When theater makers talk about crisis, it’s usually framed as decline. Shrinking audiences, rising costs, empty seats. But in Minneapolis, the mood feels more like reckoning. What is theater for now? Who is it for? And how do you keep it alive without embalming it?

In this conversation, director Grant Sorenson and playwright Jeffrey Hatcher trace a shifting ecosystem through the lens of Sorenson’s 2026 production of Salomé — a fevered, rarely staged work that feels newly urgent on a regional stage. They move through a politically charged city, aging institutions, and audiences who show up only when promised something that feels like an event.

Against that backdrop, Sorenson’s TABLE/READ offers a leaner, more agile model. One built on surprise, intimacy, and risk. If the Midwest has long been treated as a “farm team,” the question here is different: what happens when you stop asking permission and build the room yourself?

GRANT: I think the Twin Cities theater scene has in common with everywhere right now this question: What is the purpose of theater in our community? How do we get people to come? How do we fund it? How do we keep companies robust as production costs rise?

What sets Minneapolis–St. Paul apart is: people here value the arts. They value access and variety. But Minneapolis keeps becoming a flashpoint for intense political moments. That’s tied to our sense of social responsibility. And our art-making is tied into that. All good theater is political in some way...maybe not overt, but it’s engaged.

JEFFREY: Grant’s right. In a lot of cities our size, you get one big theater and then a small clutch below it “the Guthrie but with less money,” “the Guthrie but not Equity,” maybe a few others with specific missions.

Here we used to have a staggering number of Equity theaters. I don’t know what that number is now. A lot of theaters are still stumbling after the pandemic, and I think across the country we’re watching the last drops of pandemic-era support evaporate.

And yes...this is a political town. But theater responds slowly. It’s a big lumbering beast. An essay on TikTok moves faster than the time it takes to write and stage your scathing satire.

MATHEW: Let’s talk about Salomé, your production of Oscar Wilde’s play which just happend in February 2026. Why this play, and what does it feel like bringing it to Minneapolis?

GRANT: The venue that approached me is an event space. So I started looking at plays that take place at parties—where the environment makes sense without pretending the room is something else.

Salomé takes place at Herod’s birthday feast. It’s 90 minutes, straight through. Beautiful language. Poetic and strange. And it’s Wilde doing something totally different from the comedies.

We’re staging it with the audience at banquet tables—immersed in the party. And we discovered it’s never had a professional production in the Twin Cities as a play—only the Strauss opera version.

So we get to do the regional premiere of a play from 1893, which is its own kind of thrill.

And thematically: it’s about a young woman who destroys an incompetent tyrant. It feels relevant without hammering “politics.” There are passages from Herod that, out of context, sound like Trump rambling. It’s unsettling.

MATHEW: The marketing feels striking and not drenched in Sunday school. What were you aiming for visually?

GRANT: I find theater marketing often incredibly antithetical to selling tickets. I mean, it's usually fairly ugly. A good font goes a long way.

We started in a dark, red-splatter direction. It felt wrong. The play references mirrors, reflection, water, the moon, silver. So we moved into metallic, reflective textures.

And it helps when you cast a lead actress who can convey all of the nuance and the mystery of this character in a glance.

I just talked about how no one ever does this play, but I think it does have a lot of cultural baggage, this idea of Salome as this sort of sex-crazed lunatic, femme fatale. So I was interested in stripping my production of those expectations and really looking at it kind of as though it was a new play, which I do when I work with any classical text.

We wanted images that are true to the production but also arresting enough to stop someone mid-scroll.

JEFFREY: It’s a great poster. Also: actors’ faces aren’t used enough here the way they are in New York. Titles get sold, institutions get sold—but sometimes it’s as simple as: “She’s in it. I’m going.”

The Jungle had it right for years: black background, white letters, THE JUNGLE, then the show title. A stamp. Something that burns into the brain.

MATHEW: I’ve been to productions where everyone is the audience has silver hair. That worries me. Then TABLE/READ felt different. What is it doing that traditional theatre can’t?

GRANT: A company's season is planned a year (sometimes longer) in advance. It’s hard to pivot. TABLE/READ is agile. I plan about a month out, so I can ask: what feels resonant? What do people need right now?

And sometimes it lands in ways I didn’t predict. I chose the January event’s play before everything in the city escalated, but it ended up resonating anyway. The play wasn’t about immigration or raids, but lines about feeling powerless, pushing against outdated systems perpetuated by men in power, really hit the room.

The other thing: because the title isn’t announced until just before it starts, people can’t self-select out. They don’t go, “That’s not for me.” They just show up. They’re willing to be surprised. I keep hearing: “I don’t usually go to theater.” Or: “I go to concerts, not plays.”

Sometimes going to theater can feel a bit like going to the principal's office, like it’s something you're supposed to do or something that feels like there's a lot of weight to it, that you have to buy tickets and get dressed up and go to dinner, and that's all fun. I mean, I love doing that, but, but it can be hard to say sustain that in a really consistent way.

TABLE/READ is building a totally unique theater going community. We have some people who have been at every single one, and they're like, our super fans. And then we have people who come to one, and then we never see them again, or they kind of pop in and out. It can become a part of people's lives in a very low commitment way.

JEFFREY: When Grant said All About Eve for December's Event, I assumed it would be a theater crowd who knows it cold. But there were gasps. I talked to people after who said: “I don’t know the movie.” And I thought, how can you be alive and not know All About Eve? But of course—different generations. It played as fresh.

That’s the tribute: people come without knowing the title, but they care about the idea. They care about the night.

MATHEW: People in London and New York have called Minneapolis a legit training ground...like a farm team for larger stages. Grant, are you “stopping asking permission” here?

GRANT: I’ve always been interested in the life of an autonomous theater artist. As an actor, it’s self-driven—auditions, connections, work ethic. As a director, it’s still self-driven but with fewer clear steps. You make things and hope people see them and give you space and time and money to make more.

It can be hard for directors in early and even mid-career to get a foot in the door at larger theaters, because there's, I think, a resistance to the risk of bringing in someone new, or bringing in someone younger and potentially losing money on the show.

And I have major issues with authority, so I’m always pushing against “the right way.” I like building my own sandbox and making what interests me in the way it interests me...then finding the people who want to come.

JEFFREY: Sometimes there’s a step-by-step approach too. You do a thing someone understands, and that earns you the next thing. Even the “safe” shows have an opening if the director has a point of view.

And actors well...actors will act. They don’t need the costumes. They don’t need the tech. Audiences at a good staged reading fill in the blanks.

JEFFREY: There’s an old audience truth: habitual theatergoers go because it’s their habit (almost like church). Non-habitual theatergoers go when they’re promised an event. Parking. Dinner. A feeling of occasion.

The hard question is: how do you turn a repertory season into event after event after event—not “come because you should,” but “come because something will happen to you here.”

MATHEW: That’s what TABLE/READ feels like to me. More intervention than institution.

GRANT: It’s $35 and includes a first drink. I want it to feel simple. The venues are bars and restaurants, so it’s accessible. And we adjust the model month to month depending on the venue.

One thing we’ve lost is statewide exposure. We used to tour more. Now less work moves outward, and fewer people build the habit. Schools are still the most widespread access point, and unfortunately arts programs are often the first to get cut.

MATHEW: Final thought: what should theater never give up and what must adapt?

JEFFREY: Previews. Previews are everything...especially for new work, comedies, musicals. You learn from audiences. The flexibility to adjust is crucial. We’re trapped in the four-week run model, even when the work is finding its audience.

GRANT: Agility, flexibility, low overhead...those feel like survival. But also: doing it because you need to. And finding new audiences. Theater can’t become a closed loop where we only perform for each other. I have a hard time looking at theater in this country and feeling inspired. I look a lot more at what's happening in the theater in Europe. They don't just run something once and call it done; they build a repertory of shows and bring them back, and I think that that's something I'm very interested in.

There’s this idea, “Oh, the theater is dying.” The theater is dying. I found a book from the, I don't even know when, it was probably the 60s, and the title was, Is the Theater Still Dying? So it's always been dying, because it's the most alive art form we have. It's always sort of on the brink of collapse, and yet it's also one of the oldest forms of entertainment that we have. It survived this long, and I think it will continue to survive.

I have to say: Jeff wrote a play I did at Children’s Theatre. It was the first time I felt like an adult actor—and I was twelve. It wasn’t a talking animal. It was a real, complicated part. It made me fall in love with theater.

JEFFREY: You were great. And credit to the people who say: let’s do something harder than people expect.

MATHEW: That’s a perfect ending. Thank you both.