Photos by Katy Helbacka

Each of the past several weekends have featured music at Bayfront Park. I know this, because I can hear the music from my house at the top of 10th Ave. E. I enjoy the music, and I enjoy being a mile away from the reality of the sound!
In the next few weeks, Duluth will come mightily unsprung as the drama and music programs open up to this new season. All the universities will begin to offer drama and concert programs, the Twin Ports Wind Orchestra will get in motion, and the DSSO, Duluth Playhouse, Renegade, Wise Fool, not to mention the Sutter Brothers, will fill the Northland with lots of artistic options.
Also: if you don’t follow Esther Piszczek and her art offerings monthly, you really should. Her creativity bounces all around the center of Duluth with art and music in full motion.

Glaciers dissolving across the northland

I watched the documentary Chasing the Ice last night, and I urge all of you to watch this superb photographic production about the erosion of the glaciers in several places around the northern hemisphere. The show is pretty scary, mostly because it is so completely true and captured on film.

Assassins (a musical about American reality)

I offer my hearty thanks to Renegade Theater Company for staging Assassins, a 1990 (and onward) play by John Weidman and Stephen Sondheim. As directed by Katy Helbacka, this ‘killer’ play is quite unique in the American theater scene. All the main characters are murderers by intent, although some of them were not actually successful. Is there humor in this, or is it simply Sondheim imagining the humor of failed assassins?
The powerful voice of the evening was Andy Bennett, as John Wilkes Booth, murderer of Abraham Lincoln, and perpetual encourager of assassins in the twentieth century. Bennett’s strong voice and character dominated the show. Only the delightful teamwork of Mary Fox (as Sara Jane Moore) and Emily Bengtson (as Squeaky Fromme) added as much rich character to the evening show. They were not very successful as killers, but they were passionate and hilarious in retrospect.
Jack Starr, as the Proprietor for the evening show, and emcee throughout was quite strong. He told the stories, and brought the conclusions to light with a lot of clarity and energy. The backstage band was crisp and compelling, as Patrick Colvin led the ensemble from his keyboard.
Whom might you wish to assassinate tonight?  The play went through would-be murderers of Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Reagan, Ford, if you can imagine creating a story about all these delusional human beings. It works. Really.
The music is as compelling as Sondheim always is. The Ballad of Booth, The Ballad of Guiteau, the Ballad of Czolgosz, the Gun Song, and Everybody’s Got the Right, carry the theme along with power. In an independent society, we frequently accept the idea that an assassin has the right to step forward and murder the President of the United States. Freedom is a difficult act to perpetuate.
This musical is on stage at Zuccone/Renegade on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, through September 17. Go! It might not be back in Duluth anytime soon. These compelling thoughts ought to be part of your reality.