OPEN EYE MAINSTAGE: Theatre / Music/Puppetry

Open Eye Theatre and Skinny Dog Productions present

STRANGE HEART: The Dream Songs of John Berryman

March 5 – 22, 2026

Written & composed by Greg Brosofske
Featuring Bradley Greenwald & Anna Hashizume

Beloved Twin Cities vocalists Bradley Greenwald and Anna Hashizume front a live band playing a dreamy jazz-infused score in playwright-composer Greg Brosofske’s lyrical portrait of John Berryman.

A world premiere operetta for humans & puppets!

Renowned poet John Berryman won a Pulitzer prize for his greatest achievement, The Dream Songs, even as he careened between artistic triumph and the chasm of depression and drink, leading to a haunting reckoning on a Minneapolis bridge in the dead of winter. Through songs, visual art, and emotional performance, STRANGE HEART compassionately evokes the life of a gifted artist struggling with his complicated past. Sharing John's journey are his wife Kate and a puppet named Henry who acts as Berryman’s tormentor, drinking buddy, and artistic alter-ego.

  • TICKETS

    $32 — General Admission
    $27 — Fringe Button Holders
    $24 — Seniors
    $18 — Students
    $15 — Economic Accessibility

    Do you have a MN Fringe button? Get $5 off General Admission tickets with discount code FRINGE. Show your button at the box office when checking in.

    A limited number of $15 Economic Accessibility tickets are available online for all performances. If not sold out, a limited number of pay-as-able tickets will be available at the door. View our ticketing policy.

    AGE RECOMMENDATION: Ages 14 and up.

    CONTENT AWARENESS
    Adult themes of alcohol abuse, suicide, and traumatic memories.

  • PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE

    Thursday 3/5, 7:30pm OPENING
    Friday 3/6, 7:30pm
    Saturday, 3/7, 7:30pm
    Sunday 3/8, 2:00pm

    Thursday 3/12, 7:30pm
    Friday 3/13, 7:30pm
    Saturday 3/14, 7:30pm
    Sunday 3/15, 2:00pm*

    Monday, 3/16, 7:30pm INDUSTRY NITE
    Thursday 3/19, 7:30pm
    Friday 3/20, 7:30pm
    Sat 3/21, 7:30pm
    Sunday 3/22, 2:00pm CLOSING

    *We will offer the Sunday 3/15 matinee as a masking-required performance for our community. All other shows are masking-optional.

    RUN TIME: 90 minutes, no intermission

  • ACCESSIBILITY

    Contact us at 612-874-6338 or boxoffice@openeyetheatre.org for accessibility information and requests. Learn more.

    COVID PRECAUTIONS: All audience members will be required to wear masks during our Sunday 3/15 matinee performance. All other shows are masking-optional. The masking policy will be posted on the door.

    View our COVID-19 Policy

THE CAST

Bradley Greenwald & Anna Hashizume
with puppeteering by Samuel Albright

CREATIVE TEAM

Joel Sass - Director & Set Designer
Greg Brosofske - Writer & Composer
Wesley Frye - Musical Director
Samantha Fromm Haddow - Costume Designer
Alex Clark - Lighting Designer
Bailey Fenn - Sound Designer

MUSICIANS

Wesley Frye - Keyboardist
Kyle Simons Baker - Bass
Jarod Bendele - Percussion
Marshall Yoes - Cornet

About the Artists

  • Greg Brosofske has worked as a composer and sound designer in the Twin Cities and Chicago. He is a longtime collaborator with dance company Black Label Movement, and has written music for many theater productions, including shows at the Guthrie Theater, the California Shakespeare Theater, the Jungle Theater and many other Twin Cities playhouses. He has received two Live Music for Dance grants from the American Composer’s Forum, several MRAC Artist Initiative grants and a Jerome Fund for New Music to compose STRANGE HEART. He has written scores for several independent films including a score for Danish filmmaker Carlos Alvarez’s Human Rights, which won an award at the 60Second Short Film Fest in Copenhagen. In addition to composing music, he is also a coder, creates new media art, and incorporates generative digital projections as well as dancer/musician interactivity into his soundscapes.

  • Anna Hashizume is a Japanese-American singer-actor and voice teacher based in the Twin Cities area. After receiving both her Bachelors and Masters degrees in vocal performance, she is equally comfortable on opera and musical theatre stages, as well as onscreen. She’s worked with companies such as the Guthrie Theater, Chanhassen Dinner Theaters, Theater Latté Da, Fargo-Moorhead Opera, Open Eye Theatre, An Opera Theatre, Theatre Elision, Mixed Precipitation, Artistry Theater, and Minnesota Opera. Anna is a two-time honoree of The Schubert Club’s Scholarship Competition. She runs her own private studio, as well as being on faculty at St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists. She coordinates the Prelude Program at the MacPhail Center for Music alongside her colleague, Bradley Greenwald. She is also a Teaching Artist with Theater Mu.

  • Bradley Greenwald has performed opera, theater, music-theater, concert and recital repertoire with several Twin Cities’ arts organizations, including Jungle Theater, Theater Latté Da, Open Eye Theatre, Theatre de la Jeune Lune, Guthrie Theater, Children’s Theatre Company, 10,000 Things Theater, Nautilus Music-Theater, Minnesota Dance Theatre, James Sewell Ballet, VocalEssence, Frank Theatre, and Skylark Opera. He adapted Madeleine L’Engle’s novel A Wrinkle in Time into a libretto for Libby Larsen’s opera, and wrote the book and lyrics for C.,an adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac (Robert Elhai, music), produced by Peter Rothstein and Theater Latté Da. Bradley is the recipient of a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship in music, the McKnight Fellowship for Theater Artists, and a 2006 Ivey Award. Bradley lives in South Minneapolis with his husband, John Novak, the ever-resourceful stage manager and props designer of the Jungle Theater.

 

Visit Open Eye Theatre

506 E. 24th Street
Minneapolis, MN

Free parking is available in the lot on the southeast corner of 24th Street and Portland Avenue, courtesy of Lutheran Social Services.