Spotlight: Come & Get It

Those who tromped around the city last weekend with Minnesota Fringe schedules in one hand and a water bottle in the other, at one point or another inevitably squinted at those seemingly infinite lines of shows and times and asked: Hey, where the hell's Kevin Kling? It seems the capricious deity in charge of the Fringe lottery didn't smile on Kling this year, but the storytelling chronicler of the frozen north is going right on ahead and performing this weekend anyway. Come & Get It kicks off Open Eye Figure Theater's pre-grand opening series, in preparation for the debut of the company's new permanent performance space at 506 East 24th Street. (Shows are tonight and tomorrow at 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday at 8:00 p.m., with a second Saturday performance at 5:30 p.m. Tickets are $15 with, appropriately enough, discounts for those wearing Fringe buttons.) Kling appears in collaboration with Open Eye's Michael Sommers, along with cellist Michelle Kinney and singer/accordion player Simone Perrin (whose 2006 Fringe hit Tall Tale of a Broke Heart announced the arrival locally of an appealing and multifaceted talent). The show promises story and song, provided by people who do these things very well. Open Eye's series continues later this month with The Saint Plays by Erik Ehn, an original puppet drama about the lives of saints adapted and directed by Alison Heimstead, and Toy Theatre After Dark—A Late Night Trilogy, which includes a Kafka adaptation and a work by Sommers. With any luck at all, this burst of productivity augurs more stuff to come soon, because the prospect of Open Eye with their own permanent space elicits Pavlovian drools of anticipation from avant-garde theatergoers.