Weekend in the Twin Towns

I was in Minneapolis and St. Paul this weekend (yes, both cities on both days) for a number of events. On Saturday morning and early afternoon, I attended a conference that was billed as the "All-State Theater Forum." It was actually better than I had anticipated. The keynote speaker, David Mann, rather than "speaking" to us about theatre stuff, did a 45-minute excerpt from his 2-hour one-man show about his life teaching and directing theatre in a Catholic high school. I also got some good ideas on teaching and directing Shakespeare, among other things, in the sessions. Well worth the $25 the school paid to send me there. Saturday night, along with my friend K and his wife E, I attended the Guthrie performance of Hamlet. Sadly, we were all a bit disappointed by it. For the most part, it was good, but I didn't like the actor who played Hamlet (not him personally, but the way he played the part), and that's a good 40% of the play (just Hamlet's lines), and the blocking was way overdone. "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?" Sunday was the annual spring Microcon comic book convention. I bought a few half-price trades (my items of choice for looking at when at cons), and found a Martian Manhunter figure I was looking for for only $5 (the same item had been going for well over $50 last time I looked on eBay). Plus, I got some good stuff in my grab bag -- which never happens. Really, never. I think this was the first time I ever got decent stuff in a grab bag.

Any of those three events would have been enough to get me up to the Cities, but all three just happened to fall on the same weekend.