A brief encounter with 'Brief Encounter'

The Guthrie is getting its money's worth out of the "Brief Encounter" cast.

Before the Noel Coward play began Friday, actors from London's Kneehigh Theatre Co. were down on the floor playing bluegrass while audience members found their seats. During the production there was more music, and the actors were the set-changers in this physical, very creative staging of the play about the classic movie that merges the two art forms. After taking their bows, cast members went out of the theater ahead of the audience, and in the lobby Annette McLaughlin, who plays Myrtle, held a plate of desserts for theatergoers.

Man, they work you guys hard, McLaughlin was told. I'll be driving you home later, she quipped.

While she passed out desserts, other cast mates were working the other end of the room, singing and dancing with each other and theater patrons. When Stuart Mcloughlin, who plays Stanley, sings "Nothing Compares 2 U," he owns that bluegrass version of Prince's song.

Later, at a private reception, actor Milo Twomey, who plays the male lead, had the ladies talking. Despite being rather skinny, he makes a bigger impression up close than he did on stage. Cute is how he was described more than once.

WCCO-TV morning anchor Angela Davis wanted a photo with him. I took the photo with Davis' Smartphone. With an out-stretched arm, Davis threw that photo on her phone in the face of Strib movie critic Colin Covert when she announced: "You've been replaced!" Examining the photo, Covert gave it an insouciant facial expression. Davis flirts with Covert on Fridays when he does movie reviews at 5:45 a.m. on WCCO-TV. None of it means anything; she's married to one of my Strib bosses. Davis will have Hannah Yelland, who plays the female lead, on WCCO-TV's noon show Wednesday -- not Milo.

Covert was at the party with Patti Goldberg of Goldberg Bail Bonds. Bud Goldberg's daughter was telling the actors what she did "in case they needed some services while they were in town." With their extended stop here, until April 3, this was apparently good information to know as far as actor Joseph Alessi, Fred and Albert in the play, was concerned.

Charity speed-dating

Some bachelors used their charms for good.

They were at Seven participating in a couple of hours of speed-dating Saturday night to raise funds for Bridge for Youth, a crisis center for young people. The event was organized by Constance Anderson, an assistant teacher, and Tephanie Delaney, who runs Dating-Go-Round.

"Tephanie is a really good friend of mine," Anderson said. "She came up with this idea. Speed dating [with] 25 eligible bachelors. Something new to raise money for charity."

Delaney, who said she formerly worked in real estate, has always played Cupid. "I've married off so many couples just fixing them up -- over 50. I was like, 'Maybe that's my calling,' since everyone is always calling me when they are interested in meeting someone. So I started Dating-Go-Round."

Asked if he'd rather be where he was texting, bachelor Wendell Hairston said nope. "Waiting for a girl to come so I can conversate," Hairston said. There's no such word as "conversate." Bowing his head in laughter, Hairston reared his noggin to amend his statement thusly: "...have a conversation." Now, we're talking.

Mark Ross was honest when asked if he was really looking for love. "I don't think so. If it happens, it happens," said Ross, who said he works as a pipe layer for the city of Minneapolis. That must make for some interesting conversation? "I hear it all the time," he said.

I never got to meet one of the event's sponsors, insurance guy Robert Prokop, who reportedly couldn't be talked into being one of the bachelors. According to the gossip, Prokop joked that his life was already full of "love-thirsty women." Sounds shy, doesn't he?

Check www.datinggoround. com for upcoming events.