Twin Cities-based theatre company Weird In Public Productions struck gold when they combined the drama of situationships with the looseness of cabaret in their latest show, “What Are We?: A Situationship Cabaret.”

Tuesday night’s show at The Hive Collaborative in St. Paul brought together an intergenerational audience, most of whom were intimately familiar with the limbo that is a situationship, for a night of comedic catharsis. 

“If you’ve ever been in a relationship that took more than 10 letters to describe, you were in a situationship,” Brigit van Gemeren, the show’s producer and emcee, said at the beginning of the show.

Van Gemeren brought charisma, energy and edge to the cabaret, encouraging audience members to laugh at themselves while also forgiving themselves for past mistakes.

“Everyone has their own experiences with unrealized romance,” van Gemeren said in an interview.

Making a cabaret about situationships was a clear choice, according to the show’s creative team of van Gemeren, music director Emily Hensley and performer Margaux Daniel.

“When a romantic non-relationship fails, pretty much all you have left to do is make a playlist about it,” van Gemeren said.

In the spirit of collaboration, Hensley asked the show’s performers to pick songs that resonated with their experiences with romantic confusion, no matter its popularity or style.

The result was a medley of musical and mainstream numbers, and although pitchy and shy in some spots, were highly personal and highly relatable.

Hensley did stage the opening and closing ensembles of “Bad Idea” from the musical “Waitress” and “The Only Exception,” by Paramore.

For “Bad Idea,” each performer held a framed photo of their “situationship,” an idea that was a bit confusing to watch play out. At first glance, it seemed like the performers were reading the song’s score off of the frames.

A key facet of cabaret is its loose narrative structure and inherent informality, which “What Are We?” conveyed with plenty of comedic skits and audience participation.

It wasn’t the kind that fills an audience with dread, however. Van Gemeren, Daniel and Hensley helped the audience comfortably commiserate with each other by relating their own experiences with situationships with laughter and song.

Before the show even began, visitors were asked to write their situationship stories on slips of paper, which van Gemeren read out later in the show.

She, Daniel and Hensley then invited the stories’ authors onstage to beat a pirate ship pinata labeled “The Situationship” with a stick.

Then the performers led the audience in a cathartic chorus of “Casual” by Chappell Roan.

Another highlight of the show was when Daniel named various situationship dynamics and people who had been in them raised their hands and got Weird In Public stickers.

Many people got more than two or three.

The collaborative spirit of “What Are We?” made it the perfect fit for The Hive.

Opened only a year ago by musical theatre veterans Eric Morris and Laura Rudolph Morris, The Hive is a cozy, independent space where artists of all disciplines can rent out for whatever they’d like.

“Inspired by nature’s ultimate collaborators, the humble bee, The Hive Collaborative strives to be an open, inviting and accessible space for artists of all disciplines to thrive and create,” according to The Hive’s website.

The Hive is hidden behind and connected to the Morrises’ home in the Hamline-Midway neighborhood, which is currently decked out in Christmas decorations à la Snoopy’s doghouse.

The theatre itself is a small but expertly crafted black box theater with stage lights, a sound system and a built-in projector.

An energetic duo passionate about all things theatre, the Morrises cited a need for a more intimate and interactive theatre space for audiences and performers alike outside of the glitz and glamor of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis or the Ordway in St. Paul.

“We’re trying to give the people what they want and what they can afford,” Morris said.

Concessions at The Hive are always free and the Morrises said they try to keep tickets at an affordable price point.

Along with hosting shows like “What Are We?” The Hive also hosts various other events such as 16 Bar Bingo which are meant to bring theatre and the community closer together.

With a year in the books, Morris and Rudolph Morris said year two will be dedicated to reflecting on their success and thinking about what the future holds for the Hive.

“We’ve been so lucky to be so successful our first year, especially because it’s just us,” Rudolph Morris said. “There’s this idea of theatre being for older people. We want to use our traditional theatre backgrounds to make something new and bring young people to the theatre.”