'The Shining' and other arts events not to Overlook this weekend

Hitting the scary notes at the Overlook Hotel

You might think that, as unlikely and possibly unappealing operas go, "The Shining" would be on a par with "Nixon in China." Well, as Jack Torrance says in the movie version: You've got a big surprise coming to you. The Minnesota Opera has sold out its entire premiere run of "The Shining," and now is getting $28 a head for standing room.

Paul Moravec, composer, and Mark Campbell, librettist, adapted Stephen King's scary story of a dysfunctional family spending the winter in a vacant but haunted hotel. The two leads are played by Brian Mulligan and Kelly Kaduce.

"I do crazy people a lot," Mulligan told Euan Kerr. "I do lunatics. It's my specialty. I'm not typecast or anything; it's just how it works out. I tell people I'm doing Jack Torrance, they just roll their eyes, like 'Well of course you are. Here we go again, Mulligan.'"

Kaduce added, "The comment I get the most is, 'The Shining?' That's interesting."

"The Shining" opens Saturday at the Ordway in St. Paul and runs through May 15.

Reason to go: All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

When the gods take an interest in prom

If standing through two hours-plus of "The Shining" doesn't appeal to you, another piece of musical theater with good prospects is premiering at the Illusion Theater that same evening: "A Night in Olympus," by the all-star writing team of Jeffrey Hatcher ("Mr. Holmes"), Bill Corbett (Mystery Science Theater) and Chan Poling (the New Standards, the Suburbs, "Glensheen," etc., etc.).

In a chat Tuesday with MPR's The Current, Poling said the show "is basically like stepping into a bright teeny-bopper cartoon. It's fantastic ... it's just goofy."

Poling said the premise has to do with a girl who can't get a date to the prom at her high school, where the faculty are drawn from among the gods of Olympus. At the Illusion Theater in Minneapolis, with previews Thursday and Friday; opens Saturday and runs through June 4.

Reason to go: The hyper-talented Tyler Michaels.

A history of the Minneapolis music scene

Imagine this: There you are, rehearsing your new play about the Minneapolis music scene in the 1980s, with opening night coming up in a week or so. And then you hear the news that Prince is dead. The coincidence is either perfect or awful, or maybe just perfectly awful.

That's the context in which the History Theatre opened "Complicated Fun," an "alternative theater experience" that promises to reveal "how a cold Midwestern metropolis gave birth to so many geniuses of punk and funk."

Whatever else you might think about the "experience," you've got to give it points for timing. At the History Theatre in downtown St. Paul, through May 29.

Reason to go: The pointedly funny Josh Carson ("A Very Die Hard Christmas") is in it.

Walker show puts ordinary pictures to extraordinary use

Should stock images qualify as art? Yes, sometimes. "Ordinary Pictures," a show featuring generic images created for advertising and other purposes, is on display at the Walker Art Center.

"A video montage loops silently on one wall," wrote Euan Kerr after he'd previewed the exhibit. "It shows a series of attractive people each working on a project. One is painting a picture, another glazing a pot. After a few moments each person looks up at the viewer. It's engaging. You get the sense they are selling something — but what?"

Kerr explained that the artist had strung the images together from the web, after having searched for "artist looking at camera."

The Walker show includes the work of 45 artists, and you can get a look at no charge on Saturday as part of the Walker's Free First Saturday program. The day includes family-friendly activities, as well as showings of the classic 1956 Albert Lamorisse film, "The Red Balloon." The show itself runs through Oct. 9 at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

Reason to go: These images are ubiquitous, so you should learn to recognize them. Forewarned is forearmed.

Curtain calls

"Constellations," a smart and engaging play about a love story drifting through parallel universes, runs until the end of May at the Jungle in Minneapolis — though in another reality, it may have closed already. ... "Harvey" doesn't exactly break new ground for the American theater, but the Guthrie's production is solid, funny and touching. It closes May 15. ... This weekend is your last chance to see Penumbra Theatre's "Sunset Baby," about a family struggling over the course of three decades with the consequences of a revolution betrayed. It's a powerful, painful story. ... "Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Musical" continues at Children's Theatre in Minneapolis through June 12.