Welcome to the Underground Arts Club – your gateway to the Cities’ hidden creative treasures. Consider it your personal guide to art that deserves your attention. We’re keeping it simple with one single event suggestion, a cool artistic discovery, and a short thematic ramble in each episode. We’re glad you’re here!

The first two episodes of the Underground Arts Club will be free articles available to everyone on Downtown Voices' website. After that, episodes will be sent through an exclusive newsletter to Supporter and Booster level members of Minneapolis Voices. If you'd like to receive them, you can sign up to become a Supporter or Booster member here.

THE MUST-SEE

Ten Thousand Things

If you’re looking for innovative work by some of the best actors, designers, and artists in town, you must see anything by Ten Thousand Things. Everything produced by this company must travel, must be accessible, and must be able to stand up to being surrounded by an audience with all the lights on. You might assume that they’d balance these challenges by producing less challenging plays, or lowering their artistic standards. And you’d be wrong. Keep an eye out for post-show conversations with the director and cast.

Ten Thousand Things fundamentally believes that “theater is better when everyone is in the audience,” and they prove that by performing everywhere the audience might be, including shelters, correctional facilities, low-income senior centers, and after-school programs. These free community performances are funded, in part, by paid performances at other venues. I’ve linked to both options for the theater's latest production below. 

GO SEE: "This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing" by Finegan Kruckemeyer

Various locations; evening (7:30 p.m.) and matinee (2:00 p.m.) performances

Free community performances: Feb. 6-26 (reservations required)

Open Book shows: Feb. 20-23

Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church shows: Feb. 27-March 16

DETAILS

Open Book

PARKING: Small parking lot to the east of the building, street parking available

DINING: Clay Oven is a cozy little Indian place right next door. Or if you’re wanting just a drink and apps, check out the wine fights at Milly’s Wine Bar & Bistro down the block. 

ACCESSIBILITY: Performance is on the 2nd floor, fully ADA accessible. The Feb. 21 show will be audio-described via headphones for interested patrons.

Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church

PARKING: Free parking available in the large lot next to the church

DINING: Cardamom at the Walker Art Center is so much more than a museum restaurant. 

ACCESSIBILITY: ADA Accessible

THE DISCOVERY

While you’re at Open Book, check out the phenomenal gallery at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, currently exhibiting the work of four McKnight Book Artist Fellows. You can also visit the MCBA shop, and buy books, gifts, original art, and supplies to make your own.  

Classes, workshops, and studios are also available – check out their new website!

Gallery and shop hours: Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Sunday 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

FIELD NOTES

A few years ago, I got to see Ten Thousand Things perform Euripides’ "Electra" for a group of men at Ramsey County Correctional Facility. The language wasn’t changed, the story was true to Euripides, and the art was pure art right there in a locked gymnasium with all the lights on. At the end of the performance, the company, led by then-artistic director Michelle Hensley, opened the floor to questions and conversation. One man asked why the Farmer was so generous and kind to Electra when he was putting himself in danger and getting nothing in return (plot can be found here, if you’re interested).

Mikell Sapp was the actor playing the Farmer, and I wish that I could share his answer word for word because it was everything that TTT embodies. “Sometimes we find ourselves able to be something for someone who has nothing and no one. That in itself can be enough.” (Apologies to Mikell for possibly putting words in his mouth here, but this is what I heard.)