Productions from 2000 to 1996
Click here for 2005 to-2001.
[come back often as we update this page]
2000
The Young Artists Round Table organized by Peter Rothstein is started. This Round Table is a more formal way for ILLUSION to connect with young artists. Michael Robins and Bonnie Morris want an opportunity to invite young theater artists who, like themselves, are actors interested not only in acting but in creating and developing new work. In the first group of Young Artists are Suzanne Warmanen and Paul De Cordorva.
ILLUSION receives the 2000 Coming Up Taller Award (now known as the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Awards) from the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and National Endowment for the Humanities for ILLUSION’s National Peer Education Program. Bonnie, Michael, Karen Gundlach, Nancy Riestenberg (former Director of Education), and Amber Saussen (Peer Educator) traveled to Washington D.C. to receive the award. Amber told a story of performing TOUCH and a young girl who sat in the front row watched with tears streaming down her face. Amber found out the girl had been abused, the next year Amber was performing again, and the same girl was sitting in the audience, this time she looked happier and more open. Amber said, “It’s been great to be a part of a program that you know is making a difference.”
1999
Bonnie and Michael receive the Sally Ordway Irvine Award for Vision.
Bonnie Morris, Michael Robins, and Karen Gundlach are invited to attend and present ILLUSION’s educational work at the European Conference of the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect in Jerusalem, Israel.
ILLUSION opens the renovated home on the 8th floor of the Hennepin Center for the Arts with the very first edition of Miss Richfield’s Holiday Pro’grum— Fall on Your Knees. The seats for the audience are being installed on the afternoon of opening. and the carpet installers are yet to arrive to cover the floor when the show "goes on" but the bathrooms are in working order!
Fresh Ink: Like Waters Rolling Down - At the request of The Metropolitan Interfaith Council on Affordable Housing (MICAH) ILLUSION creates this musical about justice in housing. A grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Fair Housing Initiatives Program partially funds the project. The musical is also sponsored by the United Way of St. Paul, MN Dept. of Human Rights, House of Hope Presbyterian Church, Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, and Gloria Dei Lutheran Church. The play is written by Bonnie Morris, Michael Robins, Kim Hines with music composed by Michael Keck. The cast includes Jeany Park, Michelle Cassioppi, Brian Page, Aimee K. Bryant, T. Mychael Rambo, Michael Paul Levin, Vanessa Murasa, Amy Anderson, and Kim Schultz.
1998
1997
Michael Robins joins the Board of Minnesota Aids Project, eventually serving as President of the Board. While there he meets The Aids Project’s Public Relations Director, Russ King. Michael invites Russ’s alter ego Miss Richfield 1981 to perform in Illusion’s Fresh Ink Series. Miss Richfield’s physical humor and on the spot-zingers win us over. Russ introduces ILLUSION to his videographer Karl Reichert—who eventually joins and then serves as President of the ILLUSION Board.
Bill Venne moves from Development Director to Managing Director.
1996
Always and Forever created by Richard D. Thompson, Sanford Moore, and Garry Q. Lewis’s musical features the talents of T. Mychael Rambo, Dennis Spears, Julius Collins III, and Togba Norris in 1996. The musical centers on four guys in a barber shop who share their perspectives about love through the R&B songs of the 60’s and 70’s. This show is sold out for 3 months. The team of Richard D. Thompson, Sanford Moore, and Garry Q. Lewis go on to create two more R&B musicals 2gether (1997) with T. Mychael Rambo, Dennis Spears, David Fischer, Yolande Bruce, Connie Evingson, Gevonee Ford, and Angela Joy and Living Beauty (1998) with Aimee K. Bryant, Yolande Bruce, and Dennis Spears.
Later in 2010 with the assistance of Angel Karen Sternal, Always and Forever is re-mounted again to sold out houses and is again remounted in 2012.
Voices in the Rain by Michael Keck. Michael is in North Carolina visiting his family when an intruder tries to break in to his family’s home. When he is on the phone describing the intruder, he realizes that he “fits the description” of the man he is describing. At the police station he looks through the list of potential men who have prior offenses, he sees many of his former school friends have served time. What is the difference between him and the guys who are incarcerated? This incident leads him to create Voices in the Rain—portraits of African American men in prison. The piece is a co-commission with ILLUSION, and it is first seen in ILLUSION’s Fresh Ink Series directed by Kent Stephens and then in the Main Season directed by Stephen Kent.
The CAPS Program, a collaboration between the Hennepin County Juvenile Probations Community Alternative Probation Supervision Program and ILLUSION allows teens in the Juvenile Probation Program to create a play based on their experiences. The first play titled No Stranger to Violence (1996) is a success for the youth in the program. ILLUSION continues working with teens in the Hennepin County Probation Program for 7 years.
Dimly Perceived Threats to the System is created by Jon Klein, directed by Kent Stephens and featuring Beth Gilleland and Chris Denton. The play goes on from ILLUSION’s production to performances at Arena Theater in Washington, DC.
