Production History
Intimate Apparel
"A fine as silk staging."
—Star Tribune
—Star Tribune
2016-17 Season
Fiddler on the Roof
"This playful production feels both timely and timeless"
—Pioneer Press
—Pioneer Press
2016-17 season
Pericles
"I should give up seeing anyone else do Shakespeare — no one does it like Ten Thousand Things!" —Cherry and Spoon
2016-17 season
The Changelings
"What do you get with TTT?...Theatrical perfection. And The Changelings is no exception."
howwastheshow.com
howwastheshow.com
2015-16 Season
Dear World
"…captures the daffiness, the world-weariness and the charm of this musical."
—Pioneer Press
—Pioneer Press
2015-16 season
Henry IV Part I
"Engaging from start to finish." —Star Tribune
2015-16 season
Forget Me Not When Far Away
"An insightful, witty new play. It is the kind of show that makes theatergoing a pleasure." - Star Tribune
2014-15 Season
The Unsinkable Molly Brown
"The Unsinkable Molly Brown is a rambunctious winner." - Star Tribune
2014-15 season
Romeo and Juliet
"...lean, urgent and in-your-face immediate...an overall arresting and vivid production." - Star Tribune
2014-15 season
Dirt Sticks
"Dirt Sticks makes magic out of tragedy and second chances." - City Pages
2013-14 Season
The Music Man
"Rarely has this show seemed so generously poignant, so sentimentally honest." - Star Tribune
2013-14 season
A Midsummer Night's Dream
"Hensley's skill with Shakespeare has long been established... a crystal-clear, fast-paced, and thoroughly entertaining evening." - City Pages
2013-14 season
A Streetcar Named Desire
"an intimate and revealing staging." - Star Tribune
2012-13 Season
The Seven
"...a riveting staging. The taut production moves and grooves on the bodies and voices of actors who lyrically transport us." - Star Tribune
2012-13 season
Measure for Measure
"...an exemplar of what good Shakespeare - let along good theater - should be...two hours of terrificness." - Pioneer Press
2012-13 season
Vasa Lisa
"A luminous and ingenious production." - Star Tribune
2011-12 Season
As You Like It
"...top-notch production, filled with love and laughter, the bittersweet tang of longing and the redemptive power of possibility." - Pioneer Press
2011-12 season
Il Campiello
"This might be the most fun you have in theater all fall." Star Tribune - Star Tribune
2011-12 season
Man of La Mancha
"Man of La Mancha reaches into the mind, heart, and soul in a way that all the flashy sets, cast of thousands, and bold, auditorium-filling voices never manage." - City Pages
2010-11 Season
Doubt, A Parable
"Ten Thousand Things' sharp, taut production of John Patrick Shanley's parable on modernity and tradition is a must-see." - Star Tribune
2010-11 season
Life's A Dream
"Ten Thousand Things' members do so many things well that it's perilous to say 'this is what they do best.' I've made that claim for their Shakespeare. But 'Dream' shows a rich love for the allegorical fable." - Star Tribune
2010-11 season
My Fair Lady
"Small-scaled and disarming, this staging offers a different set of pleasures, leavened with intelligent awareness while still finding the fun." - Pioneer Press
2009-10 Season
Stones In His Pockets
"...Epp and Lichtscheidl harness a precious alchemy...With director Michelle Hensley, these two actors carve out giddily distinctive work." - City Pages
2009-10 season
Othello
“Ten Thousand Things' cast is solid top to bottom, there are brilliant moments of stagecraft." - Star Tribune
2009-10 season
Raskol
“This production feels as alive, and relevant, as if it had been created from scratch." - City Pages
2008-09 Season
Endgame
"The resonance was achingly inescapable...wordplay crackles, the pace is always insistent." - Star Tribune
2008-09 season
Twelfth Night
"Two and a half hours of the most accessible, interesting and joyful Shakespeare you're likely to see for quite a while." - Pioneer Press
2008-09 season
Once On This Island
“The powerful myth shines through in this joyous telling of a sweet love story." - Star Tribune
2007-08 Season
Eurydice
"It's phenomenally moving stuff." - City Pages
2007-08 season
Richard III
"Intimate, articulate, so emotionally honest that we wait achingly for each line...Ten Thousand Things produces this community's best Shakespeare." - Star Tribune
2007-08 season
Little Shop of Horrors
“Whatever TTT lacks in stage wizardry, they make up for in skill, craft and pure pluck…[TTT’s actors] each give their characters fresh, vibrant coats of honesty and humanity.” - Pioneer Press
2006-07 Season
Blood Wedding
“Deeply poetic yet also accessible." - The Rake
2006-07 season
The Merchant of Venice
“What a treat” - Star Tribune
2006-07 season
Red Noses
“A well seasoned feast, contributing a variety of flavors and textures, from sweet and savory to crisp and creamy." - Pioneer Press
2005-06 Season
In a Garden
"Especially daring . . . an hour long play date with three very inventive, rambunctious children." - Pioneer Press
2005-06 season
Antigone
“This is an urgent and raw production that muses on the delusion of absolute power." - Star Tribune
2005-06 season
Ragtime
“How tiny TTT ever dared imagine it could do justice to the musical Ragtime is utterly beyond me. But it does so. And spectacularly.” - Pioneer Press
2004-05 Season
Iphigenia
“Theater companies often prattle on about their current productions having ‘an amazing relevance for today’s times.’ In Iphigenia, Ten Thousand Things actually delivers.” - Star Tribune
2004-05 season
At Your Service
“A zesty joie de vivre!" - City Pages
2004-05 season
Cyrano de Bergerac
“An intimate, achingly lovely staging.” - Pioneer Press
2003-04 Season
A Winter's Tale
“A dazzlingly immediate production . . . Offers much of the best of what Shakespeare and the theater can be.” - Pioneer Press
2003-04 season
The Good Person of Szechwan
“All the all marks of the best TTT productions. Some of the best actors in town…set off on a journey of great clarity and vision.” - Pioneer Press
2003-04 season
Carousel
“When Hensley decides to take on a musical, she can get slyly subversive.” - Pioneer Press
2002-03 Season
The Island
“The play blossomed through the heart and skill of actors James Austin Williams and James Young.” - Star Tribune
2002-03 season
King Lear
“The acting is superb, as it usually is in TTT productions.” - Pioneer Press
2002-03 season
Anna Bella Eema
"Hensley and D’Amour tap into the alienation that results from a sense of powerlessness in this challenging, dense work." - Star Tribune
2001-02 Season
Miss Julie
“Norah Long is superb in Miss Julie title role” - Star Tribune
2001-02 season
The Furies
“With a superb adaptation by director Michelle Hensley and Lisa D’Amour and a stellar cast, this is production that grabs you by the scruff of the neck and gives you a good hard shake.” - Pioneer Press
2001-00 season
The Most Happy Fella
“A smart, nuanced, big-hearted reading that’s by turns joyous, knock-down funny and almost unbearably poignant.” - City Pages
2001 Season
Waiting for Godot
“[It] might be a difficult play, but the inmates at Roseville “got it” from the start of TTT’s production. . . Sciple leads a talented cast on a romp.” - Star Tribune
2001 season
Cymbeline
“TTT’s Cymbeline challenges itself and its audiences to their highest and best calling… Makes the essence of Shakespeare come brilliantly to life for its audiences.” - Pioneer Press
2000 Season
The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol
“A triumph!” - City Pages
2000 season
The Tempest
“As compelling a production as you are likely to find.” - Star Tribune
1999 Season
The Unsinkable Molly Brown
“Hensley is very gifted with her vision for her company, and knows exactly how to engage her audiences with a delightful physical style, yet without losing the work’s heart and honesty.” - Pulse
1999 season
Measure for Measure
“One of the best stagings of Shakespeare in recent memory.” - Focuspoint
1998 Season
The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
“At the end of the Day Center performance, the audience burst into wild applause. As a parting comment, one man rose and said, ‘That was the best movie I ever saw.” - Minnesota Monthly
1998 season
The Emperor of the Moon
“Serious theaters rarely aspire to or achieve such artistry.” - City Pages
1997 Season
Days are Silver Nights are Gold
A new play, developed in workshops with homeless women and their children, about addiction to drugs and money and losing one’s child to foster care.
1997 season
The Caucasian Chalk Circle
“One of the most memorable theatergoing experiences I’ve had of late.” - City Pages
1996 Season
Mud
A look at the struggles of an impoverished rural woman to teach herself to read while caring for two men who are completely dependent on her. Performed at adult literacy centers and first correctional facility performance here at Hennepin County Women’s.
1996 season
The King Stag
“Ten Thousand Things serves up the fun in bucketfuls…I like the life this troupe has breathed into the tired old lungs of our theater.”
1995 Season
Life's A Dream
Performed for youth-at-risk.
1994 season
Electra
Performed for youth in L.A. juvenile prisons, who effortlessly entered the world of Greek tragedy, being already quite familiar with the betrayal-revenge cycle.
1992 Season
The Good Person of Szechwan
“A soaring, minimalist smash.” - LA Weekly
1991 season