MinnesotaPlaylist.com.

In the fall of 2008, a new website launched called Minnesota Playlist. It was the result of a combination of the Twin Cities Theatre and Film Alliance and the desire on the part of theater makers Leah Cooper and Alan Berks to create a one-stop shop for any need a Minnesota-based performing artist may have. As of January 2015, Cooper and Berks have launched a fully redesigned website with way more functionality and a focus on “more accessible and comprehensive information about the art and artists of Minnesota.”

Since it began, Minnesota Playlist has tried to serve many different audiences. Plenty of local and regional websites offer performance calendars that allow users to find upcoming shows nearby. But Minnesota Playlist is unique in the refinements of search it allows. You can find ASL-interpreted shows as easily as you can find pay-what-you-can shows, not to mention the ability to search by genre or region. The functionality of this online calendar not only makes it easier for performing arts audiences, but it also makes it much more straightforward for large and small producers of work to connect to the specific audiences they trying to serve with their work.

A MN Playlist crowd-funding campaign.

This focus on connecting a wide array of audiences with many different kinds of performing artists and arts organizations makes sense when you realize that Leah Cooper is one of the founders of Minnesota Playlist. Cooper has been working as a theater director and producer for more than 25 years, and from 2001 through 2006 she was the executive director of the Minnesota Fringe Festival, an annual event wholly focused on exposing curious audiences with adventurous artists. There’s a through-line in all of Cooper’s work that’s about bringing unlikely people together and finding surprisingly compelling results. That same idea echoes throughout the redesigned website and how it tries to let visitors find what they’re looking for while also encouraging them to find something unexpected.

While the calendar works in service of audiences and artists, the talent profiles and business directory are all about creating space for artists and creators to find opportunities to create work and build collaborations. On the new site, the profiles have gone from a fairly straightforward list of skills to letting artists share multiple social media channels where they can be followed or engaged with, as well as making it possible for visitors to select certain artists to follow on the website itself so they can stay current on upcoming shows and projects from their favorite local artists.

Another piece of Minnesota Playlist that was already in existence but has become more robust is the Magazine section of the site. For the past six years, the Magazine section of the site has offered long-form writing on the artists that make up Minnesota’s performing arts community, looking at the hows and whys of craft, as well as pieces on particular shows and projects. Those elements have remained, but there is now an added push to have more audio and video content, and to create more opportunities for community discussion.

Minnesota Playlist.

This focus on long-form storytelling and community building comes in no small way from Minnesota Playlist co-founder and editor Alan Berks. As a playwright, writer and educator, Berks often uses theater to confront the challenging aspects of human nature. On the website, he has created as many opportunities to ask why people make the creative work they do, as to actually create work. An argument could be made that Berks has expanded and broadened Minnesota Playlist’s website in the hopes that more people will talk about theater with him.

Another thing worth mentioning, that indirectly connects to this online tool for performing artists and art lovers in Minnesota, is that Berks and Cooper have merged their own separate live production companies to create Knight Arts grantee Wonderlust Productions, a new company that is all about creating live performance by bringing together actual community members and professional artists. Their recently created and performed “Veterans Play Project” took personal stories from more than a hundred Minnesota military veterans to create a fictional story. And in September of 2014, Wonderlust Productions was named a winner of the first St. Paul Knight Arts Challenge.

Performing artists of every level and discipline, as well as their friends and fans, are invited to Minnesota Playlist’s WINTER BASH on January 24th at Bedlam Lowertown, 213 4th St. East, St. Paul; bedlamtheatre.org.