Animate
We were lucky enough to get tickets to the closing performance of Animate , Jack Reuler's swan song for Mixed Blood, though done at Como Zoo. We went, although live theater is tricky right now and I generally don't like zoos. Confused yet? Because that's all part of it. Animate starts with a helicopter landing and a guy with a cooler full of pangolin sperm jumping out of it to deliver to the zoo before the female ends estrus (ok, to be honest, this scene isn't crucial. But it's damn cool!). The production logistics are enormous. You are then part of a color coded group who sees various scenes spread throughout the zoo, in various animal areas, where often the actors, good as they are, are upstaged by the zoo's residents. Each scene brings up a moral or ethical issue about zoos (and zoo management), funding, racism, generational differences, love, politics, legacy, and more. None of it is too deep (these are fairly short scenes), but it's enough to at least...