‘Arts’ Archives
In The Heart of the Beast Theatre Update
BOARD UPDATE AUGUST 12 2021In 2021, HOBT has been working to restart our organization and adapt to the impacts of COVID-19. We considered every path forward that would put us in the best possible position to live out our mission and carry the important work of the MayDay Council into the future.In conversation and with the input of HOBT staff and the MayDay Council, the HOBT Board of Directors has voted to sell the Avalon Theatre, our home since 1988.It”™s time to find a new, smaller home that will allow us to live into our vision of a decentralized MayDay. That includes moving into a new space that is more sustainable and accessible.HOBT is also in the process of moving out of our puppet storage warehouse, which was rented to store the thousands of puppets in HOBT”™s collection.The puppets will return to the artists that created them, museums who can house them (both locally and nationally), and HOBT will be maintaining a smaller collection to carry our work [...]
Summer of Soul
Movie Corner (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) Documentary/Music (2021 Searchlight Pictures) ★★★★★ By HOWARD MCQUITTER II Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969 is the festival all but forgotten, deliberately thrown (literally) down in a basement. Many people in Harlem at the time believed the festival is the main reason racial disturbances that year didn't occur like the previous year after the assassination of Martin Luther King on April 4,1968. All in all, over 300,000 Harlem residents, 99% African American, crowded into Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park) - all outdoors - to see and hear a great tribute to African American music: gospel, jazz, blues, rhythm & blues, and soul. The few cops at the festival are barely visible. Nearly all the security is provided by the Black Panthers for an energetic, peaceful, and historical [...]
A Great Run: Interview with Jack Reuler
Arts, No Chaser By DWIGHT HOBBES Mixed Blood Theatre ushered in authentic multicultural fare 45 years ago and remains at the fore. Owing to the vision of neophyte upstart, founding artistic director Jack Reuler who recently resigned, leaving Twin Cities considerably stronger than he found it. Reuler spoke about his career and the historic venue established “In the spirit of Dr. King”™s dream”. Jack Reuler, by Rich Ryan Did you have any idea what you were doing when you started Mixed Blood? In 1976, at 22, I wanted to espouse a particular world view and didn”™t know anything about theatre. I had a job with a social service agency, the Center for Community Action, to community needs. Shortly before, Ernie Hudson was at Theatre In The Round Players in The Great White Hope. One of the few opportunities for actors of color. It was the bi-centennial, America celebrating its ideals, but not living those ideals. So, Mixed Blood [...]
