Bloomington has plenty of visual and studio art that will get you thinking, from the I Fell downtown to the Eskenazi and Grunwald galleries on campus. There’s also music that pushes boundaries, from the Back Door and the Blockhouse to the Jacobs’ New Music Ensemble.
We’ve encountered less thought-provoking theatre – although not none. The Jewish Theatre of Bloomington’s production 4000 Miles, from a few months before Nice Work launched, was one example of a play that was both well-produced and left us thinking. It wasn’t avant-garde, but experimentation is only one way of being thought-provoking. And it’s no guarantee.
Another place we’ve seen thought-provoking theatre in the past year? Bloomington High School North. They did an impressive production of the new(ish) musical Hadestown in the spring of 2025, and then, that fall, they put on Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros. Rhinoceros is not the first absurdist play, but it was one of the most influential. It was written in 1959, and it’s as weird as ever.
So Alex Chambers went over to North High School to talk with their new theatre director, Noel Koontz, about why he had his students put on a play a lot of theatre majors don’t even read until grad school.
BHSN’s spring musical is God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. It’s based on the Kurt Vonnegut novel, and it’s one of the first musicals written by Alan Menken, who would go on to write the music for Disney’s Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and more. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater runs April 17-19 at Bloomington High School North.
