Theater

The play's the thing," quoth Shakespeare's Danish prince. But it takes more than writing a play to win a Nobel Prize. Sometimes a playwright is awarded for writing the silences.

Sultry jazz led the ballet dancers through their sometimes soft, sometimes sharp movements. A voice suddenly filled the room. "It's a da'k night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets," it said in a tone reminiscent of a Casablanca-style film.

Despite funding cuts, the show will go on for Crisis Point Theatre. The student group plans to use money originally slated for equipment to put on an abbreviated season.

With flashing lights and enough bass to satisfy a 16-year-old's subwoofer fetish, "4-ISH" is not just a show - it's a performing arts bonanza. It combines acrobatics, beat-boxing and kung fu, throwing in some in-line skating for good measure.

Something about "No One Will Be Immune's" performance at the Bryant-Lake Bowl Theater seems perfectly appropriate, finding a natural balance between space, performers and text. The theater, located only feet from restaurant booths, a bar and crashing bowling balls, has the feel of a workshop space.

All the king's horses and all the king's men cannot prove their leader is a deceitful, pompous murderer.

Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap," now onstage at the Minnesota Centennial Showboat, is very much like other whodunits.