Frank Theatre

Fuel Fearless Theatre: Support Frank's 36th Season!

Frank Theatre has never been afraid to take on hard truths. For 36 years, we’ve brought bold, politically charged, socially conscious work to stages and unexpected spaces across the Twin Cities—art that challenges, provokes, and connects.

This season, we’re pushing that mission even further with two extraordinary productions that speak to power, resistance, and the human spirit.

Now Playing: The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht
October 31 – November 23 at the Ivy Arts Building

Frank opened its 2025–26 season on Halloween night with Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, in a new adaptation by Tony Award–winner Bruce Norris.

Norris’s version makes Brecht’s parallels to modern politics—particularly the rise of Donald Trump—unmistakably clear, updating this 1930s gangster satire for today’s world. Set in Depression-era Chicago, Arturo Ui is darkly funny, bitingly relevant, and all too familiar.

Frank first staged this play in 2001 in an abandoned munitions factory, just after 9/11. Twenty-four years later, we’re returning to it because its questions about power, propaganda, and complicity still demand to be asked.

Your support helps us continue to stage work that holds a mirror to our times, illuminating both the danger of apathy and the necessity of courage.

Next Up: The Welkin by Lucy Kirkwood
March 2–29, 2026 at Gremlin Theatre

It’s 1759 in rural England, and the country is awaiting the return of Halley’s comet. A young woman, accused of murder, is sentenced to death. When she tries to escape the noose by claiming she is pregnant, twelve ordinary women are gathered to decide whether she is telling the truth. A dark, fierce, funny play about democracy and housework.

Equal parts Twelve Angry Men, The Crucible, and The Vagina Monologues, The Welkin is dark, fierce, and funny—a play about democracy, judgment, and the unseen labor of women that keeps the world turning. 

"A superb new history play — a feminist courtroom drama that's equal parts Twelve Angry Men, The Crucible and The Vagina Monologues, plus a dash of searing, up-to-the-minute political and social commentary... a warm, humane and very funny piece, firmly anchored in women's everyday experience." – Broadway World

Why Your Gift Matters

Your support keeps fearless theatre alive in the Twin Cities. It fuels:

• Artists who take risks and dig deep to tell the stories that matter.
• Designers and technicians whose craft turns raw spaces into living, breathing worlds.
• Audiences hungry for art that refuses to look away.

Live theatre—especially theatre that challenges power and convention—depends on people like you. This Give to the Max Day, rise up with us and help Frank keep making art that sparks dialogue, demands reflection, and dares to resist.

Donate now at GiveMN.org and be part of the revolution that happens on stage.

ABOUT FRANK THEATRE

Frank Theatre is a professional theatre company committed to producing unique work that stretches the skills of the artists who create the work while simultaneously challenging the everyday perceptions of the audience through the exploration of ideas and issues of social, political and/or cultural concern. Frank Theatre was founded with the desire to produce work that provides opportunities for artists to grow, to stretch, to work outside of and beyond the typical opportunities provided by theatres with a greater commercial interest. The theatre has successfully pursued this goal through the consistent staging of works that require the actors, designers, and director to challenge themselves and each other. The theatre is a Twin Cities’-based company, founded in 1989 by Artistic Director Wendy Knox. Now in its 34th season, the theatre has staged over 80 productions and is committed to producing work that reflects the world in which we live.