Sir Tyrone Guthrie chose Minneapolis in 1963 to prove great theatre could thrive far from Broadway — and the Guthrie Theater has been proving him right for 60 years. Its current home, Jean Nouvel’s midnight-blue steel giant on the Mississippi riverfront, is a landmark you experience before the curtain even rises.
Inside are three stages: the thrust Wurtele stage that carries the Guthrie’s classical soul, a proscenium for spectacle and a black-box studio for the new. Outside, the Endless Bridge — a 178-foot cantilever — floats audiences over the river gorge toward St. Anthony Falls, the city’s favorite intermission view.
A Christmas Carol here is a civic ritual; the summer’s big musicals are events. The Guthrie isn’t a theatre in Minneapolis. In a real sense, it IS Minneapolis theatre.
