Dudley Riggs reminisces on Brave New Workshop
Comedy troupe readies for its move downtown
excerpt from City Pages
By Ed Huyck Wednesday, Sep 21 2011
Dudley Riggs knows all about serendipity.
It was 1965, and Riggs's Brave New Workshop appeared to be at the end of its rope. "I started out on East Hennepin and got evicted. I moved around the corner and got evicted again," Riggs says.
He was in the parking lot at the old Embers restaurant on Hennepin Avenue in Uptown, with a moving truck packed with the artifacts of his theater and a show all ready to perform, but without a place to put it on.
Then it happened. "I saw a man putting up a sign across the street saying this building is for lease. I went across the street, rented 2605, moved in on Thursday, and did our show as scheduled on a Friday night," Riggs concludes.
Well, that's not really the end of the story. Instead, it was the beginning of more than four decades of comedy revues and improvisation for the Brave New Workshop at 2605 Hennepin Ave., both under the ownership of Riggs and, in the last decade, of John Sweeney and Jenni Lilledahl. Through the decades, the troupe has had second locations and even spent a few years primarily performing a few blocks south at Calhoun Square, but the storefront on Hennepin has always been its home.
That changes next month. The workshop's signature comedy revues will move to a fresh location downtown on Hennepin, into the old Hennepin Stages location. The Uptown home will still be in use for BNW's Student Union improv-training school, but the focus of the theater is definitely moving north.
Read the entire article on the City Pages website