In 2025, Danger Boat Productions (funded by Minnesota Humanities Center) traveled to nine towns across Minnesota: Braham, New Ulm, Rochester, the Kingfield Neighborhood in Minneapolis, Rosemount, Fergus Falls, Bigfork, Fosston and Otter Tail County. They sat in a community meal with locals in each town, ate the local cuisine and used that experience to create a homegrown sketch and music show.
I attended the first (of two) performances last night in Minneapolis. The next performance will be in Rochester on March 13. (And it’s free!)
For my day job, I have spent a lot of time in towns around the state. I have visited each of the areas that the cast highlighted. As the saying goes, if you’ve visited one small town, you’ve visited one small town; I think the show captured that ethos of individuality, especially highlighting Herman the German in New Ulm, the lack of parking in Rochester and the deep rift caused by bike lanes in the Cities. Conversely, they also did a good job capturing some characteristics of Minnesota that I think really are inherent to many or most of us in the state.
One Minnesota characteristic they brought out is a shyness or a hesitance to talk to strangers. The show broached that barrier in a clever and approachable way. Looking through the eyes of the “outsider” helps and recognizing that in some neighborhoods, you are an outsider even if you moved to town 17 years ago!
It’s a charming show. There were a couple humorous nods to our currently ICE-y environment, which makes sense since the content was developed based on meetings from last summer but also it would be strange to not at least acknowledge it in today’s environment.
Because I spend so much of my time focused on broadband, I appreciated the cameo by the Goddess of the Internet. In one skit, she briefly turns off the internet as a way to get folks to talk face to face. (Sorry – spoiler alert!) But also, she gives back access when issues have been resolved, the internet is turned back on as a tool to open up communication among family members living in different locations and facilitate remote work. It speaks to the need for broadband and digital equity skills to handle the power. So that was my takeaway. Well, that and the importance of conversation and power of humor to help us see each other and ourselves. To enjoy our similarities and appreciate our differences.
Mostly Minnesota 