Past Productions 2015 to 2010
[come back often as we continue to update this page]
Click here for 2019 - 2016.
2015
Michael Robins and Roberta Carlson create the play Only One Sophie, based on the stories of Michael Robins' grandmother Sophie Simon Robins.
2014
For ILLUSION’s 4oth anniversary, the ILLUSION Board of Directors headed by Sally Scoggin raise the funds to commission Jeffrey Hatcher’s Hamlet, a new play by long time collaborator with ILLUSION Jeffrey Hatcher. The play premieres on Illusion’s stage and then tours throughout Minnesota with a MN State Arts Board grant supporting it to be performed in eight communities.
In the summer of 2014 Illusion is invited to present My Antonia at the Willa Cather International Festival in Cather’s hometown of Red Cloud, Nebraska. In Minnesota the production and the play win several awards including an Ivey for Katie Guentzel who plays Antonia, and an Ivey award for Allison Moore the playwright. An audience member writes “I felt every emotion-excitement, wonder, loneliness, loss, joy, regret, happiness. It was not only Antonia’s story, or Jim’s story, it was my story.”
Light’s UP! Series of new plays includes Ash Land, the third work Illusion presents by Transatlantic Love Affair. Isabel Nelson and Diogo Lopes take the Cinderella story and transpose it to the Dust Bowl of the 1930’s America. Cherry and Spoon writes the production is “heartbreakingly beautiful.” [Read the full review by clicking here]. I Love to Eat. A Love Story With Food by James Still is a portrait of James Beard, television’s first chef and America’s first foodie. Naked Darrow Gary Anderson’s one person show about Clarence Darrow. Illusion partners with several law firms to sponsor this production and offers CLE credits to attending lawyers. “A warts-and-all portrait compelling in its complexity and its humanity” - Star Tribune.
2013
Following the success of the 2012’s Love & Marriage musical revue, ILLUSION presents a sequel Love & Marriage - What a Difference a Year Makes updated to reflect the changes that happened once Minnesota passed Marriage Equality laws. “Not at all preachy, just sweet and funny and real.” - Cherry and Spoon.
2012
Michael Robins and Roberta Carlson create a musical revue Love & Marriage to combat the negativity, hateful language, and politics that surround an effort to pass a Minnesota state constitutional amendment to ban same gender marriage. The core of the narrative was filmed interviews with nineteen Twin Cities' couples talking about their journey from a first meeting to falling in love to their commitment in marriage. The couples include Kevin Reuther and Gerry Tyrrell, John Novack and Bradley Greenwald, Kristin Johnson and Sidney Curran, Vivian and Jeff Martin, and Isabel Nelson and Diogo Lopes. This play is a critical and a box office success. Lavender’s editor writes “a great example of art changing to reflect society."
My Antonia Minnesota tour.
2011
Fresh Ink Series:
What’s the Word For written by Jeffrey Hatcher, directed by Michael H. Robins, featuring Melissa Hart and Michael Paul Levin.
Jazz adapted by Marion McClinton from the book by Toni Morrison.
No Place Called Home written and performed by Kim Schultz, music by Amikaeyla Gaston, directed by Sarah Cameron.
Dating Your Mom written by Ian Frazier, adapted for the stage by John Gaspard, directed by Peter Moore.
My Antonia Minnesota tour.
2010
ILLUSION commissions playwright Allison Moore to adapt Willa Cather's novel, My Antonia. The world premiere (2010) is in Minneapolis. The production goes on to tour Minnesota in 2011-2012 and Nebraska in 2019.
Always and Forever reprise created by Richard D. Thompson, Sanford L. Moore, and Garry Q. Lewis
