Sarah Gordon and Heather Spear had a big idea, one they never expected to achieve staying power. Back in 1999 the roommates and fellow dancers longed for a different take on drag shows. Seventeen years later "Dykes Do Drag," their raucous cabaret series at Bryant-Lake Bowl, is still going strong but this weekend's performances (10 p.m. Fri.,-Sat., $14-$18) will be a farewell for Gordon, who is moving to Portland. "I think I'm going to be crying," said Spear, who serves as emcee. Gordon, aka the Glam King, said she and Spear felt gender wasn't represented in drag shows in a way that reflected the men in their lives. "We made a night of drag that was reflective of David Bowie and more femme masculinity," said Gordon. Among Spear's favorite memories is when Gordon danced to Rod Stewart's "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" and peeled off layer upon layer of winter clothing until she was wearing metallic pants and a spiky Stewart-style wig. "It was so not sexy but that was the point," said Spear. "It was awesome, and ultimately a little bit sexy too."
CAROLINE PALMER
A Guthrie great
Stage designer Desmond Heeley, a Guthrie mainstay during the theater's heyday in the 1970s, has died at age 85. A three-time Tony winner, he was a close associate of director Michael Langham, who led the Guthrie from 1971 to '77. Together they collaborated on landmark productions — including Anthony Burgess adaptations of "Oedipus the King" and "Cyrano" — that lifted the theater's fortunes after a fiscal and artistic crisis. He returned to town in later years to work at the Guthrie, Children's Theatre and even to design the spectacular flower shows once staged at Dayton's (now Macy's) in downtown Minneapolis. "It's a community that has a lot of warmth," Heeley told the Star Tribune in 1992. "I never feel I'm coming to a strange place when I come here."
TIM CAMPBELL
Who moved his cheese?
When the phone rang at Dominick Argento's Minneapolis home on Monday, the eminent composer answered by first apologizing in advance for his hearing, which is not what it once was. Then he got mischievous. "I thought you were calling to hear my joke," he said. And what is that? "Well, it's about Donald Trump. He's living up to his threat that he will impose a tariff on imported bulk Parmesan cheese, so that he could make America grate again."
Rohan Preston
Corn fed
Composer/lyricist Jason Robert Brown said frankly that he didn't have "an emotional response" to the novel "The Bridges of Madison County." Playwright Marsha Norman convinced him, though, that this was the romance on which the two should collaborate. "She was able to find the heart of these characters and really what this play has to say about life in the Midwest," Brown said about the musical theater adaptation that comes to Minneapolis next week. Really? OK, Mr. New York City, tell us something about the Midwest. "It's emblematic of America in some grand way about being rooted in the ground, being connected to the earth. This show would not make sense in Seattle, for example." Fair enough. While we're on the subject, "Madison County" is at least the third major musical set in Iowa. Can you name the other two, and answer the question why Minnesota has never sung on stage?
GRAYDON ROYCE
