In the Heart of the Beast Theatre Company Talks With Community About Its Future and “Home”

BY LINDSEY FENNER

“This is the place”

The sparkling Kasota stone façade catches the hot summer sun, reflecting back the colorful buildings nearby: mint-green; peach-pink; and the green, red, and yellow traffic lights of this busy and vibrant stretch of South Minneapolis. A mural meets the stone at the round white and black striped marquee, accented with strips of neon color, at the corner of 15th Avenue South and Lake Street. The marquee is a landmark on a bustling street, an Art Deco vision of the future, a tower of human light reaching to the sky.

Inside, the lobby is a cool respite from the heat. The building is quiet, between the busy MayDay build, and the fall and winter stage shows. The green-trimmed doorways are framed with a Pete Seeger quote. A long table along the length of the lobby is bare, except for a paper-mache blue jay head and a pair of hands, each much larger than life. At one end of the lobby is a shrine and thank you for the gift of water: a humble water fountain, set in a niche of swirling blue glass mosaic, and a mural of the connections and the life that come from water.… Read the rest “In the Heart of the Beast Theatre Company Talks With Community About Its Future and “Home””