Bringing Minnesota’s Stories to Life Through Comedy
How do you bring people together in times of division? With comedy.
For the past year, Sketches of Minnesota has traveled across the state, collecting stories from communities big and small. From International Falls to Winona, Glencoe to Duluth, Minnesotans shared what makes their towns special, the challenges they face, and their hopes for the future. Then, improv performers turned those conversations into unscripted comedy, reflecting each town’s unique spirit back to its people.
Now, those stories are coming to the stage in a fully scripted comedy show featuring original sketches, music, and even choreography! This is your chance to take a hilarious, heartfelt tour of Minnesota without ever leaving your seat.
📅 February 11 – Paramount Theater, St. Cloud (7 PM)
📅 February 25 – Dudley Riggs Brave New Workshop, Minneapolis (7 PM)
💰 Both shows are completely FREE!
This show isn’t just about laughter—it’s about connection. It’s about seeing yourself, your neighbors, and your community in a new light. And it’s about sharing that experience together.
Want a behind-the-scenes look? Check out this interview with Tane Danger of Danger Boat Productions, Trygve Throntveit of the Minnesota Humanities Center, and WCCO’s Vineeta Sawkar, where they discuss how comedy fosters understanding and why you won’t want to miss these performances.
🎟️ Reserve your FREE tickets now: https://www.dangerboat.net/events
Don’t miss this chance to laugh, reflect, and celebrate Minnesota. See you at the show!
Transcript:
WCCO - Vineeta Sawkar (00:00):
Comedy. How do we bring people together with comedy? You know what? We were laughing. You heard them laughing in the background there. Maybe there's something to it here. Joining us now in Studio Tae Danger with Danger Boat Productions. He was just named a 40 under 40. I mean, you're like a big deal. Ta, very nice. And Throntveit from the Minnesota Humanities Center. You both are here to talk about how comedy is going to bring people together. This was your brainchild here. Tell us what you've been doing and what's ahead.
Tane Danger (00:32):
Thank you so much for having us. It's very fun to be here. So Sketches of Minnesota is this project that Danger Boat Productions has been doing with the Minnesota Humanity Center all last year, all throughout 2024, we went to towns all over Minnesota. We went to 10 different communities. We facilitated a free community meal and a free community conversation. Ask them to talk about what's really meaningful to them about their town. But then what made this different than maybe some other projects is we had a team of improv comedy performers who came and would listen to those conversations, people talking and sharing their stories about their towns, and then they would get up on stage and reflect back to the community. Here's everything that you said about what you love about where you're from, what some of the challenges are, what you imagine the future of this place could be through totally unscripted, improv, comedy, theater. And so you get these great conversations brought to life through art and comedy, and it creates these wonderful experiences and chances for people to really share and talk about what is meaningful to them.
WCCO - Vineeta Sawkar (01:41):
It sounds so unique. I haven't heard about something like this before. We have chatted in the past, but tricky for the Minnesota Humanity Center to be a part of this. It had to be a little bit of a risk. Like what is this guy doing?
Trygve Throntveit(01:54):
It was a little bit of a risk, but t is a risk worth taking. I've found over the years at the Minnesota Humanity Center, our mission is to support Minnesotans who are working toward our vision of a just society that's curious, connected, and compassionate. And we do that using human's tools and approaches, history, literature, religion, philosophy. And we thought we do this using a different storytelling approach that we had not used much in the past, namely comedy. And we wanted to do that for a few reasons. Mostly because we are living in a very tense time. A lot of people within towns and across communities are feeling divided from one another. And we really believe that comedy is a way to help people become vulnerable, be curious, be generous listeners, and to associate that experience of being vulnerable and really listening to one another's stories, really trying to understand their neighbors both in their communities and across the state, and associate that with a really joyful experience, just laughing and by the way, having a really tasty common meal,
WCCO - Vineeta Sawkar (03:03):
Which is also great. Okay. That's good too as well. So you have some performances coming up with all of what you've been able to gather.
Tane Danger (03:10):
So as I said, we went to 10 different towns, every corner of Minnesota, everywhere from International falls to Winona Morris to Duluth, Glencoe, little Falls. We went to all these places in 2024, did this project we were just talking about now. We've taken stories that we heard from community members in all of those places. And we've put that all together into a big final scripted show that we are doing now. And we're doing two performances of it where you get to kind of take a tour of Minnesota with us through sketch, comedy and original music and songs and
Trygve Throntveit (03:47):
Choreography.
Tane Danger (03:48):
Choreography. There is choreography, which is hard to do on the radio anyway. But February 11th, we are in St. Cloud at the Paramount Theater at 7:00 PM So that's next Tuesday, February 11th, and then February 25th, we're right here in Minneapolis at the Dudley Riggs Brave New Workshop Theater in downtown Minneapolis. And these are totally free.
WCCO - Vineeta Sawkar (04:09):
I got to ask you, so give me an example. Just give me an example of how you turn all that information into something funny. Just give me one example.
Tane Danger (04:16):
Okay. So the idea of belonging is a big theme that came up over and over again. And so there's an entire scene in this scripted show about the person who has now lived in his small Minnesota town for 40 years, which means now he's officially a person who lives here. That's how long it takes. And they throw a big party for him and they let him in on all of the town's secrets that you don't get to know because you're a newbie until you have been there for 40 years. And so we're poking fun at that, but that's a real thing that we heard from a lot of people, that it takes a while.
WCCO - Vineeta Sawkar (04:53):
Well, and comedy can sometimes be offensive. Do you have to be careful with this because you're trying to bring people together. But it can also be divisive too.
Tane Danger (05:01):
A hundred percent. And we really take time and are careful about, this is comedy that invites us to laugh together and find, as trig said, ways that we can sort of hear each other's stories. It is never, and we really are thoughtful about this, about making fun or punching down in any kind of way.
Trygve Throntveit (05:21):
And this is why the Minnesota Humanities Center was excited. We have a process for facilitating these stories that's very, very comfortable.
WCCO - Vineeta Sawkar (05:27):
That's huge. Where can people get more information really quickly?
Tane Danger (05:30):
I'm going to just say, go to danger boat.net and go to events and you can register for either of those shows.
WCCO - Vineeta Sawkar (05:36):
Fabulous. I'll see you at the Minneapolis Club. Last time I saw you was there, you were wandering around aimlessly,
Tane Danger (05:40):
Your membership. I will see you there.
WCCO - Vineeta Sawkar (05:42):
You can join me anytime by the fireplace. I'll see you
Tane Danger (05:45):
Heard it on the radio. Everybody.
WCCO - Vineeta Sawkar (05:47):
Tane and tri, thank you so much for joining us Traffic and Weather. Next.