Almanac Interview with Sketches of Minnesota

From Conversation to Comedy: How Sketches of Minnesota Brings Communities Together

Tane Danger and Trygve Throntveit recently sat down with Program Almanac to discuss why comedy is the secret sauce to meaningful conversations. Can laughter bring people closer? Can storytelling bridge divides? That’s exactly what Sketches of Minnesota set out to explore.

For the past year, Danger Boat Productions and the Minnesota Humanities Center traveled across the state, meeting with Minnesotans from Austin to International Falls. Over shared meals and honest conversations, community members discussed what makes their town unique, what outsiders get wrong, and what hopes they have for the future. Instead of debating politics, we focused on stories—and then turned those stories into improv-driven performances that brought communities together through humor.

Now, those incredible stories and performances have been woven into a final scripted theatrical production—a show that celebrates Minnesota through comedy, storytelling, and reflection.

🎭 Join us for a one-of-a-kind performance:
📅 February 11 – St. Cloud (Paramount Center for the Arts)
📅 February 25 – Minneapolis (Brave New Workshop)

Come experience the power of comedy and community for yourself. Tickets are selling fast—get yours today!

🎟️ www.dangerboat.net/events

Transcript:

Cathy Wurzer:

Have you ever wondered if having tough conversations about politics with friends and neighbors is even possible anymore? Our next two guests are leading a collaboration called Sketches of Minnesota that uses comedy to connect communities. They gather together people to talk about big community issues and turn it into an improv performance. You heard me right. Tane Danger is often across the studio by the big monitor, but he's here tonight representing Danger Boat Productions. The improv half of the partnership. Trygve Throntveit is the director of Strategic partnership at the Minnesota Humanities Center. Tane and Tryg, thanks. How would you describe the concept, Tane Danger?

Tane Danger:

This is something that I've thought about for a long time and we were able to basically make happen because this partnership with the Minnesota Humanity Center, I do comedy for a living and I think that it really has this ability to help bring people together. So the concept is you go into a community who spend time inviting lots of different parts of that community to be there to join together in a meal.

Cathy Wurzer:

Food helps, food's always good.

Tane Danger:

Food helps. And then Tryg in the Minnesota Humanity Center do a wonderful job of facilitating a really good conversation about what people care about. And then we bring that all to life through improv. So it's pretty cool.

Cathy Wurzer:

Now, Tryg, when Tane came to you. You said, “What?”

Trygve Throntveit:

I said “What!” I said, “This is fantastic.” I had known about Tane and Brandon's work with The Theater of Public Policy and the way that they like to interview a person with some knowledge about an issue and turn that into comic gold. I loved their idea of making the people of Minnesota, the experts whose stories and wisdom and insight can be turned into something that not only makes us laugh, but makes us think. And I knew that we had some experience facilitating tough conversations, helping people become comfortable sharing their stories and listening to other people's stories so that they stop thinking of their neighbors in terms of simple categories. And I thought this was worth a try. And our CEO, Kevin Lindsay agreed.

Eric Eskola:

Why is comedy the secret sauce here?

Tane Danger:

I mean, one of the things that I pulled this originally from Stephen Colbert hearing him say this, but I really take to heart is this idea it's very hard to laugh and be afraid at the same time. And so I fundamentally believe if you can get people in a room together and you can find a way for them to laugh together, it doesn't mean that they're going to agree or they're going to go out and exchange holiday cards at the end of the year, but I don't think that they will be afraid of each other. And I think that it will open them up in a way.

Eric Eskola:

But haven't you heard since the election, a lot of people turning off cable news and not wanting to get involved very much isolate themselves?

Tane Danger:

I think that that is actually one of the things that's a strength of this project is that we are not bringing people together and being like, alright everyone, please go around the table and say who you voted for and what you think. On federal politics, we're asking people questions like, what do you love about your community? What are things that people who aren't from your community get wrong about it? What are things that you imagine for the future of this place? And so if you can really center the conversation, which is what Tryg does really well in what is happening right here among neighbors in our town downtown in the community, that makes it so that people can actually grapple with the things that are right in front of 'em.

Cathy Wurzer:

So I agree that it is tough to be afraid when you're laughing. However, when you're in these groups and you've been all over the state of Minnesota, have there been any tense moments?

Trygve Throntveit:

There have been tense moments, and that has been intentional. But what we've done is take a lot of care to frame these events beforehand to make sure that people are expecting a little bit of discomfort. And we actually ask every single person in the audience or frankly in this big communal dining venue to verbally agree that they will assume the goodwill of their neighbors. Ask a clarifying question, be genuinely curious before taking umbridge, before taking offense. And when you give people that confidence in themselves and faith in themselves, they perform beautifully. That is what we have noticed. They start telling stories about one another rather than sharing their positions. And when you hear someone's story, you start wondering about them rather than trying to categorize them.

Cathy Wurzer:

In a sense though, this sounds like a lovely project, thank you. But it does sound like a great project. But in a sense though, are you not kind of preaching to the choir that folks who show up to these gatherings are kind of mind in a sense?

Tane Danger:

You'd be surprised. I mean, totally. I was worried about this when we first started doing it, but over and over again we found that there actually are people of very different points of view who come together on this. I actually think that's another piece that the comedy does because I think you're right. If you were to just say, okay, we're just going to have a town meeting, we kind of know who shows up sometimes for those, not that there's anything wrong with that, but if you say, Hey, there is going to be an improv comedy production about your town. There are all kinds of different people who come out for that and then want to share their story. And we know for a fact because of the facilitation that there are people who come out and have very different politics and very different points of view, and people who are really plugged in and have been part of the town for 30 years, and people who just moved there last weekend and are coming because they want to know warmth.

Eric Eskola:

Is there a way to follow up two or three weeks or a month after you've been to its city and say, did it have any impact or is that not part of the deal?

Trygve Throntveit:

Thank you for asking. Because we work very hard with our local hosts to make them the conveners and the organizers, and we coach them on how do you reach out to those people who aren't the usual suspects? And we have a survey system. We use paper surveys because people actually fill out surveys that are on their dinner table rather than an email survey. And we do some follow-up with the folks, including several of the towns who then applied to host these final performances. And the results are vindicating our model so far.

Cathy Wurzer:

Oh, you said a final performance?

Tane Danger:

Yes.

Cathy Wurzer:

And

Tane Danger:

So we went to 10 different communities every corner of the state this year, and we collected stories in all those places in the performances we did. And now this final piece of that tour, we are going to do a final performance that tells stories from all 10 of the communities that we went to in one big final scripted performance where, so we got one performance February 11th at the Paramount in St. Cloud.

Cathy Wurzer:

Nice.

Tane Danger:

And then February 25th at Dudley Riggs Brave New Workshop in downtown Minneapolis,

Eric Eskola:

Which is almost sold out on the website. Or how do you get a ticket?

Tane Danger:

You could go to Dangerboat.net/events. And it is, they're selling out. So come and see it, and you'll get a tour of Minnesota in a way that you've just never seen before.

Eric Eskola:

Where did the Boat.

Cathy Wurzer:

And you'll be on stage.

Tane Danger:

And I will be on stage.