Bedlam Theatre

A new play by Josef Evans,
directed by Maren Ward

Written by Josef Evans — author of Bedlam’s 2006 Fringe hit “Love in the Time of Rinderpest”. — "The Million Dollar Museum" is a darkly hilarious comedy that draws inspiration and form out of museum-style dioramas, folk art, kitschy tourist attractions, and "haunted house" narratives to explore themes of human extinction, American identity, and existential dread.

Thursdays –Sundays — 7:30PM
(no performance Sept. 13)
Opening weekend: Pay What You Think It$ Worth
Thursdays/Sundays $12,
Fridays/Saturdays $15

Tickets available now.Bedlam Theatre presents The Million Dollar Museum, a new play by Josef Evans, author of Bedlam’s 2006 Fringe hit “Love in the Time of Rinderpest”. "The Million Dollar Museum" is a darkly hilarious comedy that draws inspiration and form out of museum-style dioramas, folk art, kitschy tourist attractions, and "haunted house" narratives to explore themes of human extinction, American identity, and existential dread. A team of 12 local visual artists, led by Alina Brennaman, will create the museum’s dioramas. Sound Design by Beatrix Jar.

Vespuccia Abbondanza, a belligerent elderly recluse, has been building a secret tourist attraction in an unnamed desert that explains the history of the universe through her highly refracted and myopic vision. When the museum’s first visitor – a thirsty cowboy – shows up unexpectedly, she begins the tour she has been waiting her whole life to give. Assisted by her two adult children, one reluctant employee and his sidekick, a lonely tuba with a penchant for bad jokes, she leads the way through a collection of bizarrely humorous oddities. As they begin to explore its mysterious depths, powerful forces are unleashed within the museum that send them all on a quest to avoid imminent catastrophe.

Lighting design by Heidi Eckwall

Music and Sound design by Beatrix Jar

Space Design by John Bueche

Diorama Design Team: Alina Brenneman with Christopher Allen, Emrys Stramer, Amy Taylor, Trevor Adams, Soozin Hirschmugl.

Production Management by Kristin Campbell

Stage Management by Rachel Teagle

CAST: Jon Cole, Johann Hauser-Ulrich, Katie Kaufmann, Tom Lloyd, George McConnell, Kimberly Richardson, Carly Wicks, Heather Wilson

ABOUT THE LEAD ARTISTS

Josef Evans is a playwright and theater artist based in the Twin Cities, and a longtime Bedlam Theatre artistic associate. His work has been produced at a number of theaters both nationally and locally, including the St Louis Black Repertory Theater, New Jersey Playwright’s Theatre, Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center (Seattle), Illusion Theater, Walker Art Center, Patrick’s Cabaret, Bedlam, and the Guthrie, among others. He is resident playwright with the Zamya Theater Project, a company comprised of many homeless or formerly homeless individuals that annually creates new works based on the experiences of project participants. Josef is a member of the Playwright’s Center and the Dramatist’s Guild of America, Inc.

Notable recent work by Mr. Evans includes The Only Americans Welcome (commissioned by the Sargent Shriver Peace Institute, Washington DC), a historical drama based on the experiences of Peace Corps volunteers behind enemy lines during a US invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965. Only Americans had its premiere in November 2007 at George Mason University. Notable recent local productions include Love in a Time of Rinderpest, a hit comedy at the 2006 Minnesota Fringe Festival, which was selected for the Fringe Encore series at the Guthrie’s Dowling Studio in February of 2007. Josef also wrote The Turducken, a holiday dinner theater spectacular loosely based on Anton Chekov’s The Seagull. The Million Dollar Museum was commissioned by Bedlam Theater (with support from the Playwright’s Center and the McKnight Foundation).

Maren Ward, director, is co-artistic director of Bedlam Theatre, where she creates, performs and directs original work. Her directing credits with the company include Unhinged!, a collaborative rumination on the old horror classics and the new horror reality, and West Bank Story, an original musical about the Cedar/Riverside neighborhood where Bedlam is located. In 2007 Maren continued this work at the University of Minnesota, working with students and neighborhood residents on a theatrical ceremony celebrating a historic Cedar/Riverside landmark. Since 2004, Maren has directed the zAmya Theater project, an annual creative collaboration of people with varying experiences with homelessness. From ’98-‘08 Maren worked as pageant co-director for the Barebones Productions Annual Halloween Outdoor Puppet Extravaganza which involved the coordination of over 100 professional and community artists on a spectacular nighttime pageant of puppetry, live music, and pyrotechnics. Maren received a 2005 Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant to create a performance with her frequent collaborator Sarah Garner. In 2007 she received a Jerome Travel/Study Grant to attend the Cornerstone Summer Institute for Community-Based Theater in Holtville, CA. Also in 2007 she was awarded a Playwright’s Center/Mcknight Theater Artist Fellowship. She has a BA in Dramatic Arts from Macalester College and has trained at the Moscow Arts Theater School.