvestra performing at 6, Galactic Soul Arkestra at 8 and Coloring Time (with special guests) at 9 p.m. Dancers, DJs and VJs will perform throughout in the McNally Smith atrium, with food and drinks available. Admission is $5 (free with a student ID).

Poetry in Motion Dance Company will offer two full-length presentations of a new work, “The Ascent” —  it’s the first opportunity to see the production locally (although audiences saw a sneak peek at the Cowles Center opening in Minneapolis this fall); the show’s premiere staging was this November in Poland.
Poetry in Motion Dance Company will perform “The Ascent” on the Winter Carnival’s Rice Park stage, Saturday, Jan. 28 at 10 a.m. and Sunday, Jan. 29 at 1 p.m. with a shorter version to be performed on Feb. 4 at 1:30 p.m., 109 Fourth St. West, St. Paul, Minn.

The Euro Dance Party at the Germanic-American Institute sounds like a hoot. Shake your moneymaker to Euro-pop tunes all afternoon and evening on the grounds of the Germanic-American Institute. The institute’s all-ages “Winterfest” will include live music from Dale Dahmen and the Beats, authentic German Karneval Narren, family friendly activities, Glühwein, beer, brats and a variety of other German delicacies. In the evening, the dance party will head inside, down to the Ratskeller; you can warm up throughout the afternoon in the Winterfest Tent or around the bonfire.
The Euro Dance Party happens Jan. 28 from 3 p.m. to midnight on the grounds of the Germanic-American Institute, 301 Summit Ave., St. Paul, Minn. Admission is free.

The St. Paul Winter Carnival will feature events all over the city from Jan. 26 through Feb. 5. For detailed information on all this year’s events, visit the website: http://www.winter-carnival.com/.

By Tessa Retterath, Theori

On January 10, the Theoroi group attended its fifth event of the season. Theoroi is a group of young individuals who attend local cultural performances together and spread the word about their experience using interactive media. This event was a Schubert Club International Artist Series recital featuring mezzo soprano Susan Graham and pianist Malcolm Martineau at the Ordway Center. There was something wonderful about seeing such a large number of young audience members amongst the almost sold out concert hall.

The Theoroi group met with local composer David Evan Thomas following the Susan Graham performance to discuss the repertoire.

The concert itself was remarkable. To quote Andrew Csavoy, one of the Theoroi participants, “There’s something deeply moving about live acoustic music & Susan Graham’s performance Tuesday night was exactly the kind of experience that left me in awe. One powerful voice can make the Ordway Auditorium literally sing. Susan’s beautiful mezzo-soprano voice bathed my ears with a pleasing warm maple syrup and her charm sparkled more than her “bad girl” one-sleeve asymmetric gown. It’s no wonder that she’s such a rock star in the world of opera!”

Following the performance, the members of Theoroi met with a Twin Cities composer, David Evan Thomas, who helped the group dissect and understand the repertoire they just heard.

Learn more about Theoroi at www.theoroi.com.

A fascinating selection of work from master costume designer Jack Edwards’ storied career — sketches, photographs, news clippings and theatrical ephemera, window displays and couture, as well as 30 complete costumes — is now on view at the University of Minnesota’s Goldstein Museum of Design in the exhibition, “Character in Costume: A Jack Edwards Retrospective.”

A crimson showstopper Jack Edwards designed for a production of "The Misanthrope" at the Guthrie Theater.

After he graduated from Ithaca College in 1954, Edwards left his working class roots behind for a fresh start in New York City, the story goes, with little more than $5 in his pocket, a suitcase and a head for fashion. Since then, he’s spent more than 50 years using scissors, needle and thread to create memorably fabulous theatrical designs, dressing characters large and small for the stage and television screen, storefront windows and holiday parades. He worked in the Big Apple, Santa Fe and L.A., until the early ‘70s, when he settled for good here in the Twin Cities, running the Guthrie Theater’s costume shop for nearly 20 years.

Jack Edwards' costume drawing for "The Misanthrope," staged by the Guthrie Theater 1987.

For his first decade or so in the business, though, he worked in New York, on one notable occasion with Sir Cecil Beaton, whom he helped to create pieces for Katharine Hepburn as Coco Chanel, for a Broadway musical about the legendary fashion designer. In the late ‘60s he headed West — to design for the Santa Fe Opera, followed by a stint in Hollywood, assisting Bob Mackie in outfitting Carol Burnett for her legendary television show. Then in 1971, while on a gig with fellow stage clothing designer Ray Diffen, re-organizing the work room of the Twin Cities’ Guthrie Theater, he so impressed the Minnesotans with his talents, they offered him a spot at the helm of their costume shop, where he remained until 1989.

In the 17 years he designed for the Guthrie’s various productions, he became especially renowned for his flair with period pieces and for his affinity with marrying design and character. On one wall of the exhibition, there’s a quote from Edwards: “Nothing is arbitrary, and if it is — you haven’t done your job correctly.”

Costume sketchs with fabric swatches. Courtesy of Jack Edwards and the Goldstein Museum

His own painstaking efforts are evident in the fine embroidery and delicately tiered ruffles of his Dickensian pieces, and in the careful aesthetic balance of color, cut and texture throughout his work. The details in his millinery, in particular, are marvelous: a surprising wheat stalk, arranged amid the blushing blossoms in a broad-brimmed ladies’ straw hat for Moliere’s “The Imaginary Invalid;” another terrific hat he made for that play is a tall, Pepto-pink little number, decked out with a jaunty twin spray of pink ostrich feathers on each side and finely textured gold detailing just above its narrow brim.

After leaving the Guthrie, Edwards spent the ‘90s crafting “fantasy” vignettes for Dayton’s department store’s large eighth-floor holiday displays, outfitting characters from a different beloved story every year — “Wind in the Willows,” “Cinderella,” “Pinocchio,” “A Christmas Carol.” Among the figures on view in the exhibit, I especially love his pitch-perfect designs for the “Wind in the Willows” figures: creamy spats and pink-accented tweed for Mole and a dapper gold and black houndstooth jacket topped by a casually genteel gray driver’s cap for Badger.

In addition to his costume designs for the theater, the show boasts a handful of sumptuous gowns Edwards has made for solo performers and private clients through the years — among them a number of elegant designs for mezzo-soprano Mildred Miller and over-the-top tulle and satin flounce for popular pianist Lorie Line.

All together, the pieces in the exhibit pay fitting tribute to Edwards varied, accomplished career in theater and fashion design. But the show also offers a fascinating lens through which to consider the crucial contributions of artists behind the scenes at the theater, on whose work the magic and fantasy of the stage rely, but who you rarely see in the limelight themselves.

“Character in Costume: A Jack Edwards Retrospective” is on view at the Goldstein Museum of Design, in McNeal Hall on the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus. Gallery hours and additional information about the show is available on the museum’s website: http://goldstein.design.umn.edu/.  

Since the big holidays, I’ve been going through my calendar, scouring event listings for art exhibitions to see and write about here. But as a lion’s share of St. Paul’s notable visual arts venues reside in the city’s colleges and universities, I’ll be sitting on my hands a couple of weeks more, it looks like, until the new semester’s offerings open.

Myla Goldberg. Photo courtesy of www.mylagoldberg.com

"The False Friend" cover.

The city’s literary scene, though — that’s booming right now, with a host of interesting readings and book discussions, sprinkled in bookstores and libraries, bars and community centers in every neighborhood. I couldn’t begin to list them all here, but one reading in particular this week, Myla Goldberg’s appearance at the St. Paul Jewish Community Center, caught my attention.

Ever since I stumbled across Goldberg’s debut novel, “Bee Season,” a decade ago, like legions of others, I have eagerly read everything she comes out with. No matter her chosen subject matter  — a children’s Man in the Moon fable, the Great Flu of 1918, the hidden byways and bookish corners of Prague — her voice and sensibility are instantly recognizable, marked by a sense of invention and funny-sad insight into family and love and loss that is hers and hers alone.

In her latest book, “The False Friend” published last year, Goldberg tackles mean girls and the vagaries of both childhood morality and memory; I found it to be a surprisingly harrowing but humanely told story and a wonderful read. Listen to an excerpt of “The False Friend,” read by the author on the publisher’s website,

Goldberg will read from and discuss “The False Friend” at the Jewish Community Center of the Greater St. Paul Area on Thursday, Jan. 19 at 7 p.m. at 1375 St. Paul Avenue, St. Paul, Minn. General admission to the event is $9 ($6 for JCC members). Call (651) 698-0751, or visit the website for more information: http://www.stpauljcc.org/.

It’s difficult to communicate the experience of watching Theatre Unbound’s “24:00:00 Xtreme Theatre Smackdown.” I was entertained by this new incarnation of the feminist company’s popular annual event, the 24-Hour Play Project. From what I could tell, everyone in Saturday’s audience for the one-night-only show enjoyed the silliness and scrappy, low-fi spectacle of the evening’s shenanigans. The “Smackdown,” like the 24-Hour Play Project, carries a whiff of both game show and variety hour, which makes sense, given the show’s origins in 2001 as the centerpiece of the company’s yearly fundraiser.

Here’s how it works: actors, directors and playwrights (this year there were 40 participants in all) divide into teams, each of which has just 24 hours to create and stage a short play— from writing, casting, and rehearsal to public performance. These teams must also incorporate a set of givens and plot elements, submitted and selected through an open online vote of audiences and theater folks.

The crowd-sourced “ingredients” for this year were: a prom dress, a short dance break, some sort of “xtreme sports” reference, an element of “concealed delight” and this line of dialogue: “Consistency’s a hobgoblin. It’ll steal your pants.”

A photo from last year's "24:00:00 Xtreme Theatre Smackdown." Photo by Scott Pakudaitis

The resulting six sketches in this year’s “Smackdown” were by turns (sometimes, at once) clever and ridiculous: one girl’s 18^th birthday party reveals a hidden bloodthirsty side of “Minnesota Nice,” a roller derby queen finds herself transported to the royal court of 18^th century France, a pair of sisters make like Buffy on a camping trip in a monster-filled forest, mother-daughter grifters go “promsurfing,” a family finds breaking up hard to do, a couple re-enacts conflicting accounts of their first date. A masked and Spandex-clad (but otherwise pretty mild-mannered) “Crushinator the Corset Buster” served as emcee, introducing the acts and warming up the crowd, aided by her gum-smacking, applause sign-carrying assistant, Maddie “the Baddie.”

It’s like “Iron Chef: Thespians’ Edition,” but with a wrestling theme and less actual competition.

Truth be told, you don’t go to something like this and expect Shakespeare. Nonetheless, amid the hammy excesses and cheeky good fun were moments of genuine and surprising chemistry on stage, real heart or exceptional wit. And speaking of Shakespeare, Theatre Unbound has an all-female production of “Julius Caesar” coming up in a couple of months. While this weekend’s competitive play-acting may have been more party than performance, the evident talent of those involved makes me curious to see what they do with the meatier fare they have planned for this spring.

To find out more about Theatre Unbound, or to keep track of future performances, visit their website: http://www.theatreunbound.com/.