Films are chock full of over-stimulation. There are the car chases, the special effects and, in comedies, the gross-out humor. When a film combines such humor with actual substance, it's a big deal. The...

Chris McDuffie stinks up his room in Sanford Hall. "My roommate comes in and says, 'Oh! What's that smell? - Chris must be doing some shoes,' " McDuffie said. The first-year student uses acetone, a scratch...

The vacant and steamy Grain Belt Office Building has been inhabited by thespians. They turned the rooms into nontraditional stages and display cases for abstract works of art. It's up to the audience to...

Our generation has grown up on Steve Buscemi. We've seen him play crazy characters in Adam Sandler movies, supporting quirky roles in blockbuster action movies and, of course, Donny from "The Big Lebowski." Yes,...

Here's a joke for you: Finals are in three weeks. Graduation follows. Then the degree-bearing are thrust into the job market. What? You're not laughing? Well, Aaron Christopher finds a great deal of humor...

In February, Toussaint Morrison posted audition notices for his new play, "How it is," on and off campus. The poster asked viewers whether they'd ever dealt with bad boyfriends, white people, other people,...

Michael Martin doesn't know what prompted the madness behind "Verbatim Verboten." In 10 years the Minnesotan collected some 200 transcripts of private conversations between the famous and infamous. Actors...

With shows like "The OC" and "Veronica Mars" on TV, high school kids have been getting a lot of slick street cred lately. The new film "Brick" takes the trend even further, using film noir to punctuate...

Virginia Burke and Maria Asp attended the University "an eternity ago" and have worked at Frank Theatre for almost as long. But the passing of time doesn't make their jobs as actors any easier - especially...

Tucker Max makes a living by being an asshole. And then he writes about it. He uses the stories on his Web site www.tuckermax.com, and his new book "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" to disrespect women...

Warren C. Bowles has been a part of the Mixed Blood Theatre for all of its 30 years. Most recently, he was invited to be a part of a production about current black culture. A self-described "old fart,"...

This is too easy. Paramount Pictures slaps an offbeat romantic comedy together with cutesy-tootsy Sarah Jessica Parker and ruggedly adorable Matthew McConaughey and calls it "Failure to Launch." I was...

While preparing for rehearsal, Barbara Kingsley glanced over to see her husband and daughter giggling together on stage and gave them a look only a mother could. While they have acted together in other...

The next time you're anywhere near a music-emitting machine and your friend doesn't know the artist or song playing, I beg of you: Don't say, "What? You've never heard of The Puking Lampshades?" Man, I...

Thanks in part to the genius of Jim Henson, many people think of puppets merely as child's play. The same puppets that entertain children challenge adults. They ask them to look deeper, suspend their disbelief...

Sex is a powerful and versatile thing. It is physical passion. It hurts. It sells. And at its best, sex connects people, whether figuratively or literally. The Penumbra Theatre's national premiere of "Sex...

People quit their jobs all the time, with or without two weeks' notice. But, when you quit your job as an actor in a production, the replacement process is a little more Ö dramatic. Such is the case this...

A father and son sit at the kitchen table, talking. The father pops a few red grapes into his mouth and the son sips water. But itís not a casual heart-to-heart. The son asks his father questions in a...

The history of women in theater is, like much of womenís history, a struggle for recognition. There was a time when women of the theater could not solely be actors. For example, in 13th-century China,...

Three University theater students wanted to put on a play. The theater company they created to do so was an afterthought. But now that afterthought will be what lasts. "We asked ourselves, Why do all this...

Marc Halsey isn't a math major, but he knows how to multiply his singular dramatic energy into almost a dozen characters. Halsey, a senior Bachelor of Fine Arts acting student, wrote and stars in a one-man...

God enjoyed a cocktail at Joe's Garage in Minneapolis last week. He brought a small gong and explained the mysteries of life, all while sipping his drink. Every Monday, the restaurant and bar attracts...

Koren Zailckas missed out on adolescence's innocence because she was drunk. "To this day, I can't remember when I had my first kiss." With this, she begins her troubling and acclaimed memoir, "Smashed:...

Carolyn Swiszcz's paintings feature faded signs and buildings that have seen better days. The peeling paint of windowframes peer sadly at the bright skies behind them. Her work is featured in an exhibit...

The Theatre de la Jeune Lune's newest production again proves why it received the 2005 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre. "Amerika, or The Disappearance" opened in Cambridge, Mass., in June....

The tiny Theatre in the Round missed a big opportunity. With its current production it became the first U.S. theater to honor the influential playwright Henrik Ibsen on the 100th anniversary of his death. But...

It's no shocker that while rehearsing, dancers might forget a step or two and need to be gently redirected. But in rehearsals for the production "Lethologica," that forgetfulness had a certain irony. The...

Eight musicians, aged 18 to 54, sit in a semicircle playing leather-cased bamboo flutes called atenteben. The sound of the atenteben resonates deep in the eardrums, creating eerie echoes in a variety of...

A couple of years back, Lisa Bol and Matt Spring, then-sophomore theater students, sat in Middlebrook Hall's dining hall and talked about what it was like to be fresh meat in the University's theatre department. They...

Ryan Reynolds, who has made a career of entertaining frat boys in films like "National Lampoon's Van Wilder" and "Harold and Kumar go to White Castle," plays the same character over and over again. And...

Remember hopping on the yellow bus for another boring field trip and sitting with your "best friends" on a smelly old seat adorned with duct tape? Remember that ride being, by far, the best part of the...

Directors usually have months to prepare for a production. Stephen Kanee had 24 hours. Kanee, 64, came out of two years of retirement to teach this fall. On the first day of the semester, he discovered...

He cradled a 500-year-old black and silver Japanese sword, sharp enough to shave with, and slowly placed it on the floor. He adjusted the pants of his uniform, or hakama, and kneeled before his instrument....

Being self-absorbed never looked as cool until Josh Carson tacked an honorable goal to it. Carson, a University theater alumnus, started Mainly Me Productions in May 2004 with the help of his friend, Justin...

On a deliciously crisp fall Saturday at midnight in northeast Minneapolis, bodies glistened with perspiration as the funk, the heat and the soul emitted from The Front. Attached to Ground Zero, an 11-year-old...

Last week, Rachel Drehmann dined at the swanky W New York Times Square Hotel amid rehearsals for her Carnegie Hall performance. She reflected on how approximately a decade earlier, she didn't care about...

After waiting outside a conspicuous office building at 9 on a sticky night in Minneapolis' warehouse district, David Harris, one creative mind behind "Nate on Drums," Minnesota's own entertainment TV show,...

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. In March the Daily reported that...

Backstage at the Old Arizona, six University students warmed up. They gave each other backrubs, practiced their British accents and wandered in their underwear. Playwright Nick Ryan, 21, quietly approached...

When May Mahala acted as a chauffer for award-winning playwright August Wilson during his visit to the University three years ago, the two talked. He told her stories about race, about people, about life. Now...

Members of the Cedar-Riverside Business Association discussed options Friday that would make parking at Seven Corners more plentiful and less confusing. Business owners, land owners and city officials...

Rosy cheeks and cold puffs of warm breath Wednesday covered the snowy front lawn of Coffman Union as Winter Warmth from U welcomed donations for its second annual Fill the Bus clothing drive. University...

Passion and excitement electrified the air as the founders of the student group Winter Warmth from U prepared for the Dec. 1 second annual Fill the Bus clothing drive. "We want this to become a tradition,...

The new Quiznos Subs restaurant at Seven Corners has business owners in a tizzy over an increasing parking problem. Area business and land owners discussed parking issues and the amendment of GrandMarc's...

A University professor is using a shot technique that uses five times less flu vaccine than traditional techniques. A small dose of the vaccine is injected into, rather than under, the skin. The intradermal...

Republican Patrice Bataglia is seeking the seat in the 4th Congressional District, but a Republican hasn't been elected to it since 1947. This doesn't bother Bataglia, because, she said, she is a go-getter. "I...

Carly Neubauer didn't vote in 2000 because the lines at the Minnesota Department of Health building were too long. "I heard it was a three- or four-hour wait," said Neubauer, a nursing student junior. After...

First-year University student Nic Buron said he is working to make government officials more accessible by running for Ramsey County Soil and Water Conservation District supervisor. "We need to raise the...

With Election Day less than a month away and the Oct. 12 voter-registration deadline approaching, advertising, campaigns and debates aren't alone in trying to grab students' political attention. Young...

Anti-war protestors will complete "The Reading of the Names" on Northrop Plaza today in hopes of reminding people why they think war is not a solution. From noon Tuesday until noon today, students, faculty...